Improvement and Innovation
Level:
Practising
Practising
Works innovatively and collaboratively to identify ways to ‘do things better’ and ‘do better things’ in policy practice.
- Participates in robust discussions on the quality of policy processes, insights, and lessons learned.
- Challenges themselves to look beyond their immediate areas of expertise for insights on best practice.
- Has the knowledge and experience to shift from a ‘great idea’ to a workable solution.
70% on-the-job learning
- Approach untested or unusual ways of working with openness to trying them out.
- Test new ideas and approaches on a small scale.
- Connect with people who are very different or who work in different areas, to gain new insights.
- Share insights and lessons learned on your policy projects with other policy colleagues.
- Participate in your organisation’s quality review and improvement processes.
- Participate in discussions to generate ideas and possible approaches to policy problems, the development of solutions, and implementation design.
- Be open to new ideas and thinking.
- Take a lead role in a forum to exchange views, test ideas, and explore creative new approaches to long-standing issues.
- Seek external peer review of the scope and methodology of major projects.
- Explore the NZ Innovation GPS (formerly the Innovation Barometer) and consider opportunities for your agency to be part of this initiative or how you can support greater innovation through your work.
- Familiarise yourself with the UK Government’s Open Policy Making Toolkit.
- Find out if your agency had a project that was one of the Funding recipients of the Digital Government Partnership Innovation Fund. If so, learn more about the project.
20% learning from others
- Seek feedback from a wide range of sources and analyse that feedback for ideas.
- Talk with colleagues, stakeholders and users about potential opportunities for improvement.
- Engage with others who do the same work as you to find out what is different about their approach.
10% formal learning
- Attend courses that build your understanding of how service design can encourage innovations
(e.g. Design Thinking Fundamentals Bootcamp by Wellington Uni Professional).
PDF version
Use the Development Pathways Tool
The Development Pathways Tool can help you identify how to develop your skills (or your team’s skills) to the next level of policy practice.
Explore the tool further by selecting the skill you wish to develop and by selecting the development level you want to achieve.