Innovation in US Cities: New Ideas in Policy Management and Planning
NYU Wagner School of Public Policy
Spring 2015
Course Meetings: Tuesday 4:55 – 6:35
Course Location: 194 Mercer, Room 305
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:00 – 4:30, Puck Building Room 3040c and by appointment
Instructors: James Anderson and Neil Kleiman
Email: neil.kleiman@nyu.edu
I.
Overview
Governments are undergoing a shift—some might say a revolution—in their approach to
operations, service delivery and policy making. With the rise of infinitely complex issues such as
globally linked economies and climate change, as well as growing gaps in confidence in the ability of
the public sector to address these challenges, prevailing governance approaches no longer seem
adequate. There is a move to more innovative approaches – that tap into open platforms, cross
agency collaborations, public/private partnerships, and public engagement to extend reach and
enhance public value creation.
With a focus on local government, this course will provide a comprehensive overview of the many
facets of a new government paradigm that is taking root in various forms throughout the US. The
curriculum is designed to function as a live-lab in which students learn new approaches and tools
and directly engage in innovations as they’re happening. Students themselves will be contributing
to the understanding of this nascent field.
II.
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III.
Learning Objectives
Understanding of competing perspectives on
o Current government operations
o Barriers to innovation
Understanding of how innovation works (and fails) through numerous case examples in the
US (with a few comparative examples from Europe and Asia)
Writing skills and published web-based portfolios in the area of government innovation
Pre-requisite
Either introduction to policy course OR planning practice and methods course.
IV.
Readings
Core texts to be purchased
Bason, Christian. Leading Public Sector Innovation, The Policy Press, 2010.
Osborne, David and Peter Plastrik. Banishing Bureaucracy, Perseus Books Group, 1997.
Please note, we could not acquire either text through the books store, but both can be easily
ordered through Amazon and other book outlets. Please let us know if you have trouble making the
purchase as you are responsible for having a copy by the first class.
Selections from the following texts will be available for download on the NYU Classes site
and there is no need to purchase
Goldsmith, Stephen and William D. Eggers. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public
Sector, Brookings Institution Press, 2004.
Lipsky, Michael. Street Level Bureaucracy, Russell Sage, 1980.
Heifetz, Ronald A. Leadership Without Easy Answers. Harvard University Press, 1998.
Swanstrom, Todd and Dennis Judd. City Politics, Longman, 2012.
Barber, Michael. Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to Transform Britain’s Public Services, Methuen,
2007.
Nesta, Develop Your Skills, Nesta, (web-based texts) http://www.nesta.org.uk/develop-your-skills
Bloomberg Philanthropies, Transform Your City Through Innovation: The Innovation Delivery
Model for Making it Happen, Bloomberg Philanthropies, 2014.
Freedman, Tom. The Collaborative City: How Partnerships between Public and Private Sectors can
Achieve Common Goals. Freedman Consulting, 2013.
Eggers, William D. and Shalabh Singh, The Public Sector Innovator’s Playbook. Harvard Ash
Institute, 2009.
Cels, Sanderijn, Jorrit de Jong, et al. Agents of Change: Strategy and Tactics for Social Innovation,
Brookings Institution Press, 2012.
IV.
Cases
A core component of the course will be assessing actual innovation cases. These will include ones
that have been completed and ones happening in real-time.
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Guiding Innovation. The entire class will track one innovation case—Boston’s Urban
Mechanics—throughout the semester that we will keep referring back to. We will arrange to
have the leaders behind this effort available for class interaction.
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V.
Real-Time Innovation Analysis. We will form class teams of 3-4 students to track one case
as it takes shape in real-time. These cases will be assessed as a team throughout the course
but you will write your own final paper individually at the end of the semester. Cases will be
made available in a separate document.
