In government, learning from failure is the critical link between innovation and impact.
The Centre for Public Impact and the Aspen Institute Center for Urban Innovation worked together to understand how local governments can fail forward and are supported cities as they catalyze cultures of innovation.
Translating innovation to impact
Failure is at the root of any successful innovation project, but local governments’ ability to identify, learn from, and do something about failures are limited by budgeting and longstanding cultures of risk aversion. We know that cities will need to innovate if they are to meet the great challenges of our time – this project aims to help them actually translate innovation to impact.
Washington D.C
“I am seeing the development of more workgroups within the agency that are inclusive and represent the voice of the agency and this will greatly impact efforts toward process improvement.”
D.C. Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Little time to reflect and learn when things aren’t going to plan
- Exclusion of frontline workers from decision-making processes
- Lacking empowerment of frontline workers in their existing responsibilities
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Reduce unnecessary or redundant meetings
- Create processes to share frontline workers’ strengths and providing more feedback
Dallas
“[We need to take] baby steps if we create an idea and walk it through before we move on or call it dead”.
Dallas Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Lack of inclusion in the development of the ‘big picture’ purpose of the Department
- Lack of belief inability to change the status quo due to past failed initiatives
- Daily responsibilities and other external pressures force teams to be reactive instead of proactive
- Departments lack psychological safety necessary for the whole team to feel comfortable speaking up about known failures
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Create a #StruggleBoard for teams to identify existing failures and challenges, and ask for support
- Host a ‘Mission Launch’ Party to celebrate new mission that has an innovation and learning focus
- Creat cross-divisional mentoring program to foster greater psychological safety across divisions
Seattle
“Our staff have a need to share failures without outside consultation. It’s encouraging to know we want to lead the process ourselves”.
Seattle Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Lack of a framework for determining what constitutes success and failure in a particular project or process
- Changes to organizational structure have decreased motivation for the team to be innovative
- Fear of backlash from residents and the media leads to an aversion to taking risks
- Teams have little transparency into the end impact of their work which makes it hard to access performance
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Create ‘Pivot Parties’ to identify opportunities for improvement and adjust struggling initiatives
- Identify and share inspiring resident stories to demonstrate the impact of the Department’s work
- Build psychological safety by encouraging ‘fun’ failure-specific break-out activities during meetings
- Bring failure out of the shadows by using public meetings to engage with residents in a dialogue on success and failures
Little Rock
“[I’m now able] to look at a failed process and not take it as a personal failing”.
Little Rock Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Confusion among staff regarding whether they can or should try new things
- Perception that some staff are resistant to changing the status quo
- Fear of the retaliation or personal blame assignment for speaking up about challenges
- Poor internal communications
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Implement systems that both institutionalize evaluation of new/existing programs for potential improvements and provide staff with the time/space to discuss failure
- Review department procedures and policies to ensure overarching alignment
- Create ‘Ideas Committee’ to promote innovation at all levels
- Incorporate learning from failure into staff trainings and policies and procedures for new programs
King County
“Every failure can be valuable; failing forward means not only learning from mistakes, but also planning for them.”
King County Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Organisational changes have eroded trust and ability to work towards a shared goal
- Outdated and lacking standards/processes to evaluate failure and success
- Past culture of fear that connected failure to performance
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Create a ‘Phoenix’ award to celebrate learning from failure
- Host ‘Lunch and Learns’ to discuss historical challenges and failures
- Develop framework to define and evaluate success and failure at the beginning of new projects
Kansas City
“I believe that this will empower staff to make changes without a fear of failure and with the ability to bring changes to upper management.”
Kansas City Government Employee
Top barriers to Failing Forward
- Frontline staff lack infrastructure and resources to address failure and share learnings
- Centretrated power at the management level limits decision making authority and incentives to create change
- Physical and interpersonal siloes prevent communication about failures both within and across departments
Top ideas to embrace Failing Forward
- Create a ‘no-managers meeting’ for staff to safely identify and discuss challenges
- Improve communication structures within and across teams
- Create an ideas competition where frontline staff are incentivised to identify failures and propose solutions