Missions offer a formalised path to creating public value but urgently need more experimental and iterative approaches to make missions a reality in the messy world of public policy. Mission-oriented innovation needs not only an ambitious clarity of purpose but also the alignment of system-level operational and governance mechanisms. OPSI is remixing some of its systems tools to help with that and have redesigned a…
Posts on Innovation Portfolios
This article is jointly published on the UCL IIPP blog. As part of an ongoing partnership between the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) and the OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI), we hosted an online immersive workshop on 2 December 2020 to explore the challenges and opportunities of directing mission-oriented innovation in practice. The event brought together leaders from across a range of government institutions in OECD countries and from the...
Many of you working in the public sector may want to prepare for uncertainty, or set up a future-oriented vision in your organisation. Many of you may have heard of anticipatory innovation or have engaged in foresight activities, but the sheer flurry of methodologies and tools in this space can be disorientating – and they may seem to require special abilities if you are not used to apply them. For this reason, OPSI and LabX...
Have you ever felt pulled in different directions at once, such that you do not feel like you are really making headway? Or that when trying to do multiple things at once, you end up not doing any of them well? In this post I’d like to explore what happens when innovation projects try to cater to multiple purposes at once. In a previous post we have discussed how when activity overlaps in different innovation...
Future-oriented change in an environment of radical democracy Over the past few months, we have been reminded that despite scenario planning and strategic foresight, it’s easy to be caught off guard off guard and unprepared in the face of crises and changing circumstances. Today’s policy context is one of complexity and uncertainty: an environment that requires more adaptive, anticipatory and systemic policy and governance approaches. This is…
Do you know about real-world cases and examples of innovation management? OPSI would like to hear from you. We are starting work with Vinnova, Sweden’s Innovation Agency to explore what good innovation management looks like in practice. We will take a systematic approach to understanding the role, nature, barriers, and enablers of innovation in an organisation. This means considering innovation activities within a wider context of (e.g., leadership, culture, processes, capabilities) rather…
We are taking OPSI’s portfolio exploration and assessment support into the virtual realm. We are asking for 20-30 minutes of your time to share initial thoughts and feedback on our first draft of questions for exploring: The way your organisation’s innovation portfolio is oriented Your organisation’s overall portfolio management capability Following the set of questions, there is an example output based on hypothetical inputs. We…
OPSI is researching innovation portfolios as part of our European Commission Horizon 2020 work and we are developing a self-guided portfolio assessment tool for people to analyse and explore their own organisational innovation portfolio. We welcome your feedback. Hero-innovators are imaginary Does your organisations still believe in hero-innovators? Probably not. Based on our research and observations, in order for innovation to be impactful, organisations need a lot of distributed…
On 26 September 2019, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants organised a conference titled Creating value and driving sustainability, accountability and the digital agenda through Public Sector Innovation at the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg. The conference was organised to launch its report on ‘Innovation in Public Finance‘. OPSI’s own Piret Tõnurist spoke at the conference, as part of the impressive line-up of experts who interrogated the …
This post was guest authored by Micco Gronholm, Head of Future, City of Helsingborg The City of Helsingborg, Sweden, has taken a stand. Over three years we will make an investment of a type that Sweden has never seen before. SEK 250 million will be ear-marked to be used for one thing: Anticipatory innovation to find new, smarter and more efficient ways to plan and build cities where both the people and planet can thrive....