PolicyHack review by guest blogger, Anne-Marie Elias: The PolicyHack Experiment – A Futurist vision

This post is republished from LinkedIn with the permission of the author, Anne-Marie Elias, who attended PolicyHack as Champion and Facilitator for the Incentives To Develop Social Enterprises stream.

PolicyHack happened – just like that!

It was the courage of a newly appointed Assistant Minister for Innovation the Hon. Wyatt Roy MP and his bold vision to hack for change that led to one of the most sought after event tickets in town.

The Policy Hack experiment was about challenging the way bureaucrats collaborate and encouraging them to engage with the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to develop better policy and deliver better outcomes.

It was a brilliant exercise that demonstrated the capacity and appetite of entrepreneurs to come together with those from academia, corporates, capital, advisory firms, civil society and the tech and start-up sector to collaborate and develop innovative policy options for government.

PolicyHack had its fair share of critics. A number of blogs and articles appeared immediately prior to the event. They commented on the lack of planning and process, its haphazard development, its ‘exclusivity’ and the likelihood that it would produce no real outcomes in just one day.

In part they were right. However, in its defence, it was an experiment in innovation, pulled together quickly with no funds, a lot of goodwill, the generosity of a community and an enormous desire to show government that embracing the tools of innovation and entrepreneurship could deliver better outcomes. The Hack was well supported with mentors from Disruptors Handbook and Pollenizer and many others. 

It was very brave of the Hon. Wyatt Roy MP , BlueChilli and StartUpAus to take this on and push past the critics. Their chutzpah was rewarded. The energy was infectious with 150 participants, ten teams and champions - 60% of those women- generating 10 ideas in 6 hours. 

Was it perfect? No. Is that a problem? No. We know how to make the next one better.

Innovation is never perfect and neither is the current approach to policy design.

Innovation is agile, it’s iterative, it’s responsive and above all else, it’s nimble. It doesn’t stand still while ever there is a problem to be solved.

Compare this hack philosophy to the current approach to policy development. This requires the development of an evidence base (by the time it is gathered it is often out of date), it draws input from the usual suspects, often involves expensive reports from well-paid consultants, has to pass the front page Daily Telegraph test to avoid upsetting vested interests and frankly as a result, often fails.

Is it any wonder then that so many programs cost what they do and deliver so little to the end user they were meant to serve?

I am a firm believer in supporting initiatives that disrupt the status quo for the better and was blown away by how well PolicyHack turned out.

 PolicyHack was about demonstrating that there is a better way.

Champions 60% women 

The Vision 

Assistant Minister Roy spoke about the need for us to be diligent in our expenditure of public funds and observed

“We are going to be fearless and embrace the future. Help shape the vision for how our country can be a hub for entrepreneurship and Innovation."

Wyatt Roy, Assistant Minister, Innovation 

The Assistant Minister made it clear that PolicyHack was an experiment that allowed us to collaborate. He explained that this was the first of many PolicyHacks.

Assistant Minister Roy left no one wondering about his aim to encourage all members of the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to leverage our capital and support government to deliver better outcomes for our society and economy.

Who won?

The winning pitches at PolicyHack were Erin Watson-Lynn's Digital Innovation Creative Entrepreneurial Kids (DICEKids) an educational program for school children that prepares the next generation entrepreneurs and Nicola Hazel's NEIS 2 Entrepreneur accelerator, in effect a revitalisation of the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme.

These are both simple to implement immediately and can create our new generation of entrepreneurs in a relatively short time frame without any significant hit to the budget.

A quick diversion – the NDIS

The last time I got excited about policy was the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  I worked for the NSW Minister for Ageing and Disability, the Hon. Andrew Constance MP and he, like Wyatt Roy, was enthusiastic for change and drove an innovation agenda.

We co-designed the policy with people with disability and their carers. Living Life My Way was a policy hack of sorts where government collaborated with service users and service providers. Where it didn’t meet expectations was that little actually happened after the ideas and exchange.

It ended up being a great big expensive exercise with good intentions but little change. A few years later the outcomes of the scheme remain underwhelming.

