PSI: limits & barriers
a matter of complexity.
In the previous article, we listed three clusters where limits and barriers can be identified. We already talked about the lack of knowledge and now we analyze the problem of complexity.
The complexity of the public sector is somewhat a stereotype regardless of the nation and culture we are referring to. Bureaucracy and public procurements are two huge and scary monsters that haunt the thoughts of any company, agency or citizen.
Taking as an example the Italian procurement system we can understand why it is one of the greatest barriers towards innovation. The public tenders where big services are put into play are structured in a way that usually allows only large companies to participate. Thus, the system usually cuts automatically out those emerging realities and start-ups that often focus mainly on the product and not on the administrative modalities. Participating in public procurement is an administratively important and demanding process and small startups with brilliant ideas or more advanced skills usually lack the expertise to relate with.
“The system does not help with this. We try to find other ways to navigate around it, but still on a fairly small scale of innovation because otherwise we would end up doing a big tender again where small realities are not able to enter since they have not the structure for them”
One of the ways public managers try to “fool” the procurement system is to convince larger traditional contractors to co-opt smaller companies bringing good ideas into a contract with the PA. However, a downside of this type of action is in the kind of relationship which born out of it. In fact, the main network remains between two huge and slow institutions while as Dr. Andrea Zuccotti states:
“[…] the necessary relationships should be more agile and with smaller and smarter realities. We must try to get good ideas through the window.”
Moreover, another secondary issue linked to the public tenders system is that the public sector doesn’t usually have the right channels to spread and promote them, so companies that can truly help the government don’t even know that government is looking for the service.
When dealing with the public sector, an additional aspect of complexity is its structure itself: the internal hierarchy is that complicated that also for civil servants is really hard to get how the different interactions happen. In public sector innovation projects, this represents a serious and big issue: in fact — particularly for new companies that approach the public field for the first time — , understanding diverse mechanisms and different peculiarities of every single department it’s something that takes a lot of time and requires a big effort.
Additionally, for this kind of projects, groups are usually aimed at being multidisciplinary, involving people from the main areas of a public body: this makes the complexity even worse since the internal structure is continuously changing, as well as people in charge. Sometimes projects all of a sudden loose team members or the representative part of a certain department, something that obliges the project manager to readapt the agenda and/or find replacements.
Last but not least, a very huge barrier for the public sector innovation is money. If in one hand - as we have seen - money can trigger the innovation process, it’s also true that they mainly represent a limit when dealing with the public sector. In fact, many governments, ignoring the value that design processes can bring in the system or the importance of innovation, are reluctant to address public funds towards innovation or design. In this way, the budget is very badly used and money for this kind of activities is always little. Other public institutions see service design as another additional expense and they avoid to collaborate with the discipline or to launch new open calls for projects.
So, the complexity is the second barrier towards the public sector innovation, that includes issues with bureaucracy and public procurements’ system, as well as a complicated hierarchy and a very big problem with money and budgets management.
Keep reading PSJ to discover the last cluster of limits and barriers 👈👈👈
