1. education
2. graduate school

The 2015 Public Sector
for the Future Summit:
Leadership from Invention to Impact
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
June 2 - 4, 2015
The 2015 Public Sector for the Future Summit:
Leadership from Invention to Impact
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Preliminary Agenda
Tuesday, June 2nd
6:00 – 8:00 PM
Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology 11
Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, MA
Opening Reception for the Public Sector for the Future Summit
(Hors d’oeuvres with Drinks)
Registration Available
Wednesday, June 3rd
8:00 – 8:30 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Outside Room G-115
Energizers: Coffee and Continental Breakfast
Registration Available
Leading Transformation – From Invention to Impact
8:30 – 10:00 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
Leaders of public institutions are implementing bold new strategies and tactics to make their
institutions work better for citizens. From co-creating programs with the public, to redesigning
regulations through real-time analytics, to building entirely new constituent services, the future is
poised for citizen-centric transformation. Yet moving forward ideas - whether they are proven
ideas on the Uptake, or percolating ideas on the Edge – is a classic challenge in government. For
public sector leaders, much of our success will depend on how we combine innovations into
exploitable opportunities, how we govern the path of the innovation, and how we build dynamic
capabilities capable of long-term innovation. This session will explore this challenge via the
Uptake and Edge Matrix Summit framework, offer key themes and ideas from a panel of leaders,
and provide insights from the pre-Summit Compass Diagnostic.
Presenter:
• Antonio Oftelie, Harvard University
Welcome:
• Peter Hutchinson, Accenture
In this part of the session leaders will reflect on the ideas presented, share insights on innovations
they are leading, and explore the risks and rewards of transformational leadership.
Panelists include:
• Sara Filbee, Service Canada
• Beth Niblock, City of Detroit
• John Traylor, State of New York
• Ron Walker, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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10:00 – 10:30 AM
Outside G-115
BREAK
Case in Point: Building an Agile Workforce and Enterprise at the FCC
10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
In 2013, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) embarked on an ambitious change
effort to create a cloud-based, common data platform that would play a significant role in creating
a more dynamic and agile enterprise. The leadership recognized this approach would break down
silos across the Commission’s eighteen different Bureaus and offices, increase citizen engagement
and transparency, and improve efficiencies. However, it would not be easy. The FCC had 207
different legacy systems that needed to be overhauled and modernized – translating into about
one system for every eight employees. The organization also faced workforce and morale
challenges. With an average tenure of fifteen and a half years, many of the long-time employees
were very invested in the existing systems. They had also experienced dramatic changes in
leadership. In the eight years prior, there had been nine different Chief Information Officers,
either in a permanent or acting capacity. In addition, there had been sporadic change efforts in the
past that had not lasted, creating cynicism about the ability to undergo this substantial
transformation.
In this session, the FCC Chief Information Officer will describe the strategy they adopted to
encourage experimentation, re-engage employees and cultivate a network of change agents. He
will also highlight several initial successes, including one that saved the FCC and the U.S.
taxpayers nearly $2.75 million and improved the way the public could provide input into the
country’s telecommunications systems.
Presenter:
• David Bray, Federal Communications Commission
Reflection and Action
In this part of the session, public sector leaders will synthesize session insights and
translate them to action steps that other leaders can apply.
• Reflector, Anne Shepherd, U.S. Internal Revenue Service
• Moderator, Lauren Hirshon, Leadership for a Networked World
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Case in Point: Evidence-Based Government in Washington and Idaho
Public sector leaders are capitalizing on the intersection of technological platforms, social
networks, inexpensive data storage and data analytics to identify new ways to measure and assess
inputs, outputs, outcomes, and impact. By adopting new capabilities to track performance of
policy and programs, benchmark against peers and redesign operations, and measure outcomes,
innovative leaders are building evidence-based organizations that are poised to attain new levels of
public value. Driving these changes and pushing these efforts to the next level demands focused
leadership, robust partnerships, and novel approaches.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
This session will explore the leadership necessary to make changes at the agency level and at the
state level. Idaho will discuss steps they have taken to establish evidence-based decision making in
the Idaho State Tax Commission. Officials will discuss their strategies to change policies, engage
stakeholders, and re-work procedures to lead this transformation. They will also describe the
challenges and opportunities they currently face in expanding their efforts throughout Idaho State
Government. Washington State will provide insights on their efforts to drive “edge” innovations
by transforming their Results Washington initiative from an agency-level to an enterprise-level of
evidence-based government. They will describe their efforts to measure what matters most to
their taxpayers and customers, progress from data measurement to data management, and develop
a portfolio of tools to identify evidence of program outcomes and demonstrate value. In addition,
they will share information on the development of collaborative efforts across agencies, partners,
stakeholders, and the legislature, the blending of top-down and bottom-up strategies, the shift to a
culture of accountability, and lessons learned along the way.
