1. Driving Innovation James Kauth Innovation Program Director
Office of the State CIO

2. IT can be a significant catalyst for change
Why Innovate?
Governor’s Priorities
Create jobs and improve Minnesota’s competiveness
Improve how state government works to deliver the best services at the best price
Make Minnesota’s tax system more fair
IT can be a significant catalyst for change
Bullet 2 sounds like a priority for private business. Innovation has been happening there for decades –out of necessity
The best services is effectiveness, the best price is about efficiency
How can IT improve State Government service delivery

3. Reinventing Government
“Our goals are to be an agent of change and help government reinvent itself by identifying next-generation technologies that can help state government be faster, more nimble, less bureaucratic and more responsive in the services it provides to citizens, more able to measure and report on outcomes; and to model reform in the reinvention of state IT.” - State of Minnesota IT Master Plan, April 2012
The adaptation of the Governor’s priorities comes in the form of our agency’s Master Plan.
IT Consolidation stems from the master plan, and so does or innovation program

4. Key Drivers IT is a top expense of state budgets
IT directly contributes to business efficiency and effectiveness
Marginalizing IT limits its potential to deliver new value
Customers expect services they take for granted elsewhere
We need to “catch up” with our government and private sector peers
More? How about:
Big Data
Open Government
The Social Enterprise
Democratization of the Web
Ubiquitous computing
½ billion dollars is a strong driver
Gov’t hasn’t viewed itself in a competitive market, globalization is creating a marketplace for gov’t services
Not all areas of IT should be treated as a commodity. That viewpoint obstructs a necessary and natural partnership between IT and the business
OK, convinced we should do it? Then where does it go? (next slide)

5. Innovation Program Purpose
The Mission
To address government business challenges by soliciting creative ideas from a broad and diverse range of communities.
The Goal
To identify opportunities that can result in creative, effective IT solutions that bring new value to Minnesota citizens, businesses and government.
The Program
A series of “challenges” that allow MN.IT to mine ideas from employees and others for new or improved:
Processes
Programs
Applications
Services

6. The MN.IT Services Functional Org Chart
Commissioner Parnell leveraged the IT Consolidation effort to create the Innovation Program
The fact that it’s separate from other operational functions is purposeful, and a sign of commitment rather than a late entrance
-true innovation and creativity cannot be tied to existing processes

7. Government Innovation Opportunity Areas
this program is not about efficiencies of IT Consolidation
Efficiency: how
Effectiveness: what
Back Office Innovation
Results in greater efficiency within state government.
e.g. IT Consolidation
Public Service Innovation
More effective government services for Minnesotans / improve the state business climate

8. Crowd-sourcing Ideas Event
MINNOVATION CHALLENGE #1: MN.IT Employees
June 1 – June 21, 2013
Best ideas bubble up!
Comment & Vote
Ideas
Challenge #1 Theme
Share your ideas for:
a new way of delivering a government service
Improving an existing service
Extending adoption of an solution
An IT perspective on:
How citizens want to access government services
types of services citizens want that MN.IT can help deliver
What could we build if we plugged into MN.IT’s collective knowledge?
Remember: this is a new organization, and it’s staff are VERY connected to the business mission of the agencies whose roof they work under

9. The Innovation Cycle COOL STUFF ICAT Project Work Teams
Best ideas bubble up!
Comment & Vote
Ideas
ICAT
MN.IT Employees
COOL STUFF
Awards & recognition
Review Process
The Innovation Cycle
Approach consistent with successful private sector innovation practices IBM, General Mills, Honeywell
As well as other states and Fed agencies: Michigan, Colorado, California, GSA, Challenge.gov
And our own DoT!
Project Work Teams

10. Innovation Catalyst Team (ICAT)
Purpose
Set the stage for all MN.IT
Engage, interact, sustain momentum
Discover innovative talent in the ranks
ICAT Role
Prelaunch: idea seeding
During Challenge: sustain momentum
Review: Idea filtering, scoring
Team
15 staff from across MN.IT

11. The Payoff for Our Organization
A chance to create something new
An access point to leadership that wasn’t there
Transparency that shows we listen and openly respond to staff ideas
“Finally, they’re LISTENING to us!”

