Meet the i-teams - the teams and funds making innovation happen in governments around the world. This presentation introduces a selection of these organisations, as well as offering ten lessons for establishing an i-team. To find out more about this project, visit: http://www.nesta.org.uk/project/i-teams

1. The team and funds
making innovation
happen in governments
around the world

5. developers
enablers
educators
architects

6. Transforming the processes, skills and culture of
government
• Focus on transforming the
way that government
approaches innovation.
• Consultancy, training,
secondments and placements,
to develop skills and mind-sets.
• Educators, providing the
insights and knowledge for
insiders to innovate.
Achieving wider policy and systems change
• Focus on bringing about wider
transformation beyond specific
interventions to the wider
policy context and complex
systems.
• Architects, creating the designs
and blueprints that others can
follow.
Creating solutions to solve specific challenges
• Focus on solving high priority
problems by developing usable
and scalable solutions.
• Collaborate with colleagues in
government agencies.
• Developers and creators of
innovations.
Engaging citizens, non-profits and businesses to
find new ideas
• Opening up government to
voices and ideas from outside.
• Strong communications and
engagement strategies.
• Enablers, creating the
conditions for innovations from
outside government to thrive.

7. Mayor’s Office
of New Urban
Mechanics (MONUM)
Based: Boston, USA
Mission statement: “The Mayor’s Office of New Urban
Mechanics is Boston’s civic innovation group. We
partner with entrepreneurs inside and outside of City
Hall to explore better ways to serve and collaborate
with people. We do this by running discrete
experiments, understanding their impact, scaling what
works and learning from what doesn’t.”
What defines them: Technology-led civic engagement
Size of team: 5
Example of impact; MONUM’s Citizen Connect mobile
app is used by residents to report problems such as
graffiti to City Hall, with around 300 cases across
Boston reported each week. The app has been
replicated by other cities across the nation.

8. Barcelona Urban
Lab
Based: Barcelona, Spain
Mission statement: “Urban Lab is a tool to facilitate
the use of public spaces in the city of Barcelona to
carry out tests and pilot programs on products and
services with an urban impact. The idea is to use the
city as an urban laboratory.”
What defines them: Urban experimentation
Size of team: 3
Annual spend: £185,000 (2013
Example of impact : Supported 16 pilots to date, with
many turning into businesses in Barcelona and other
cities around the world.

9. PS21 Office
Based: Singapore
Mission Statement: “PS21 is the Change Movement of
the Singapore Public Service. It encourages every
public officer to be open to change, and to find better
ways, ideas and possibilities to bring about
improvement and innovation in their individual work
or the work of the public service.”
What defines them: Staff-led innovation
Size of team: 43
Example of impact; An evaluation of PS21 estimated
that over a year it generated 520,000 suggestions
from staff, of which approximately 60% were
implemented, leading to savings of around £55 million

10. Sitra
Based: Helsinki, Finland
Mission Statement: “Sitra is building a successful
Finland for tomorrow’s world.”
What defines them: A combination of impact
investment, research and practical programmes
Size of team: 110
Example of impact: Sitra estimates that its work on
sustainable energy has led to around £1 billion in
savings for the Finnish government

11. 10 lessons for
setting up an
i-team

12. 1 The type of i-team you
create should be driven by
your ultimate goal

13. Nesta Innovation Lab is now an independent
charity but continues to work closely with
government, with over half it’s work, such as
the Centre for Social Action designed and co-funded
with government.
.
2
Forge strong links to
executive power inside
government, leveraging
internal and external
partnerships, resources and
insights, to achieve goals

14. 3
Build a team with a diverse
mix of skills and a
combination of insiders and
outsiders to government The Australian Centre for Social
Innovation (TACSI) recruited service
designers internationally due to a lack of
available talent in Australia.

15. 4
Develop a lean funding
model for the team itself,
and attract funds from
partners for
implementation
Centro de Innovación Social (Centre for
Social Innovation) is part of the Colombian
Alliance of Funding Pioneers to leverage
corporate funding, helping side step complex
government procurement to more easily
develop programmes

16. 5 Continually demonstrate
and communicate the
i-team’s unique value Sitra has reinvented the organisation
and its purpose three times throughout the
fund’s lifespan to stay relevant to current
challenges to Finland.

17. 6
Employ explicit methods,
drawing on cutting edge
innovation skills and tools,
alongside strong project
management to get work
done
New Orleans Innovation Delivery Team has
a structured four-step model to apply to all
solution development and implementation

18. 7
Have a bias towards action
and aim for rapid
experimentation
combining early wins with
longer term impacts
The Mayor’s Office of New Urban
Mechanics (MONUM) has a rapid
prototyping methodology, developing
solutions in a matter of weeks

19. 8 Be clear on handovers
early on, tasking
implementation and
delivery to government
Fonds d’experimentation pour la jeunesse
funds the evaluation of projects, helping
government select the most successful to
adopt and scale

20. 9 Relentlessly measure
impacts, quantify
successes and be sure to
stop what isn’t working
The NYC Center for Economic Opportunity
actively decommissions ineffective or
redundant programmes to free up resources
to be used elsewhere

21. 10 Celebrate success and
share credit
PS21 organises the annual ExCel awards for
the best staff-driven innovation project in
the Singaporean public service

22. Thank you
www.theiteams.org
@philipcolligan