Presenters:
• Rich Jackson, Idaho State Tax Commission
• Ken Roberts, Idaho State Tax Commission
• Mike Teller, Idaho State Tax Commission
• Wendy Korthuis-Smith, Results Washington
• Rich Roesler, Results Washington
Reflection and Action
In this part of the session, public sector leaders will synthesize session insights and
translate them to action steps that other leaders can apply.
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12:30 – 1:30 PM
Outside G-115
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Moderator, Lauren Hirshon, Leadership for a Networked World!
LUNCH
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Harvard Business School Case Study – More Citizens Connect
1:30 – 3:00 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
Funding to scale Citizens Connect, Boston's 311 app, was both a blessing and a burden that tested
two public entrepreneurs. In 2012, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provided Boston's
Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics with a grant to scale Citizens Connect across the state.
The money gave two co-creators of Citizens Connect, Chris Osgood and Nigel Jacob, a chance to
grow their vision for citizen-engaged governance and civic innovation, but it also required that the
two City of Boston leaders sit on a formal selection committee that pitted their original partner,
Connected Bits, against another player that might meet the specific requirements for delivering a
statewide version. The selection and scaling process raised questions beyond just which partner to
choose: What would happen to the Citizens Connect brand as Osgood and Jacob's product
spreads across the state? Who could help scale their work best? Which business models were best
positioned to drive that growth? What intellectual property arrangements would best enable it?
And what role should the two city employees have, anyway, in scaling Citizens Connect outside of
Boston? These questions hung in the air as they pondered the big question about passing over
Connected Bits for another partner: should they?
This case session will help public sector officials consider the various business models (business to
government, business to citizens, etc.), intellectual property arrangements (proprietary vs. opensource), and organizational designs (innovation offices, innovation teams, etc.) that can be
deployed to support innovation in government, and under what conditions.
Presenter:
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3:00 – 3:30 PM
Outside G-115
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Mitchell Weiss, Harvard Business School
BREAK
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Case in Point: The Sharing Economy and Disruptive Innovations
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
The sharing economy is flourishing across the country and globally. Lyft, Uber, SideCar, and
other Transportation Network Companies (TNC) have altered the way people travel within cities
and states. Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, and other homesharing platforms are disrupting travel
and how people make use of resources like apartments, homes, or spare bedrooms. Meanwhile,
other platforms and concepts like TaskRabbit (a mobile marketplace to hire people to do jobs and
tasks), SnapGoods (a site for lending and borrowing high-end household items), and Feastly (a
marketplace for dining experiences), are taking off as well. As the sharing economy – also
described as collaborative consumption, the collaborative economy, or the peer-to-peer economy
– continues to grow it is creating new challenges and opportunities for public sector leaders.
These platforms and concepts are upending traditional industries, upsetting regulatory
frameworks, introducing a wealth of new data, altering how we understand and share assets, and
shifting citizen and workforce expectations.
In this session, representatives from Lyft, Airbnb and the National League of Cities will describe
new elements of sharing economy business models, such as strategies for citizen engagement,
making use of data, and sharing resources. This will set the stage for discussions of translating
lessons learned from the sharing economy into the public sector and capitalizing on new
partnership, integration, and data opportunities.
Presenters:
• Emily Castor, Lyft
• Brooks Rainwater, National League of Cities
• Anita Roth, Airbnb
Ideation Session
In this part of the session, public sector leaders will break into small groups to
synthesize session insights and translate them to action steps that leaders can apply
to government operations.