Requirements
Class Participation: (25%) The course depends on active and ongoing participation by all class
participants. This will occur in three ways:
Participation begins with effective reading and listening. Class participants are expected to read and
discuss the readings on a weekly basis. That means coming prepared to engage the class, with
questions and/or comments with respect to the reading. You will be expected to have completed all
the required readings before class to the point where you can be called on to critique or discuss any
reading.
Before approaching each reading think about what the key questions are for the week and about
how the questions from this week relate to what you know from previous weeks. Then skim over
the reading to get a sense of the themes it covers, and, before reading further, jot down what
questions you hope the reading will be able to answer for you. Ask yourself: What types of evidence
or arguments would you need to see in order to be convinced of the results? Now read through the
whole text, checking as you go through how the arguments used support the claims of the author. It
is rare to find a piece of writing that you agree with entirely. So, as you come across issues that you
are not convinced by, write them down and bring them along to class for discussion. Also note when
you are pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised, when the author produced a convincing argument
that you had not thought of.
In class itself, the key to quality participation is listening. Asking good questions is the second key
element. What did you mean by that? How do you/we know? What’s the evidence for that claim?
This is not a license for snarkiness, but for reflective, thoughtful, dialogic engagement with the ideas
of others in the class. Don’t be shy. Share your thoughts and reactions in ways that promote critical
engagement with them. Quality and quantity of participation can be, but are not necessarily, closely
correlated.
Précis/Response Papers: (10%) Each week 3-4 people will take responsibility for preparing
response papers to one or more of the readings. This includes writing a 1-2 page précis of the
reading that a) lays out the main argument(s), b) indicates what you found provocative and/or
mundane, and c) poses 3-4 questions for class discussion based on the readings/central themes and
how it relates to the innovation case that you are following during the semester. These handouts
will be distributed via email to the rest of the class by Sunday at 5 PM (using the course website).
Everyone will prepare one précis over the course of the semester. Everyone who prepares a précis
for the week should be prepared to provide a brief (2-3 minute) outline of their reaction to the
readings as a contribution to discussion.
Written Assignments
Innovation analysis (15%), 10-15 tweets (5%) and innovation case analysis (12-15 pages) (45%).
1. Innovation analysis (3-5 pages double spaces) assessing a particular aspect of innovation
related to your chosen innovation case.
2. Tweets (8-10). We would like you to tweet throughout the semester. You will be evaluated on
tweets that are original, point to useful information in the field, make smart connections
between articles and readings and your understanding of the field and/or generally update
followers with interesting news. When you tweet please use the hashtag #wagnerinnovation so
we can track tweets. If you do not have a Twitter account or have your Twitter settings set so
that they are not shared publicly we can set up a separate twitter page and you can just use
your initials.
3. Final Paper: Case Analysis: Papers must be produced individually and will center around
the real-time innovation you have followed throughout the year. Our aim is to use all class
cases and then bind them together (virtually) into a final innovation review for the larger public
policy field.
The goal of the case reviews will be to isolate what the conditions that led to success and/or
failure in your case. Additionally, there will be a team memo requirement as part of the final
paper focused on an assignment you complete for your city. An annotated outline for both the
paper and the team memo will be due at the end of Class # 8 and the final case review is due
three days after you present your case in class. We will talk about this in more detail in class
and provide you with a case review template. All case topics will need to be approved by Class #
4 in advance.
VI.
Expectations
Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the readings each week. Students are
also expected to glean knowledge from other innovation cases and follow general public policy
events through the news, reading at least one major US news source daily, a newsweekly
(Economist, Time, etc) and follow a range of government and innovation-oriented sites (e.g.
Bloomberg Philanthropies, Kennedy School, Governing magazine)
VII.
