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Archive: October, 2012

Laura Bunt

Innovation in policy: allowing for complexity and uncertainty in Government

By October 29th 2012

This is the first contribution in a blog series on innovation in policy.

Today’s global financial and social crises demand innovation not only in public services, but within the whole bureaucratic, administrative system of public governance. Yet innovation introduces uncertainty and unpredictability into decision-making which can sit uncomfortably with the status quo. What are new principles for decision-making that can be more conducive to innovation in the public sector?

Whether as a politician, civil servant, frontline worker or any other kind of decision-maker taking an active part in public governance, the notion of ‘crisis’ will be a familiar one. Whether in financial terms in relation to sharp reductions in budgets, in the changing shape of the public sector and the landscape for public service delivery or in face of challenges such as an ageing population or a rise in long-term health conditions that require thinking differently about the means of government and public services to respond, the sense of crisis is often seen as a ‘mobilising metaphor’ for innovation.

But the concept of innovation is not in itself a course of action. Rather, innovation implies a process of further discovery, creativity and exploration in developing new ways to respond to problems. In supporting the development of new models of public service delivery such as engaging people more directly in their own health care or systems that allow care workers to share information more intuitively, we often see the challenges of trying to demonstrate the value of the new approach and make it work within existing systems of bureaucracy, financing and decision-making. This presents innovators with a dilemma: on the one hand, how can we legitimise and validate innovative approaches through existing measures and standards? But on the other hand, how far should we try to challenge the default processes for decision-making and validating action?

A few weeks ago, we co-hosted a seminar with colleagues at Danish innovation agency MindLab to discuss the implications of dealing with the uncertainty and unpredictability of innovation in the context of the public sector, and the practical challenges in trying to marry innovation with the practice of policymaking as understood as ‘the rational guidance of human affairs’. In a paper published today co-authored by Jesper Christiansen and I, we wanted to explore what kinds of public sector processes could be more conducive to innovation in all of its complexity, and respond productively to the current state of crisis by creating an enabling environment for innovation.

As an example: how does focusing on outcomes rather than distinct solutions encourage a more ongoing, iterative approach to responding to problems rather than seeing public problems as something to be ‘fixed’? In addressing issues that are complex or where causation is unknown, identifying and having an impact on outcomes is part of a continuous practice of addressing and working on the problem with those for whom the outcomes is intended. How might this reframe expectations of what governments can and should achieve? How should government relate to citizens and others in coproducing outcomes? What is the right basis for decision-making in these contexts?

As another example: innovation in public sector context often brings a connotation of risk. Innovation, in that its outcome is unknown and unpredictable, is seen as risky in contrast to known, predictable outcomes (and familiar failures) of current practices whether or not they are successful. But what if we could turn this on its head, and see informed experimentation as the responsible foundation for decision-making in complex settings? Where is there an opportunity for applying structured methods for experimentation such as prototyping and ‘beta’ development to learn from practice in a more dynamic way? How can policy responses become more ‘perfectible’?

These are the sorts of questions we try to explore in the paper, and questions we will discuss in individual posts on this blog over the next few weeks. These ideas are very much the product of many different discussions and interactions over the past few years, not least from Jesper’s PhD research and recent seminars at MindLab and at Nesta. We hope the paper provides a basis for further debate and challenge, and please do share any thoughts.

Christian Bason

Innovation machine helps New York schools

By October 22nd 2012

This article has previously been published in the Danish weekly, Mandag Morgen.

As a consequence of poor results in New York schools, the city council has established the iZone organisation. It has led the schools through a thorough change, in which responsibility and freedom go hand in hand. Now the next paradigm shift is waiting.

A couple of months ago I blogged on humble policy development, about how we often assume that new public policies, regulations, budgets and programmes  automatically become the reality we imagine. But I also wrote that the truth is often otherwise: It is often the case that at the end of the day there has been no noticeable change for the people.

So, we must find smarter ways from policy to practice. The question is how?

Recently in Denmark we were visited by an organisation which I believe shows the way from strategy to concrete change in the public sector. New York City has established the organisation iZone under the Department of Education as a tool for transforming the public school system.

iZone is the culmination of a transformational process that has brought the New York schools from crisis to consolidation. Now the focus is on real innovative thinking about what a school can actually be.

The school crisis, which was at its worst ten years ago, meant that only 40% of a class year in the New York public schools obtained their diploma.

The consolidation was a matter of holding school administrators accountable, yet freeing them. It was made possible to dismiss administrators who did not achieve results. Direct review of the schools’ academic performance was implemented, with publication of results for the best and worst institutions alike. On the other hand, administrators were for the first time allowed to manage their own budgets, and were given much greater freedom to set up their school’s structure and teaching as they wish.

The accountability meant that the worst administrators were removed, and their was great pressure to produce results. At present a good 60% of a class receive their high school diplomas. That is a vast improvement, but naturally not good enough. So how does one carry out the next paradigm shift?