Last year in the AFR, Laura Tingle highlighted the frustration with the burgeoning costs of the NDIS trial sites growing out of control. We hear that bureaucrats are hiring more consultants, commissioning more reports and there are concerns about how a scheme of this magnitude will be managed out of State and Territory governments in the next year or so.  

 Let’s deliver outcomes

In my humble opinion, the current set of bureaucrats working on the NDIS need to meet Paul Shetler, CEO of the Digital Transformation Office (aka the PM's Tsar) and his team as well as Pia Waugh of @AusGovCTO. They need to invite Paul and Pia to facilitate innovation dialogues to help the NDIS get back on track with the help of hackers from the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Hackers who will apply their smarts and collaborate in order to solve this wicked problem without needing to spend any more money.

If anyone is listening we need to hack for disability to see how we can stretch existing budgets to extract more and deliver better outcomes for people with disabilities, their families and carers.

A similar idea was generated last year by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA) andUTS called Enabled by Design a design-a-thon bringing together people with disabilities and designers to hack practical solutions for accessibility, usability and desirability. We have some incredible minds in the innovation space that have done much for health and disability – Prof Hung Nguyen and Dr Jordan Nguyen are transforming health technology with their engineering, artificial intelligence and tech driven focus.

Delivering PolicyHack

StartUpAus will curate the content of the OurSay platform and the hack and Assistant Minister Roy and his office will deliver packaged outcomes and suggestions to relevant agencies for consideration and action. Policy Hack is a brilliant initiative and with a bit more notice and planning we can make an enormous impact on any big spend issues and, I believe, bring more efficiency and innovation to government.

The PolicyHack model presents a powerful method that can solve a lot of wicked problems for government. PolicyHack can be the darling of Expenditure Review Committees and razor gangs because it gets bureaucrats thinking outcomes not just process. It gets them collaborating to make change not compromises and it delivers breakthrough ideas that solve problems and create opportunities. Which as we know sits at the heart of good policy.

What next?

The challenge now is what happens next?  Craig Thomler says “the devil is in the delivery and while perfection should not be the enemy of trying, communication is key, transparency about the process, outcomes and community engagement is integral to the process.”

We haven’t nailed it yet. I think we need to invest some time in doing that. Coming together is the beginning. While we generated amazing ideas, I don’t know what will happen to these ideas post hack. Go to any of the hack sites and you see the promotion and maybe the winning ideas and teams but no further info beyond that.

My proposition

Here are four steps we can take to deliver an outcomes driven hack.

1. Start with cross sector thought leadership groups to design the parameters and set the policy agenda.
2. Align the right agencies (State and Commonwealth) with innovators in teams to co-design solutions.
3. Set up a Post Hack Incubator so that the ideas can be further developed and piloted. These pilots must be supported both by government (through recalibrated funds and resources) and the innovation community.
4. Keep talking to ensure all stakeholders remain engaged and informed by sharing the process, the results of implementation and the success or otherwise of outcomes.

We should be so lucky

I for one want to thank the Hon. Wyatt Roy, who, backed by the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Secretary Senator the Hon. Arthur Sinodinos AO, the Hon. Paul Fletcher MP Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects and a growing number of Ministers, Members and Senators including  (Fiona Scott MP and David Coleman MP) our champions of change, have seen the constellation of government, corporate and the innovation community align.

We need to deliver outcomes from PolicyHack and develop an ongoing program of hacks for change because it is time that we did things differently and moved into a new paradigm where collaboration is key and where we get shit done, because our communities, economy and ultimately, our future depends on it. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

Read more about the mechanics of PolicyHack in Gavin Heaton's blog Wyatt Roy's Policy Hack - A view from the inside.

Anne-Marie Elias is a speaker and consultant in innovation and disruption for social change. She is an honorary Associate of the Centre for Local Government at UTS.

Anne-Marie has recently joined the Board of the Australian Open Knowledge Foundation.

Follow Anne-Marie's  journey of disruptive social innovation on Twitter @ChiefDisrupter or visit www.chiefdisrupter.com 

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The Roy/Blue Chilli policy hack is a great concept poorly executed

Next weekend Wyatt Roy, the Assistant Minister for Innovation and Blue Chilli, a Sydney-based start-up incubator , host a Policy Hack designed to 'disrupt the public service' by using start-up approaches to rapidly design and iterate new policy for the Australian nation.

