At a time when agency budgets and timelines are shrinking, federal leaders increasingly will have to change long-established bureaucratic work environments and traditions and embrace innovative new tools and ways to do business, according to a new report by the Partnership for Public Service and consulting firm Ideo.
The "Innovation in Government" report, released Thursday, identifies four key barriers to innovation that federal leaders must overcome. One challenge is that government employees have no defined process for introducing and exploring new ideas. Gaps in communication and understanding across government also play a role in preventing employees from collaborating. Combine that with the short-term nature of political leadership, and employees face a mountain of challenges when trying to sustain new initiatives from idea to implementation, the Partnership and Ideo found.
"Even with a solid record of innovation in government, the unfortunate reality is that our government employees too often succeed in spite of -- not because of -- their agencies' policies and procedures," the report states.
Another barrier is the federal budget process, which often demands information about the impact of current programs and the potential for new ones and does not leave agencies much room for innovation or even the possibility of failure. Government also tends to reward the status quo, meaning rewards often go to those who meet or exceed "safe" expectations, rather than those who establish entirely new expectations based on their ingenuity, the report states.
Interestingly, generational issues really did not come into play when it came to identifying the barriers to innovation. "We did not hear of the generational issues being a real challenge or barrier," Tom Fox, director of the Center for Government Leadership at the Partnership, said Thursday. "It was no indicator to whether someone was innovative or not, or whether they could foster innovation."
What challenges or barriers have you or your co-workers faced in trying to introduce innovative ways of doing business? Are generational issues at play?
Brittany Ballenstedt
Brittany Ballenstedt writes Nextgov's Wired Workplace blog, which delves into the issues facing employees who work in the federal information technology sector. Before joining Nextgov, Brittany covered federal pay and benefits issues as a staff correspondent for Government Executive and served as an associate editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Mansfield University and originally hails from Pennsylvania. She currently lives near Travis Air Force Base, Calif., where her husband is stationed.
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