New Playbook Examines Dos and Don’ts for Federal Innovation

Instead of turning to Silicon Valley innovators, federal agencies should take a look at those closer to home: their chief information officers. That’s according to a new playbook on CIO-enabled innovation, released Wednesday through the IBM Center for the Business of Government. The playbook highlights best practices and common challenges when agencies develop innovative tools.

The authors, Gregory S. Dawson, a senior faculty associate at Arizona State University, and a Royal Military College of Canada’s associate professor James S. Denford, interviewed close to a dozen current and former agency CIOs. The innovation process is similar to an hourglass in that it should start big with plenty of people pitching various ideas, according to the playbook. It should then get increasingly narrow to include a select few agency staffers, tasked with screening and experimenting to determine the best idea.

“This can be daunting; many innovative ideas are ‘nice to haves,’ but fail to rise to the level of improving the organization,” the playbook states. One key recommendation? Identify who the potential user will be, so the agency can measure the idea’s value based on the value to the user. As the hourglass widens back out, so, too, should the innovation process...