I understand the excitement of Roy and part of the new government at the concept of holding a policy hack, of overturning the status quo in Canberra and making a real difference in governance.

It's a noble concept, and one that would attract those with a start-up mindset - including myself - the notion that a nation is more like a start-up than not, and that rapid and iterative policy development can lead to better outcomes for our society
Indeed I am a big support of the policy hack approach, where every assumption is tested and every system is reviewed for efficiency, workability and their outcomes and consequences. It actually isn't that far removed from existing policy development processes, albeit performed far quicker and with a more diverse range of talents involved in the mix.

However in this instance I am concerned about the specific approach being taken by Roy and Blue Chilli.

My views are reflected by a recent article by Stilgherrian, Wyatt Roy's Policy hack is already becoming a joke, and by the views of people I have spoken to more widely about this specific policy hack attempt.

Don't get me wrong, policy hacks work. International experience has demonstrated that concentrated bursts of attention involving diverse expertise on specific policy issues and initiatives delivers iterative improvements.

As a technique reflective of a start-up's validation and approach to market, there's plenty for policy makers to learn from.

However when approaches are unfocused, when they aim to 'disrupt the public service' creating an us versus them scenario, when they are not rooted in existing experience, knowledge and tested practice, they become unable to achieve the goals they set out to meet.

In this case the policy hack is framed as 'everything is on the table', as well it might be, but the hack fails to focus on a specific policy area for review and reform. The responses in the OurSay platform are therefore extremely diverse, with the only theme representing the specific audience attracted to respond - the startup community across Australia.

As a policy hack specifically on innovation policy the approach had enormous merit, but by widening the hack to any and every policy it provides a very shallow and narrow platform for any kind of real reform.

The risks in this poorly executed 'everything hack' is that the notion of policy hacks will end up rejected by those in power in Canberra. Just as the 2020 Summit hosted by Kevin Rudd disappeared with barely a trace and led to few valuable outcomes due to a lack of focus, poor inclusiveness and poor execution, Roy's Policy Hack repeats most of the same errors, albeit with a different (and often ignored) community, and in a smaller and less showy format.

If the breadth of policy topics canvassed at the Policy Hack is too broad, and the capacity to bring in existing expertise, testing and knowledge too narrow, this Policy Hack will deliver little in the way of outcomes - with perhaps one or two minor tweaks to existing policies that will be touted as a major success, only to disappear into Canberra beaurocracy and never be executed.

The real risk is not in this experiment but in the tone it sets for future initiatives in this space. It seems nothing has been learnt from the 2020 Forum, from the Public Sphere events, from the multitude of specific policy hacks undertaken overseas (ranging from the Police Wiki in New Zealand to the reframing of the Icelandic constitution), from the many experiments that have already failed or succeeded.

My concern is that a poor outcome will not stimulate more experimentation (even raking over old coals), but actually see the concept devalued and dropped, when all the evidence actually suggests that properly targeted and well-executed policy hacks, like well managed and structured start-ups, actually are far more likely to succeed than a random idea bringing together a bunch of strangers.

I am not able to be at the Policy Hack due to other commitments, and I don't feel stimulated by the format to submit serious policy reform ideas (of which I have many, having worked both within and outside of government - witnessing how they operate both from an insider and citizen perspective).

I hope that the guys at Blue Chilli can pull together something valuable, with outcomes that encourage further policy hacks and a more inclusive approach that reflects the broader community- however I don't expect it.

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What's the vision for the Australian Government?

It's expected these days for both corporations and government agencies to have vision and mission statements which encapsulate the change they wish to create through their existence and how they intend to create it.

Notable statements include  Microsoft's new mission, "to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more" and Amazon's vision "to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online."

Some corporations ascribe to a longer vision, such as Apple, where Tim Cook outlined the following vision and mission for the company when speaking with investors,

"We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that's not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don't settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we're wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well."

