Pushing the Boundaries of Public Sector Innovation -What’s Working(ish)? #2

Governments are facing increasing pressures to address complex challenges like climate change, growing inequity, reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and many others at the scale and rate that these challenges demand. We know we need to operate differently in order for different outcomes to be possible. The public sector needs to update the paradigms, processes, systems, structures, and tools of their trade to better respond to the complexity of the challenges we face. This is transformational work.

What’s Working(ish)?

Something that feels quite radical and boundary pushing in public sector innovation is to be successful in this transformative work. For many of us our work is counter-cultural, invisible, and difficult and moments of breakthrough can be rare. For this last cycle in our pushing the boundaries community of practice we want to gather some promising signs and signals of what’s working(ish). We’ll host three conversations focused on: Codifying what we know to guide our strategies; Evaluating the learnings and outcomes of this work; and Mobilizing our networks to share and elevate our experiences.

Francisca Rojas and Lindsay Cole will co-host this cycle, and we will have special guests join us to be in dialogue with one another about the orienting questions for each session.

Session 2 - Evaluate - May 15, 2024 - 8-9:30 am PST / 11 am-12:30 pm EST

A perennial question! How might we measure and evaluate the impacts and outcomes of transformative public innovation? How might we go beyond standard ways of measuring in the public sector and instead put into practice evaluation and learning approaches that enable innovation and capture its value rather than stifle it?

Participants in this action research are required to review and fill out the consent form before attending the event here. This is a requirement by the University of British Columbia.

Upcoming events:

Session 3 - Mobilize - June 12, 2024 - 8-9:30 am PST / 11 am-12:30 pm EST

Why are network serving organizations important for elevating our individual and collective practice/field? What might their highest impact and evolving role be now?(i.e. regional, like 27e Region; international, like States of Change and BCPI; learning-oriented, like civil servant schools) be now? How might we act as “ecosystem holders” in making different approaches to PSI more visible, and influential? What can we learn from networks and ecosystems that have succeeded and the ingredients/elements in place (funding, government, skills, form), and what can we learn from those that have sunsetted or struggled?

Hosting Team for Pushing the Boundaries of Public Sector Innovation:

Francisca Rojas, Ph.D. - Academic Director for the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins

Lily Raphael - City of Vancouver Solutions Lab

Penny Hagen, Ph.D. - Director Tangata Tiriti of The Auckland Co-design Lab

La 27e Region - Independent Association for innovative methods for designing public policy

Jesper Christiansen, Ph.D. + James Oriel - States of Change

Lindsay Cole, Ph.D. - Project Lead, University of British Columbia + Emily Carr University of Art and Design

Maggie Low, Ph.D. - Action Research Lead, University of British Columbia

Peyvand Forouzandeh, Ph.D. Candidate - Action Research Assistant, University of British Columbia

To watch recordings of previous sessions, and to learn more about this project, please check out our website here.