• Moderator, Lauren Hirshon, Leadership for a Networked World
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5:00 – 6:30 PM
Optional: Tour of Harvard Yard, free time in Harvard Square
6:30 – 9:00 PM
RECEPTION AND DINNER
Harvard Faculty Club
20 Quincy Street, Second Floor
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Thursday, June 4th
8:00 – 8:30 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
Outside Room G-115
Energizers: Coffee and Continental Breakfast
Practitioner Work-Out Sessions: Introduction
8:30 – 8:45 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
Room G-115
Various rooms to be announced
The Summit Work-Out Sessions are an opportunity for select participants to feature a
challenge their organization is facing in translating invention to impact, and engage their
peers in developing solutions in a small, working-group setting. In these sessions, the case
owner will provide a short description of their challenges and opportunities, then look to
the group participants to develop ideas and solutions. The value of these sessions is threefold: first, the case owner receives valuable advice from their peers; second, the
participants learn about common challenges and how to solve them; and third, session
findings are distilled post-Summit to help public sector leaders globally.
Presenters:
• Antonio Oftelie, Harvard University
• Pari Sabety, Accenture
Work-Out Session One: Developing an Enterprise Data and Analytics
Capability for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
8:45 AM – 10:15 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
Various rooms to be announced
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MassIT, the Commonwealth’s lead agency for technology and innovation, is positioned to
transform the way Massachusetts uses data and technology to deliver proactive, nimble,
and impactful services. Empowered by new legislation, MassIT is spearheading the
development of a Commonwealth Data and Analytics Center of Excellence, which will
play an integral role in this transformation. This Center is intended to support a broad
range of activities and stakeholders, ranging from assisting state and local governments in
using quantitative evidence to improve outcomes, to helping non-profit providers serving
at-risk populations, to improving citizen access to and engagement with governments. In
addition, MassIT must meet its new charge and deploy new services capacity in an
environment of significant budget and workforce constraints. This session will help
Massachusetts’ officials accelerate their efforts by addressing four pressing challenges:
What governance structure and tactics should MassIT implement to effectively
work across organizational boundaries and transform their culture from data
guardianship to data stewardship?
• How can MassIT ensure it has access to people with strong data analytics skills
and other expertise necessary for the Center to succeed?
• What technology can MassIT incorporate to deliver data and analytics capabilities
and how can the agency navigate the various constraints and concerns?
• How can MassIT demonstrate the value of this new approach to constituents,
alleviate concerns about privacy, cost-effectiveness, and access, and cultivate new
relationships among citizens, government, and business?
Presenters:
• Bill Oates, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Facilitator, Bill Kilmartin, Accenture
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Work-Out Session Two: Developing a Nimble Approach to Fleet Vehicle
Management in Utah
The Utah Division of Fleet Operations (DFO) is at a crossroads. The DFO is looking
to develop a vision and action plan to move to a more nimble operating model which
embraces new technologies and alternative modes of transportation, runs a stable financial
model, reflects customer needs, and supports a sustainable future. Driving this need is a
2014 comprehensive assessment of the DFO, which found significant challenges within
the division. The assessment found expenditures that consistently exceeded revenue,
complicated financial structures, expensive and archaic database and information systems,
and misaligned incentives that resulted in an under-utilized vehicles, negative
environmental impact, and poor customer service.
8:45 AM – 10:15 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
Various rooms to be announced
In the fall of 2014, a major turnaround was launched to restructure management, business,
and financial processes and practices. Efforts are underway to restructure costs and rates,
incorporate best practices, improve invoices, and pilot new approaches. This session will
help Utah officials accelerate their reform efforts by addressing four pressing challenges:
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How can the DFO integrate best practices into their new model and structure a
transition plan?
How can the DFO’s data management practices identify trends to better
incentivize vehicle utilization?
What skills should the DFO harness to work across existing organizational
boundaries to make their new plans actionable for IT, Audit, Customer Service,
Accounting, Rate Structure, and others?
How can taxpayers input be utilized to transform the DFO into a proactive
citizen-centric organization?
Presenters:
• Kim Hood, State of Utah
• Facilitator, Pari Sabety, Accenture
Work-Out Session Reports and Findings
10:15 – 10:45 AM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
10:45 – 11:15 AM
Outside G-115
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The Work-Out Session Presenters will report findings and ideas developed in their
respective sessions and discuss methods of application.
Presenters:
• Kim Hood, State of Utah
• Bill Oates, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Facilitator, Pari Sabety, Accenture
BREAK
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Case in Point: NYC MTA
January 1, 2011 the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) opened a new
Business Services Center to advance shared services and create an optimized enterprise,
poised to gain economies of scale, scope and learning. As the largest transportation
provider in the Western Hemisphere, this was no small feat. Embodying nine different
agencies, employing over 65,000 full time employees, and including trains, buses, bridges,
and tunnels, it was clear this would be a significant change effort. However, continuing
business as usual was not an option. At the time, the Authority’s expenses exceeded their
revenue sources.
