Closing keynote: Facets of Innovation and Purpose-Driven Portfolios

Angela advises governments on their innovation portfolios and how to (re)align their organisations to their ambitions, often at the nexus of “the could” and “the should” of public sector work. Based on system and organisational level studies within several countries, the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation developed a multi-faceted model for innovation that brings clarity and framing to these sometimes-murky conversations. It also helps signal the value of a portfolio of innovation approaches and organisational support structures to adapt to (and sometimes shape) complex operating environments. But theory also needs practice…

The Observatory used Enterprise Design to develop a game-like workshop based on the facets model and tested it in several countries so far. The workshop not only builds shared understanding of the model and the purpose(s) of innovation within an organisation, but it also uncovers through reverse engineering what type of innovation portfolio the current organisation is producing or biasing. Armed with this information, organisations then build their own playbooks for reshaping their portfolios.

Angela will share how the facets model and workshop was developed, how they have been tested so far with 24+ organisations and countries, and lessons learned about how to introduce a portfolio approach.