Innovating Governance in the New World
21st-century governments, no doubt spurred on by demands of a pandemic environment intertwined with the complexities of system challenges across several domains, are expected to be agile, innovative & kind, all at the same time. No doubt triggered by budget cuts meaning services can no longer be delivered as they once were, governments around the world have seen the shift from being guardian angels and providers to their populations to facilitators of new thinking for driving forward their economies and supporting their citizens.
And while some governments like those in Dubai, Singapore, Estonia, New Zealand & South Korea, have been faster than others in adapting to these new role archetypes, others have struggled to make the transition. This is partly driven by a disconnect with reality and an inability to shift mindsets from dinosaur thinking to exponential frames. More often though, it's driven by a lack of knowledge, confidence & experience around the tools available to the policymakers, for accelerating social good in their respective economies, and more often on not deploying the right tools for the task at hand. Ultimately the tools should span the full innovation lifecycle, from unearthing new insights to generating new ideas, to tools for developing and testing those new possibilities, through to tools to support system change at scale. Below I share some of the key tools that were highlighted in a recent Nesta report for innovating in government.
Data Analytics is a key tool for pattern recognition and environmental insights and nicely leverages tools of today’s exponential times such as artificial intelligence & machine learning.
Collective Intelligence is another technology-leveraging strategy that looks at using information, ideas, and insights from citizens. Crowdsourcing grassroots intelligence is a key frontline strategy to both connect with the citizens but also benefit from their knowledge and creativity.
Prototyping has become a favorite tool over the years, borrowing from the lean startup movement from Silicon Valley. An iterative process and a prelude to piloting, it's a great mechanism when one only has a hypothesis about a solution, but there is still uncertainty about how it looks, feels, and works.
Prototyping also nicely paves the way for another tool that has become increasingly popular over the years viz Experimentation. Some countries — notably China & UAE — have very long traditions of experimenting in government.
Testbeds are another tool that provides a controlled real-world environment for testing services to better understand what works.
Innovation labs are a more formal mechanism for testing new ideas and involve (and expect) collaboration amongst multi-disciplinary stakeholders. The world of climate change has done something similar with Transition Labs, and in another setting, Living Labs are being designed to experiment across larger domains such as districts & cities.
Challenge Prizes provide another incentive mechanism for nurturing outcomes-driven innovation, offering a financial prize for anyone who can solve the defined problem. Globally this is the domain of not just government entities but private organizations such as XPrize & MIT Solve who have mastered the art of running societal challenges backed by interested strategic sponsors.
This is closely aligned to another tool viz one of the impact partnerships, that bring together a range of stakeholders across government, private sector & civil society to collaborate in solving social problems, leveraging the strengths of each partner in that program. With the global rise of ESG & impact investing, this is a hot space at the moment.
Anticipatory regulation is another trending tool that enables rapid feedback loops in controlled settings aka sandboxes, especially in those external environments where change is rapid and unforgiving, and exponential innovation through blockchain, AI, and 3D printing requires an agile approach to policymaking.
There are many more tools out there and more will emerge, merging the boundaries between tools used in academia, business, government, and science. The most important part is to recognize that this type of rapid innovation is going to become table stakes for any high-performing government, and in today’s pandemic times, that better be true, otherwise those economies are in for an even rougher ride.
For them, the Long Emergency will become longer.