Government agencies can be equally concise and visionary in their statements. For example the Australian Department of Education's vision statement is "opportunity through learning" and the Digital Transition Office's website is structured around it's vision and mission "Work on stuff that matters. Simpler, clearer, faster, more humane public services."

Others are more self-focused albeit still visionary in nature, such as the Australian Department of Social Services "We aspire to be Australia’s pre-eminent social policy agency. Our mission is to improve the lifetime wellbeing of people and families in Australia." or the Australian Department of Finance and Deregulation's "Finance supports the government’s ongoing priorities through the Budget process and fosters leading practice through the public sector resource management, governance and accountability frameworks. Finance plays a lead role in advising the government on many of its strategic priorities, including advancing public sector reform through the Smaller Government Agenda and providing advice to the government on optimal arrangements for the management and ownership of public assets. We do this through our professional and considered approach to providing advice, developing policy, delivering services and engaging with our clients and stakeholders."

However the Australian Government as a whole doesn't really have a vision or a mission.

True there's the Australian Constitution, however this is all about the functions of the Commonwealth government and provides no statements on why the government exists or what it is there to achieve for citizens.

There's also codes of conduct for public servants, which outline how they are expected to behave and interact, both within the workplace and the community.

There's elected political parties, who bring ideologically-driven points of view and policies on how the Australian government is to carry out its functions, sometimes with a future vision of how they wish Australia to look.

None of these, however, clearly defines a vision and a mission as to why we have a government for Australia or what the government is there to achieve for Australian society and citizens.

Perhaps creating and striving towards such a vision might help with culture change in the public service and in reshaping public, political and media views of government - defining why it exists not simply what it does.

Such a vision could help align the public service around some of the big goals of today - remaining relevant and effective in how they meet the needs of citizens and support Australia's continued success.

It's only my idea, but perhaps a vision might shift the needle in the way public servants think about why and how they serve governments and the public, encouraging them towards a more citizen-centric inclusive focus, changing attitudes towards openness, civility and risk taking (all of which are in short supply in some agencies).

A simple vision statement would suffice - something like "The Australian government exists to ensure Australians can live in freedom, safety and security, able to meet their needs and attain their dreams in a equitable and fair society that leaves no-one behind".

I'll open the topic for discussion - does the Australian Government need a single vision and mission to define its purpose?

And if so, what should it say?

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The Australian government has put digital government and open data in the centre

With the change in Prime Minister to Malcolm Turnbull there was always likely to be a shift in the prominence of digital and IT within government.

The new administrative arrangements released earlier this week demonstrated this clearly, with the Digital Transition Office moving from the Communications portfolio to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Gov 2.0 and open data functions moving from Finance also into the DPC.

This means little to the Australian public, who simply expect government to do its job well, but means a great deal within government itself. It is a very strong signal to Secretaries and their teams that digital transformation and open data are serious priorities for the current government and need appropriate attention, resourcing and support.

What's also interesting is how these changes and others going on both publicly and behind closed doors in Canberra are about shifting the structures and cultures in Canberra towards a more collaborative, consultative and engaging one.

While signature government policies on asylum seekers, climate change and other key areas haven't changed under Turnbull, or at least not yet (a matter of significant commentary on social media at the moment), I would argue that the structural changes that have been started are far more significant in terms of shifting how the Australian government functions in the long term.

Historically while policies have changed regularly, and often quickly, as governments are elected or react to circumstance and public views, the public service had been slower to adapt to 21st Century realities, held back by its legislative design and shape, its obligations and the cultures it has evolved over the decades.

To reboot how government operates, enable more innovative and relevant policy approaches and allow in widespread adoption of modern business practice it was always going to take more than changes in policy settings - an elected government had to be willing to reach deep into the gullet of the public sector and change its operations in a fundamental way.

Few governments have been prepared to do this in more than a cosmetic way, due to the challenges in changing such a large and complex beast which was actually performing well by global standards. However the system has been fraying at the edges for some time, with capability losses and rigid legacy approaches making it harder and harder for elected governments to implement their policy and  create real positive change for Australians.

