OPSI is issuing a call out to all levels of government, civil society, international organisations and the private sector to gather innovative solutions and inspiration on how individuals and organisations across the globe are responding to the crisis.
Author: Angela Hanson
Which toolkits or guidance about tools have you found useful in helping you apply a new or different method or approach to your work? We are seeking your help in enhancing the OPSI Toolkit Navigator , so that more public servants and practitioners can benefit from the existing resources and guidance. OPSI’s Toolkit Navigator The OECD is a natural platform to aggregate and help navigate the numerous resources that have sprung up to help people,...
How might we take advantage of the possibilities that emerge in a crisis to build a better innovation portfolio? We took that question to a recent workshop with a delegation from the Government of Montenegro. The Montenegrins showed us what true agility looks like in practice. Montenegro: Fledgling or Agile? For context, Montenegro is currently one of two countries (including Serbia) in negotiation talks to accede to the European Union and this fact is an...
This post is a follow-on from our Part I post, which provided an overview of the design and development of our Innovation Portfolio Exploration workshop based on OPSI’s Innovation Facets model. Earlier this month, we facilitated a workshop with those from the public sector innovation ecosystem in Sweden. We were hosted by Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency. Vinnova invests 287 million euros annually in research and innovation projects across public, private, and academic sectors, especially…
All models are wrong, but some are useful Over the last few months, OPSI has been testing a model for public sector innovation based on our experiences with system-level studies in Canada and Brazil. As the field of public sector innovation grows and diversifies, we need a more nuanced understanding of its purposes and mechanisms for its stewardship. The multi-faceted innovation model provides a common language and a way to contextualise the purpose of innovation....
A reflection on a workshop co-designed with Piret Tõnurist and Kevin Richman as part of a programme led by Piret Tõnurist. Building on OPSI’s ongoing systems work, including in Scotland, Finland, and Slovenia, the team travelled to Estonia to learn about their policymaking approach and design a custom workshop module to build capacity around systems-thinking. I am sharing the tools and materials here in case others find them useful. This session comprised a module in a...
Over the last few months, the OPSI team did a lot of assumption testing, prototyping and usability testing of the “meta-toolkit” concept (which we are now calling Toolkit Navigator). This web resource will offer self-service guidance to public sector staff and policymakers on existing methods and toolkits, as well as related case studies, peer connections, and capacity building resources based on their specific needs and contexts. As we launch the beta site for the purpose...
What is in a name? Would a toolkit by any other name seem as useful? In this post, I delve into what comprises innovation “toolkits”—and make a stab at classifying them. What is the difference between a playbook and a manual? This taxonomy development is a step in building our resource to help public sector innovators navigate, sequence, and tweak tools and methods to facilitate their innovation journeys. In one of my previous blog posts...
Last week, I spoke about city innovation at SXSW (South by South West) festival as part of its inaugural Cities Summit program. SXSW is an annual design, technology, and innovation conference held in Texas. Typically viewed as a place for Silicon Valley startups to launch their latest disruptive product (like Twitter, which debuted there in 2007), SXSW is also getting a name for itself as a place where we have important conversations about public sector...
OPSI took advantage of the convening of public sector innovation leaders and practitioners at the November 2017 OPSI conference to host a workshop to learn how innovators approach new ways of doing things in their organisations. We learned a lot that will feed into development of our resources. We also want to offer you the tools and artifacts we used so that you can conduct a similar workshop. This blog post is part of a...