Category Archives: Innovation Theory

Service design…..who are we designing for?

What do Sticky notes and a rubber chicken have in common? The possibility to change the world of course! Service Design thinking, for those who haven’t heard of it, is an interdisciplinary approach that offers great value for entrepreneurs and innovators in the field of services. Design thinking can help […]

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Innovating by not doing something

A lot of what we discuss on this blog is about the introduction of new things – innovation as the addition of something new. But innovation can also be about stopping something. Or it can be about getting rid of something that exists to make room for a new innovation. The […]

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Innovation Toolkit – Draft ideas management systems ‘module’

We’ve previously asked you about what the innovation toolkit should look like. Now we’d like some help with another toolkit question. For each of the tools identified in Empowering Change: Fostering Innovation in the Australian Public Service we are developing a ‘module’ to try and provide you with information about […]

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Can the public sector innovate when it doesn’t have to?

As discussed in my previous post, one of the findings of the recent European Innobarometer survey was that budget decreases may be an important driver for public sector innovation. In this post I’d like to look at some of the other findings and what they might mean for innovation in the […]

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If scarcity drives innovation, how do you resource it?

A common refrain in the public sector is that there isn’t enough time, money or resources to innovate in the public sector, and that if we only had the space, the opportunity and the support necessary so much more innovation could happen. Indeed, Empowering Change identifies lack of resources as […]

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Innovation 101

On this site we talk about innovation all the time, but sometimes it’s important to remember that not everyone is familiar with what it is or what it really means. In response to my previous post on the Innovation Toolkit one of the commenters (Con) said that the Toolkit should […]

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Innovation Toolkit – What should it look like?

Innovation is not an easy process. By its very nature innovation it is about changing how things are done, and that means that there will be resistance of some form – otherwise the innovation would probably have already been introduced. There are a lot of tools available that can help us when we are […]

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Measuring Innovation – the Australian Public Sector Innovation Indicators Project

My name is Yanfei Shi and I work at the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research alongside the area that supports the public sector innovation work behind this blog. Our Department has launched a project to address the need for data and measurement on public sector innovation in Australia. […]

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Open wide, come inside, it’s innovation

This is a post from our colleagues Brant Smith and Helen Bailey at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Imagine if you could solve your problem by simply asking a question? Chances are that one of your colleagues or someone outside your department already has the solution to your […]

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Different Types of Innovation in the Public Sector

A question that public servants often face is ‘What is the right response to this problem?’ In the public service there are frameworks, guides, tools, policies and previous experiences to help public servants answer that question. Sometimes the answer will be ‘an innovative response’ – possibly a significant, ongoing shift […]

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