The Design Challenge is the first of several pilots of the Better Government Movement (BGM) to empower changemakers to solve complex problems while learning 21st century concepts and methods.

This cohort-based program was designed as a repeatable mechanism to spread and scale these innovative practices across government. It also helped created momentum to propel learning from Innovation.gov into practice and catalyze beacons of change amongst public servants.

Forty participants from 34 agencies were mentored by 16 “Sherpas” to help them through solving three government-wide problems over 15 weeks during the Design Challenge. The three problems focused on a business model and decision-making framework to enable IT to run as a business and a Digital Citizen-first Experience. Along the way, participants learned eight methodologies (e.g. HCD, Lean, Agile, pitching), completed 12 assignments, attended seven masterclasses by 14 instructors while applying those concepts to these problems.

The first cohort of the Design Challenges cohort graduated in June 2018.

The Better Government leadership facilitated a retrospective of the experience with Design Challenge participants. The leadership team is now incorporating participant’s feedback to design and launch the next iteration of the Design Challenge, now renamed the Better Government Bootcamp, for a launch in January 2019.

The first cohort of the Design Challenges cohort graduated in June 2018.

The Better Government leadership facilitated a retrospective of the experience with Design Challenge participants. The leadership team is now incorporating participant’s feedback to design and launch the next iteration of the Design Challenge, now renamed the Better Government Bootcamp, for a launch in January 2019.

In the Fall of 2018 we are also launching the 21st Century Government Leadership Program, where 30 leaders from across government will learn and apply modern-day approaches to leading change.

The Better Government Movement has partnerships across public, nonprofit, and private sectors including academia. Since its inception, we have convened more than 2,000 people from 112 agencies, and the following partners outside of government:

- Design Thinking DC
- University of Virginia Darden School of Business
- The Partnership for Public Service
- The Schmidt Foundation
- The Moore Foundation
- Code for America
- Agency partners from across government
- Private sector start-up founders

BGM Core Team: Leaders & contributors to the development, implementation, and promotion of the program

Federal Changemakers: Changemakers across government are our primary users, and share & leverage innovation best practices, methods, and approaches

BGM Internal Stakeholders: BGM partners with oversight bodies in government, including the Office of Management and Budget & the White House

BGM External Stakeholders: BGM partners with the private sector and academia to infuse diverse best prac

The Design Challenge has achieved the following:
- Created a growing community of changemakers collaborating across government in a Better Government “Support Group” to solve their agency’s problems
- Increased awareness of innovation.gov and the associated toolkit of innovation methods and techniques
- Identified and validated what the federal government needs in the 21st century to solve the large, complex problems unique to the government
- Catalyzed beacons of change to amplify and evangelize innovation in government as part of the Better Government Ambassadors

To create the BGM we needed to overcome the inherent barriers to innovation, such as siloed thinking and working, lack of resources, lack of access to users, an infrastructure that doesn’t support proven innovative approaches, burdensome/outdated requirements and a very tough political climate.

The Design Challenge, being a free, community-led program required an army of volunteers and champions to make this project come to fruition. We were “building the plane as we were flying it”, meaning that we were creating the assignments each week to build the curriculum. Because we were so focused on execution, we also were not able to publicize it widely and to focus on measuring the exact success of the innovation. Finally, since it was also 15 weeks long, it was difficult to keep 40 public servants and volunteers motivated.

Fortunately, on the heels of this work the lead was given more resources and team to lead this work as a Transformation Center of Excellence. Huge win!

This work requires a series of senior champions to push it through the hurdles towards survival and to continue the funding stream through supporting the innovative work. We also need that champion to secure space and other resources to run programs like this regularly.

Since this project is only funded for one full-time person, there requires nearly 200 volunteers to actively work to keep it alive and thriving. It’s about building capacity in the people we do have within government (using programs like Open Opportunities), and for us to partner with organizations outside of government such as the Partnership for Public Service and foundations to continue to create innovative programs and services.

We must inspire shared values across the program including leaders who are passionate about building government transformation, and those who can realistically set goals with the ever-changing government environment, to weather the storms in between Administrations and reorganizations.

At the conclusion of the Design Challenge, the BGM team provided a roadmap and workbook for the first cohort to take the problems that they see at their own agencies and help solve them to make their work actionable. This work has spurred a Better Government Support Group where public servant changemakers help others foster change at a larger scale.

Based on an retrospective completed after the first cohort, the BGM Leadership team is leading a team of cohort members to improve and run the next iteration of the Design Challenge (now called the Better Government Bootcamp). This next iteration is being designed with a “franchise” model where it can be run within any agency or department.

Amy, the BGM Founder, has been promoted as the Director of the Transformation Center of Excellence, where she and a team will design a repeatable process for positive change through 21st century tools, mindsets and approaches, which will further spur the spread of these practices in places like HUD.

We must create a 21st century government, full stop. The phrase “Better Government” focuses our work on the outcome rather than the means to get there. This work is nonpartisan.

We abide by these six principles and plays in our Playbook:
1: Everyone can and should build a better government.
2: Keep the customer at the center of your design.
3: Embrace change. Experiment and seek feedback to make incremental continuous improvements and reduce risk.
4: Build a culture of collaboration, communication, and sharing with partners inside and outside the government.
5: Let data inform your decision making and be a key part of your story.
6: Innovation is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Technologies will come and go, but a principles-based approach will allow you to be ready for what’s next. Technology won’t save us--culture will. We must focus on the culture of delivering great products and services to our users.

We need many tools in our toolbox to spur the culture change towards delivery-driven government.. The Design Challenge shows that government employees can be exposed to many ideas at once and build out their toolbox.

A program like the Design Challenge unequivocally demonstrates that government employees care and are willing to actively learn concepts and methods to improve the state of our government. It also shows that there is a wellspring of people wanting to make our government better day after day. It shows that Federal government employees are not ready to give up on our democracy.

To develop a truly inclusive program, we must develop a way to actively engage virtual participants in different geographies outside of the Capitol center. We should also spend more time enrolling participants in a plan for how to implement innovation initiatives in their own agencies after completing the Design Challenge. Finally, we need to clearly articulate roles, responsibilities, and processes for volunteer staff in the administration of any new program.