During the webinar, Ben Gummer, Former UK Cabinet Minister, Jonathan Dimson, McKinsey Senior Partner, and Natasha Stern, McKinsey partner discussed several topics including, learning from others’ innovation projects, managing expectations of people to improve trust, and techniques that could be implemented to foster a mindset of innovation within your organization.
Several key themes arose:
- Over the past two decades, government responses to pressure have evolved through four distinct eras of innovation.
- The first era, the focused was on professionalizing government functions to achieve standardization and improved service quality.
- The second era saw the beginning of digital transformation, digital-based data capture, and digital data exchanges.
- The third era witnessed an acceleration in government innovation during a global pandemic, focusing on maintaining and improving the government’s ability to communicate and operate remotely.
- In the fourth and current era, governments can seek to derive value from digital, analytics, and generative AI to reimagine and redesign government processes, aiming to improve customer experiences and increase productivity.
- Is it possible to innovate with fewer resources? It can be challenging for governments to meet increasing demands and not experience any crisis. Government leaders can adopt a reset mindset by asking crucial questions about current services, exploring different scenarios, and determining significant actions to take. They can start by questioning the purpose and scope of their services. Then, they can consider alternative scenarios, such as what would happen if they had 40% fewer resources or how they can double productivity. Lastly, they could focus on identifying a limited number of significant actions to take while honestly discussing the potential tradeoffs of each action.
- For innovation to take root, government leaders can:
- Showcase 10-20 projects across ministries/agencies to demonstrate what is possible.
- Assign mentors from outside the project to provide advice and support.
- Provide visibility through senior boards to identify roadblocks and cultural shifts.
- Prioritize and remove barriers.
- Assign responsibilities.
- How can governments innovate while also keeping day-to-day services running? It’s a tough balance to strike. One potential solution is for governments to adopt a “newco” approach, where a small team develops new methods for delivering the same service. Once the new approach proves effective, it can be implemented more widely. During the trial phase, leaders may need to recognize that the service quality and approach may function differently. To ensure success, governments can prioritize which services to innovate and fully commit to the process. Furthermore, leaders could dedicate ~20% of their time each week to meeting people, listening, and observing how services are being delivered to get involved in the process.
Prioritization is important. Without clear prioritization, there might not be enough available talent, management headroom, or political capacity to implement these reforms effectively.