Weekly Schedule
WEEK ONE AND TWO - OVERVIEW
Introduce the difference between an innovation, meaning an idea or process that’s new in the local
context, and innovation potential, meaning the mindsets, skillsets, approaches, and capacities that
enable new ideas to emerge and take hold time and time again. Our focus is mainly on the later –
and the exciting new ways public sector leaders are creating that potential. These include
networked, data-driven, citizen informed and effective governance approaches. We will cover:
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The state of innovation potential in cities today
Where it’s most mature
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Current models/drivers/causes that are accelerating and shaping this field
o Smart cities
o Civic technology
o Performance improvement and Stat programs
o Budgetary reform
o Design
o Social entrepreneurship
o Innovation labs
Readings:
Bason, Introduction and Ch. 1; Sanderijnm, Introduction; Boston Urban Mechanics
readings (see links below)
http://www.governing.com/poy/nigel-jacob-chris-osgood.html
http://www.governing.com/blogs/bfc/col-boston-mayor-tom-menino-office-new-urbanmechanics.html
http://www.governing.com/blogs/bfc/col-boston-mayor-office-new-urban-mechanics-mitch-weissinterview.html
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679644/boston-does-digital-what-we-can-learn-from-a-city-that-isgetting-it-right
WEEK THREE – URBAN POLITICS
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History of urban government reform through the years; legacy of bureaucracies from the
progressive era
Inherent innovation barriers at the local level (cities are creatures of states; few areas are
fully within administrative and budgetary control of municipal govts, etc.)
Readings:
Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy. Ch 1 & 2
Judd and Swanstrom (1994), City Politics. Pages: 1-8, 44-47, 91-99
WEEK FOUR – TRADITIONAL BARRIERS TO PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATION
There are moments when significant innovation traditionally occurs: at the onset of an
administration or in the wake of crisis, for example. Why doesn’t innovation happen more
frequently and consistently? There are a set of major barriers recognized in experience and the
literature. These include:
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Protective, status-quo nature of bureaucracies
The power of incumbents
Actual or perceived inflexibility in rules or regulation
Silos for funding and responsibility
Priority of daily work and insufficient capacity
Diffusion of goals and responsibilities
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Risk aversion
No incentives (risk capital, recognition)
Intolerance for failure
No overarching innovation strategy
Through illustration and classroom discussion, we will explore the nature of these barriers,
reflecting on whether they are more or less acute in the public sector verses a business
environment. The goal is to deepen the students’ appreciation for how mayors can overcome these
barriers.
Readings:
Bason, Ch. 3; Osborne and Plastrik, Introduction and Ch. 1-3
WEEK FIVE – EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
Innovation cannot proceed without support from the top; that’s as true in the public sector as it is
in the private sector. This week will focus on the ways in which mayors and other public sector
chief executives create the conditions for innovation to flourish. We will examine leaders in the
assigned readings and discuss approaches taken by business leaders-turned-mayor such as Michael
Bloomberg and Greg Fischer, as well as those undertaken by Seoul’s Park Won So, a former human
rights lawyer and civic innovator, and San Francisco’s Ed Lee, a lifelong civic servant. The
discussion will focus on the structures they put into place, the processes they adjusted, the cultural
conditions they established, and the resources they galvanized and approved to make innovation
routine. From this discussion, we will begin to assemble a constellation of things leaders can (and
arguably should) do – and debate with the class the relative importance of each.
Readings:
Heiftz, Ch. 1-2; Bason, Ch. 11; Barber, Ch. 1-3
WEEK SIX – STRATEGY/PURPOSE/PRIORITIZING
Albert Einstein famously said that if he had just one hour to solve a problem, he’d spend 55 minutes
thinking about the problem and five minutes on the solution. Prioritization and problem definition
are essential steps in the innovation process – yet they are often short-skirted, as problem solvers
jump to generating ideas without fully understanding why and how the problem exists or if there’s
political support and alignment around solving it. In week five we will discuss the essential work
involved in defining and deeply understanding the problem to be solved – and the opportunities
therein to create radically different potential outgrowths for the work. We will look at the city of
Philadelphia, which won the 2013 Mayors Challenge award for its procurement innovation and talk
with Peter Madden at Future Cities Catapult, a global center of innovation on cities with expertise in
redefining problems.