Innovation is the answer, and that is precisely the phase that the New York schools have entered. This is taking place on the basis that administrators are having difficulty using their newly accorded freedom to think differently in practice. Therefore, the New York Board of Education concluded that they need help – innovation help.

iZone, or the New York City Innovation Zone, was founded with the aim of formulating a number of central principles for school reform, then actively helping schools to transform the principles into local changes.

The idea is to help more than 200 public schools to rethink their efforts. Here are three principles iZone is following which I believe could inspire Danish politicians, top officials and public developers:

  • Establish a main idea. iZone puts citizens at the centre of how schools will create value. The main principle for the reform work in New York is individualised learning, i.e., the idea that every student has his or her own way and pace of learning. The idea is not just attractive, it is also supported by comprehensive scientific evidence. iZone has made great efforts to communicate the concept clearly to the schools.
  • Start with the administration. According to iZone vice-director Stacey Gillett, iZone’s success will stand or fall according to which administrators will commit to the programme. This entails, for example, that a school cannot get by with merely sending in a formal application to participate in iZone. The school will also be visited by the iZone team, and the school principal and key staff will be thoroughly interviewed about their ideas for changes at the school. The purpose is to ensure that there is genuine commitment and sufficient competence to bring the new measures to life.
  • Invest in the innovation process. The very central premise of iZone is that the board invest significant resources to support the school’s efforts to find its own solutions and measures that work best for it. This involves extensive process support, partly from a central team in New York consisting of former school principals and others with deep sector experience, in an ongoing dialogue with the schools, and partly from a wide variety of designers and innovation experts who can facilitate the schools’ own local processes by rethinking and redesigning teaching forms, physical facilities and the use of technology, for example. the schools themselves choose whom they will work with. Even experts from Sweden and Great Britain have been invited to help. Just think about that point for a minute: The Americans are asking Europe for help in rethinking public service…

iZone is thus an innovation machine. It is a break from the notion that if we just provide the right economic incentives, the people “out there” will surely figure it out. Nonetheless, iZone is investing significant resources to make the vision of “focus on the student” a reality.

According to iZone’s Stacey Gillett, around $200,000 (1.5 million kroner) is being used in each school over three years for process support. With 200 schools (25% off the total in New York) in the programme, the sum corresponds roughly to one-thousandth of the city’s overall annual school budget. Altogether, it is a matter of around 75 million kroner annually, when we are talking about 200 schools. The funds come partly from the city, partly from independent foundations such as the Gates Foundation.

This leads me to a central question: Are we in Denmark ready to invest as much as one-thousandth of our overall operating budgets in process support  in the social sector, the health sector, the education sector – in order to increase the likelihood of succeeding in what we want to do?

If the answer is yes, then let us see some more innovation machines on the Danish public landscape. Only in that way will we go from policy to practice.

Christian Bason

Transforming our public management culture: A provocation?

By October 8th 2012

A few weeks ago I attended the conference local design public in Lille, run by the French region’s innovation platform La27e Region. I was asked to contribute to the opening session with a brief presentation intriguingly titled “Dear public managers: A few good reasons to transform our management culture.”

Preparing for this, I found it disturbingly easy to point out a number of problematic characteristics of our current culture. Here is what I said:

“Dear public managers. We need to transform the management culture in public organisations because too often, what you say is:

“Citizens need to understand the system”, not “We need to understand citizens”.

“I am just here to manage the law and the budget”, not “I am here to make a positive impact for citizens and society.”

“I wish all the changes would go away and that my job would just be stable and secure”, not “My job is about adapting to the changes happening in our economy and society, and to create a more resilient public sector.”

“I must control how my employees use their time and resources”, not “I must create an environment that authorizes my employees to continuously experiment, fail, learn and find better solutions”.

“Citizen involvement is about doing quantitative satisfaction surveys”, not “citizen involvement is about going up really close, using ethnography, video, audio and graphics to see for ourselves how citizens experience public services — and then to involve them in exploring new solutions.”

“As long as my boss and our political masters are happy, I am doing a good job”, not “I am systematically documenting that my organisation produces better outcomes – and I am absolutely adamant at improving them.”

“It is the fault of other stakeholders, the economy, globalisation and the weather that our organisation is failing to meet its goals”, not “We need to work smarter and more effectively with our stakeholders to affect more change, in spite of external circumstances”.

“We develop new policies by thinking, writing, holding meetings, and occassionally briefing interest organisations about our plans”, not “We co-design policies, collaborating at a very early stage across government departments, with stakeholders and with end-users to explore problems and possible solutions, using new media, graphic illustrations, and models. We don’t ‘consult’ on policy. We run policy workshops.”

“Design is superficial branding and styling”, not “design is about applying deeply human approaches to value-creation for citizens and society, combining graphics, products, services and systems in more effective ways that meet our needs today and in the future.”

Dear public managers. Our management culture needs to change because we have too little empathy for those we serve, not enough appetite for trying out new approaches, and because we have insufficient ability to document and learn from our results.

We need to transform our management culture so more decision-makers say, ‘I take responsibility for creating a better future that makes everyone better off — whatever it takes!’”