Whenever our country faces a “mission impossible,” the American public looks to our government to solve the problem. Whether it’s a financial collapse, terrorist attack, oil spill or a crumbling education system, we expect our government to find solutions and deliver results. We also expect our government to reliably perform “day-to-day” tasks such as delivering the mail, screening airline passengers and fulfilling Social Security payments, effectively and efficiently, crisis or no crisis.

Expectations of our government are on the rise at a time when budgets and timelines are shrinking, leaving many of our public servants struggling to deliver results. To satisfy these pressures, many federal leaders are embracing innovation tools, including crowd-sourcing, competitions and prizes, as ways of unleashing employee creativity. The move is long overdue and greatly needed.

The Partnership for Public Service and IDEO spoke with innovators across the public, private and nonprofit sectors to:

• Understand the unique opportunities for and barriers to government innovation;
• Identify best practices for promoting a culture of innovation in government; and
• Outline an approach to creating a more innovative government.