Demystifying Public Sector Innovation for government teams
Interviewing users of maternal healthcare services in Mexico City
RESEARCH TO REVEAL THE REALITIES OF GOVERNMENT INNOVATION
With Reboot, I led an embedded evaluation of a public sector open innovation fellowship within Mexico’s federal government that paired government staff with external social entrepreneurs in a design-inspired innovation process. Using design research methods, the research elevated the how of innovation—the experience of the participants and changes to their ways of working—rather than focusing exclusively on the what—the final products as previous approaches have done. We wanted to capture our program design and management learning in a practical way.
This led to the production of Implementing Innovation: A User’s Manual for Open Government Programs. As the lead author, I developed guidance and design principles, illustrated by the experiences of the program implementers and participants.