12. The Results: Engagement!
Metric
Final
Stat
Employees
2,080
99.9%
of all MN.IT staff
Registered Users
1102
53%
of MN.IT staff
Active
Users
539
25.9%
Final idea count
214
ideas
1 in 5 staff
had an idea
Comments
690 comments
>3 comments
per idea
Votes
3,442 votes
16 votes
Registered Users by Role #
Architecture / Standards / Risk / Security 60
Communications / Planning / Legal 17
Customer Relations / Service Development 28
Data Management / Reporting 82
Network Services / Network Support 58
Procurement / HR / Training / Admin Services 34
Project Management / Analysis / QA
184
Software Design / Development / GIS
254
Supervisor / Manager / Executive
147
System Operations / Support / Service Desk
238
Total
1,102
It turns out MN.IT has a lot to contribute!
Unexpected benefits:
We now have a list of ranked, top idea producers across a broad 2,000 employee organization
(less than 40 contributed more than 1 idea)
We know how folks see their roles in the organization, independent of job classifications
And we continue to leverage them in our idea review
Target
Groups
% User Share
438
users
40%

13. IdeaScale IdeaCloud ™

14. The Next Hurdles Managing the ideas Defining projects
Acquiring resources to implement them
Most of the ideas are good, but we can only execute on a few
With so many IT Consolidation projects underway
And oh yeah, there’s the stability of operational systems that trumps everything

15. Step 1 Review Summary & Wrap-up
Minnovation Challenge #1 Theme
Best ideas bubble up!
Comment & Vote
Ideas
Step #1 Approach
3 Questions:
In scope Y/N
Actionable Y/N
Duplicate ?
Citizen-focused
~70 ideas
Citizen communication
Citizen engagement
Data governance
Mobile
Policy/standards
Technology solution
Web
Operational fit
~ 90 ideas
HR - related
Innovation Program
Cloud Projects
Processes
Service Delivery
Service Mgmt
Internal/efficiency
~50 bigger ideas
Data governance
Procurement
Benefits
IT Consolidation
Network
BPM

16. Steps 2-4 Review Process Summary
Best ideas bubble up!
Comment & Vote
Ideas
Approach
Rank and filter: top candidates
Assess these individually
Propose finalists as projects
Citizen-focused
~70 ideas
Citizen communication
Citizen engagement
Data governance
Mobile
Policy/standards
Technology solution
Web
Refine, rate & recommend steps
Top candidates
Move forward
Other candidates
Archived for future use
Regrouped to internal

17. Projects = Results Provide immediate, demonstrable value
Meet the priorities of the program and challenge theme
Measurable outcomes
Development time-frame: 3 weeks - 3 months
Costs that fit within program budget and/or attract investment from interested partners
Goal: build momentum with quick, low cost but meaningful project “wins”

18. Turning Ideas into Projects
MN.IT Services has a mature project portfolio
For managing operations projects
Need an independent, innovation project portfolio
With a distinct budget
Internal improvement ideas
Need a model for these popular ideas
We had several ideas that were internal efficiency related, they were GOOD!
Assign them to functional areas, propose them as operations projects

19. Scope of our Next Challenge?
Audience reach
beyond MN.IT
Open Innovation Opportunity Areas
Governor’s Office interest
Enterprise data governance a new priority
Annual report/metrics on emerging trends & tech
Hackathons, crowdsourcing, civic engagement
Our methods are documented and defined
The opportunities are mounting

20. Open Innovation Partnerships
Our social enterprise is growing
Public data is the natural resource of government innovation
And the key opportunity for organic open innovation partnerships
Remember Web 1.0 –brochureware or pull
Web 2.0 –transactional and push services
Web 3.0 –real time engagement, direct citizen interaction and open APIs
Engaging citizens to help tackle the challenges we face!

21. Takeaways & questions?