When we opened up registration for our first webinar, we knew there was pent up demand to use different mediums to share OPSI’s knowledge, expertise, and thinking, but we were not sure if webinars were the right solution. After three webinars, 450 attendees from over 70 countries, and countless requests asking for the recording and presentations, we feel we are on the right track. Moving forward, we will be hosting webinars on a monthly basis....
Posts on Innovation Tools & Resources
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...
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...
On the 21st and 22nd of November, over 500 participants from all around the world gathered in Paris to share skills, experiences, practices and knowledge at the OPSI conference, with the one focus in mind: making innovation in government the ‘new normal’. The theme of the conference Innovation in Government: The New Normal (#opsi2017) came from the belief that innovative people and practices certainly exist in government, but they are not yet mainstreamed as they should be....
This blog was authored by former OPSI intern, Théo Bourgery. In the context of the OECD’s “Evidence-Informed Policy-Making” conference, I had the opportunity to interview Kaisa Lähteenmäki-Smith and Camille Laporte on the role of experimentation in the drafting of evidence-based policies. As part of the ‘Evidence-Informed Policy-Making’ conference, co-organised by the OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Piret…
Wouldn’t it be great if you could play games at work? Sorry, I meant, wouldn’t it be great if you could play games at work and learn new skills at the same time? Here at the Observatory we’re interested in finding out more about how playing games can help public servants learn new ways of thinking and doing things. As part of our innovation lifecycle work, we want to better understand how to support public...
This blog was authored by guest blogger, Benjamin Kumpf Policy Specialist, Innovation, United Nations Development Programme “We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we make progress.” Richard Feynman, Noble Prize winning physicist, emphasized this paradigm as guiding principle for work in natural sciences. Based on what we have learned over the last three years in the Innovation Facility in the United Nations Development Programme…
This blog is authored by guest blogger, Sabine Junginger Head, Competence Center for Design and Management at University of Applied Sciences and Arts Lucerne Public sector challenges inherently concern and involve people. “The Public” after all does not exist in the absence of people. Nor does government. Those we entrust with the responsibilities to govern are people. We ask policy-makers and public managers to develop and implement policies that lead to socially desirable outcomes. In…
How do you know why, when and how you should use a particular tool to get the best results? I’m working on the development of an Innovation Toolkit for public servants and I want to hear from you about how you choose between methods, and what information you need when you are using a new approach. Why an innovation toolkit? The work of public servants is changing. Traditional methods no longer guarantee the same results...