Readings:
Bason, Ch. 4 & 5; Osborne and Plastik, Ch. 4; Bloomberg Philanthropies, pages 1-28
WEEK SEVEN – GENERATING NEW IDEAS
Here we will explore the growing set of tools and approaches municipalities are using to generate
better ideas. From co-creation efforts (Helsinki’s plan to improve transitions between mental health
settings to community care) to surfacing ideas from front line staff (the Denver Peak Academy
innovation training school) to competitions (NYC’s applied sciences initiative), bureaucrats are
talking with new people in new ways to find ideas. How are these efforts structured and
implemented? Are these efforts producing better ideas – and how do we know? Are we learning
anything from the less successful engagement efforts? Below are the specific idea generation
approaches we will explore including:
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Co-creation
Surfacing ideas internally; from all employees
Citizen involvement
Competitions
Learning from other regions
Readings:
Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ch. 2; Eggers & Singh, Ch. 2-6; Bason, Ch. 2 and 7
WEEK EIGHT – PARNTERSHIPS AND NETWORKED GOVERNMENT
The capacity to develop, structure, and maintain partnerships over time with an increasingly
diverse set of actors has become one of the defining features of a successful City Hall. Partnerships
enable cities to get work done efficiently, as well as produce improved value for the public. This
week will focus on 1) the value proposition of partnerships, 2) the increasingly diverse forms of
partnerships, and 3) an overview of the structures city halls are building to manage these
relationships. Case studies could include the New York City Social Impact Bond, a partnership that
catalyzes private sector capital to fund prevention programs for inmates at Rikers; the Boston
Mayors’ Office of New Urban Mechanics, which engages citizens in solving public problems; and [a
university/city partnership].
We will assess the role of the following public sector partners:
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o
o
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o
Readings:
Relevant agencies
Business groups (e.g. chambers of commerce and introduce Civic Consulting
Alliance model)
Local universities
State/federal government
Local/national philanthropy
Goldsmith and Eggers, Ch. 1-3; Freedman, entire report
WEEK NINE – IMPLEMENTATION AND SUPPORTING INNOVATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Moving from policy formation and design to implementation – while also keeping all the other
machinery of government humming along – is challenging. Using one city as a case example we will
trace the trajectory of an idea to implementation and assess the needed tools and approaches
including data tracking, performance management, and delivery routines to ensure progress in the
face of significant bureaucratic resistance.
Readings:
Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ch. 3 & 4; Osborne and Plastik, Ch. 5 and 8; Bason, Ch. 10
WEEK TEN – COMMUNICATIONS AND INNOVATION
This class will focus on the role of communications and innovation. We will discuss the importance
of defining the problem, ground-softening and stakeholder buy in, quick wins and continuous
reminders of the work and progress. We will review data and data metrics used to track media
penetration and how cities use such information to facilitate program implementation. A high-level
speaker panel will address the class for this session.
WEEK ELEVN – ASSESSMENT OF NEW YORK STATE AND CITY APPROACHES TO INNOVATION
This class will use the various approaches discussed in previous sessions to critically assess
innovation at the state level and in the five boroughs of New York City. We will assign students in
advance to assess various service areas and topics to determine how creatively New York is
advancing its policy objectives in Spring 2015.
Readings:
TBD
WEEK TWELVE– GOING TO SCALE/SUSTAINING INNOVATION
In this session we will also cover the following approaches needed to permanently sustain an
innovation culture including:
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Communications
Legislation
Curriculum development
Technology
Building in daily routines
Readings:
Nesta, review entire site
WEEK THIRTEEN AND FOURTEEN – PRESENTATIONS
The last two classes will be dedicated to student presentation. These sessions will be attended by a
set of NYC-based thought leaders and practitioners who will offer reactions and suggestions for
students to improve their case analysis and models.