Canadian Government Executive - Volume 23 - Issue 1

January 2017 // Canadian Government Executive / 15 The Interview Q: What do you think is needed to make your Lab successful? We empathize with our clients and we put ourselves in their shoes. We try to make sure that everything we do is in the clients’ inter- est by listening to their needs and understanding their culture. I would say culture is about 80% of the success factor in getting to a prototype solution. If you can understand the culture of the client, and work within that culture, and help shape the culture of an organization or community, then you can make a huge difference. Q: You are testing a new collaborative technology in the Lab. Tell me about it. There is this great federal government initiative called the Build in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP). It is managed by Public Services and Procurement Canada and allows government de- partments to purchase new, pre-commercial Canadian technolo- gies for testing. We got lucky and found this amazing company called Nureva. They have a software technology that is essentially electronic sticky notes on steroids. What is so great about it is that it allows you to work collaboratively with others, regardless of where you are in the world. Not only is the tech great at allowing us to do our work better by collaborating with more people, we are also just thrilled and excited to be able to support Canadian innovation by working with small-medium sized enterprises. And BCIP was able to buy it for us while we provide a test-bed for this innovative Canadian invention. Q: Are there plans to adopt any other technologies through BCIP in 2017? Absolutely! We want to be a top user of BCIP in the Government of Canada and a pipeline for small-medium size Canadian busi- nesses who are looking to test their technologies in government. We have potentially two other technologies that we are looking at bringing into the Lab through BCIP in 2017. Q: What is the best thing you’ve experienced in the lab? That is a really hard question. Over the past year, we’ve been for- tunate to work on a number of really great and captivating proj- ects. For example, we worked with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) to design a Government of Canada-wide Service Strategy; we helped the Community of Federal Regulators and TBS to re-design their online presence to make it easier for Ca- nadians to find, understand and scan regulatory information (this team actually won a public service award!); and we’ve even de- signed our own branded mental health board game that supports mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. But if I had to choose, I would say the most recent thing was seeing the Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities, Carla Qualtrough, stand up after hearing the presentation of a systems strategy for persons with disabilities in the federal government and say “wow” – it seemed to be exactly what she wanted. The people in the roomwho had just finished a two-day LEGO Serious Play workshop in the Lab were overjoyed. People were simply overwhelmed with the experience of having actually delivered on a longstanding commitment that people had wanted to see for many, many years. My hope is that this will come back to us to help design the accessibility legislation for Canada. That would be a first for our Service Lab and we would be honored to do it. Q: You’ve mentioned before that you want to see the Service Lab become one of the top five public sector innovation labs in the world. Is this actually achiev- able in the not too-far-distant future? Already we’ve had over 7,000 visits through our doors from pub- lic, private and academic sector partners and guests and complet- ed over 30 projects and events across the Government of Canada. So, I think anything is possible. And with the right attitude and with the right people driving the business, it can happen. The big- gest challenge I see in front of us is in many ways ourselves – by limiting our ambition in our vision to change the Government of Canada, to change the public service and make it modern. Q: You are starting your third year soon. What’s on your plate? Its Canada’s 150! I’m really excited to see the Service Lab is catch- ing on with more and more public servants as a tool to unlock their creative potential. Already we have 13 new pipeline projects for the new Fiscal Year and that’s in addition to the 30 we are already committed to and are in the planning stages for. My hope is that by the end of 2017, the Service Lab will be the go-to place for innovative approaches and develop a great roster of private sector designers supporting us. I also want to expand our capacity through more dynamic ac- tivities, beyond what we are doing already. I want to beef up our work in the Ottawa community and be seen as a thought leader in design thinking that supports not just us in government, but also the National Capital Region. And finally, I’d like to solve some wicked problems. I would love to design the application of disruptive technologies for federal ser- vices and programs – like Blockchain. I would like to try and fix some big problems facing our country by using design thinking. These sound like very aspirational, visionary things, but I think if people start believing they can make a difference and use de- sign – this way of working with empathy and collaborating with users – that governments with Canadians can fundamentally shift how we do our business and do it better. I want to beef up our work in the Ottawa community and be seen as a thought leader in design thinking that supports not just us in government, but also in the National Capital Region.