11:15 AM – 12:15 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
Over the last four years, the MTA has consolidated numerous financial operations,
including payroll, accounts payable, receivable transactions, procurement, and financial
reporting into one single system. The BSC now operates the MTA’s call center and
document management center, and is responsible for the consolidated human resources,
employment, pensions and benefits administration functions for all MTA employees as
well as 65,000 retirees. Work performed at the BSC contributes savings of $18 million
annually and has standardized business processes across the MTA.
In this session, officials from MTA will showcase how this transformation has increased
value, decreased costs, and elevated best practices for the clients they serve. It will highlight
internal changes necessary to develop the center’s mission, strategy, portfolio, design and
culture. They will also provide insight on their leadership journey with an emphasis on
assumptions that changed since the initial project launch, lessons learned along the way,
and new consolidation and process improvement opportunities.
Presenters:
• Wael Hibri, New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority Business Services
Center
• Hilary Ring, New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority Business Services
Center
Reflection and Action
In this part of the session, public sector leaders will synthesize session insights and
translate them to action steps that other leaders can apply.
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12:15 – 1:15 PM
Outside G-115
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Renaud Fournier, New York University
Moderator, Lauren Hirshon, Leadership for a Networked World
LUNCH
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Keynote Address: Confronting the Challenging
Future of Data-Driven Decision-Making
Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law School
1:15 – 2:15 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
2:15 – 2:30 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
Our ability to make choices is fundamental to our sense of ourselves as human beings, and
essential to the political values of freedom-protecting nations. At the same time, choice can
be a burden. With limited cognitive capacity to research and make the optimal decision,
every choice comes at a cost and can often be overwhelming. The onset of big data gives
government the power to make even more sophisticated decisions about when
government should set defaults and when they should insist on active choices. In this
keynote session, Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor and
founder/director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard
Law School, will guide a discussion on government’s role in choice. This session will
consider questions such as: When should governments set defaults, and how can big data
inform these decisions? How should such defaults be made? What makes some defaults
successful while others fail? What will be the long-term effects of limiting our active
choices on our agency? And can such personalized defaults be imported from the
marketplace to politics and the law?
Program Evaluation
Closing Session: Driving Edge Innovations
2:30 – 3:30 PM
Harvard University
Maxwell-Dworkin Building
33 Oxford Street
Room G-115
3:30 PM
In this closing session, key findings from the Summit will be re-capped and a panel and the
plenary will be engaged in discussing lessons learned: What steps can we take to move
promising ideas from invention to impact? How can policy become more insight-driven
and responsive to societal needs? How can we engage citizens in developing solutions?
What processes and regulations do we need to modernize? As leaders, how can we pace
and manage sustained transformation? Participants will also discuss what Uptake and Edge
ideas the Summit should prioritize for the coming year.
Panelists include:
• Monica Bradshaw, State of Georgia
• Ed Burckle, State of New Mexico
• Spencer Cronk, City of Minneapolis
• Ann Ebberts, Association of Government Accountants
• Facilitator, Antonio Oftelie, Harvard University
ADJOURNMENT
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Hosted By:
The Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH) is
convening the 2015 Public Sector for the Future Summit as a component of the
Innovation Fellows program and the Public Sector Innovation Award. TECH, part of
the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is both a real and virtual
space for students, faculty, alumni, and industry leaders to learn together, collaborate
and innovate. TECH enables this holistic exploration by sponsoring and supporting
opportunities for the innovation community to gather and exchange knowledge via
courses, study groups, mentorship relationships, innovation programs and special events.
For more information on TECH visit www.tech.seas.harvard.edu.
Developed By:
Leadership for a Networked World (LNW) helps leaders ideate and activate
organizational transformations that generate capacity and sustainable value. Founded
in 1987 at Harvard Kennedy School, LNW is now an applied research initiative
of the Harvard Public Sector Innovation Award Program at the Technology and
Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard. Since 1987, LNW has delivered more than 200
learning events and gathered more than 12,000 alumni globally. To learn more about
LNW please visit www.lnwprogram.org.
In Collaboration With:
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing
company, with more than 319,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.
Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and
business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful organizations,
Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses
and governments. The 2015 Public Sector for the Future Summit is developed in
collaboration with Accenture. Find more information on Accenture’s public service
thought leadership at www.accenture.com/publicservice.
www.lnwprogram.org