I have witnessed situations where agencies were incapable of implementing certain government policies, necessitating either shifts of responsibility or the creation of new agencies, as well as situations where Ministers and public servants found their capability to be productive was restricted, rather than enabled, by legacy IT systems and regulation which has grown like weeds over decades.

If the Turnbull government is serious about its intention to systemically change how government functions in Canberra, reshaping the role of the public sector in policy design, service delivery and rapid accountability, then one of its most significant legacies may be to future-proof the Australian government for the next century.

The structural change underway is not about rewinding government's clockwork, but about replacing cogs with computer chips and agile digital programs.

It's not just about connecting public servants to the wider community, but about letting the community lead and drive policy agendas, with the public sector as a expert facilitation support.

If this works it changes everything about how government works in Australia, though perceptual changes will take longer to be obvious to citizens.

These changes will take time. There will be fumbles and missteps and significant resistance both from internal and external players who enjoy the benefits of the failing status quo. Some resistance will be overt, but most will be covert, and often couched in supportive words but with no supportive activity. Some will be deliberate and calculated, but much will be instinctive or based on old world paradigms by people who simply haven't grasped the realities of our changing world - particularly outside the Canberra bubble.

However if these changes do not occur, rebound with a subsequent government or are given lip service only due to being 'too hard', Australia will face a more frightening scenario. A scenario in which our governance structures fail to support Australians to be competitive in our changing world. Where we become a sunset economy of resources and agriculture and our most talented scientists and computer specialists leave for greater opportunities offshore, leaving Australians to buy our own successes at retail prices.

Events will tell us how serious Turnbull's government will be - and how successful. However if the current government doesn't succeed in this systemic change, the big question will be, who could?

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Now it gets interesting - Australia has its first digitally literate Prime Minister

Rudd & Gillard could work the Twitters.

Abbott understood the need to engage digitally, if not the tech, the value or the full impact (and mistakenly thought one of his Ministers had invented the Internet).

Even Howard got onboard the digital express with a few YouTube videos.

However Australia has never before in its history had a digitally literate Prime Minister of the likes of Malcolm Turnbull.

This could mean nothing, or it could mean enormous change if the Australian Government is told to lift its game on digital engagement and treat technology as an integral part of designing and implementing government business rather than as a service to be called on when needed.

Turnbull has already laid down a positioning statement in this area, stating in his inaugural media announcement as PM that "We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield."

We'll see quite quickly which is true by Turnbull's approach to several of the key planks of openness and digital transformation.

Key steps would include endorsing and progressing Australia's membership of the Open Government Partnership, something agreed to by the Gillard government but was placed on the perpetual back burner by Abbott as he focused on closing, rather than opening up, government.

I'd also expect to see a rethink of the government's position on the Office of the Information Commissioner - an agency the Abbott government failed to legislate to remove but has been killing by degrees by cutting funding and refusing to replace Commissioners.

Another sign of change would be an elevation of the role of the Digital Transformation Office, making more of its approaches mandatory and providing more teeth to the agency when dealing with big and slow moving Departments more interested in the status quo. 

This could include shifting  the DTO back to the Prime Minister's department, but with a direct reporting line to Turnbull that minimizes the obfuscation prevalent within that department at senior levels. 

Other areas that could use attention include the open data space, which is run on a shoestring by Finance and could greatly magnify its impact with additional resourcing and mandates, and, of course, the NBN - Turnbull's former responsibility as Communications Minister. 

A shift back to a FTTH approach, delivered more cost-effectively than the previous Labor model, would provide Australia with the infrastructure it needs for the 21st century and cement Turnbull as a visionary with Australia's long-term future at heart.

There's also many things that could be done at a micro-level within agencies to shift the reliance on corporate IT suppliers, 1990s systems and large, virtually undeliverable technology projects - many of which could be led by a revitalised AGIMO in association with the DTO.

Of course Turnbull may have other fish to fry, he has quite a lot to do to get the Liberals back to an electoral-ready position within 12 months, and if not re-elected much of the program above could find itself on the scrap heap of a new government that wants to do things differently.

However I am hopeful that we'll see some true digital leadership from Turnbull whilst he is Prime Minister and potentially some real shifts in how government is delivered in Australia, to the benefit of all Australians now and in the future.

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