In an era of rapid changes, innovation should be part of the public sector’s DNA. At Better Govs, we are fans of sharing useful (did I say free?) resources to help you improve your innovation skills and ease your public sector journey. This blog gives you a brief overview of the Innovation Playbook developed by the OECD’s Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI).
Short of time?
Check this blog for a summary. You can download the playbook here. I recommend having a quick look at the case studies and toolkits.
Some context
In 2019, OECD countries and 5 non-members (Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Peru and Romania) signed the Declaration on Public Sector Innovation. This is a legal instrument with five guiding principles to promote innovation in the public sector.
The Innovation Playbook aims to give you tools to translate those principles into concrete actions.
Who is it for?
The playbook was created for decision-makers in government, specifically top officials and middle-managers.
If you are not in that category, I still think it’s useful for two reasons. First, you can always make recommendations to your boss, and second, having a look at toolkits and case studies is always an opportunity to get fresh ideas. That’s where I would start.
How it works: A 3-step journey
The playbook invites the user on a three-step journey.
Step 1: Identify the challenges you want to address and the associated innovation principle.
The playbook offers guiding questions for each of the five principles (pages 8 to 13) to help you associate the challenge you might be facing with a principle. I’ll show you how it looks with an example. Imagine that you are wondering how to embed innovative principles, practices and approaches into your everyday tasks. That is associated with principle 2.
Step 2: Assess where you stand right now in terms of innovation capacities
To identify the gap in innovation capacities, there are a series of guiding questions per principle. To continue with the same example, I used principle 2 (see what the playbook looks like below), I’m going to assume that the gap is in the lack of incentives and authority to innovate.
Step 3: Brainstorm how you could improve the situation
Finally, step 3 guides you to a series of actions you could take to address that gap. I still find the ‘actions’ to be more declarative of intentions rather than concrete activities you could implement. What I find helpful, as a starting point -for new ideas or inspiration- are the toolkits and in particular the case studies.
Where to get it
You can download the playbook here.
