Our experience

Implementing #GovLabLatvia innovation laboratories

Client

State Chancellery of Latvia

Project sponsor

European Commission’s Structural Reform Support Programme

Background

To contribute to the achievement of objectives set by the Government Reform Plan 2020 and to help the government become more efficient and advanced, in late 2018 the State Chancellery embarked on a project without precedent in Europe and Latvia: #GovLabLatvia innovation laboratories. Using elements of design thinking, the labs were looking for innovative solutions to pressing government problems. Our team was engaged to support the State Chancellery in setting up innovation labs to adopt innovative working methods, including elements of design thinking in the lab proceedings.

Challenges

The first project of its kind in Europe and Latvia
Adopting a user-oriented approach – focusing on the needs of users and engaging them in various stages of creating a solution
Shifting away from a government that fulfils statutory functions to one that serves communities
Promoting and developing collaboration between various public sectors, institutions and departments to find an effective solution to common problems
Making #GovLabLatvia sustainable by creating the necessary preconditions to ensure the innovation labs continue working successfully after completion of the project

Our solution

In collaboration with the State Chancellery, PwC set up #GovLabLatvia innovation labs to address problems in three directions:

Simplifying administrative processes to create a new approach to minimising and easing the administrative burden in Latvia;
Strategically managing the government human resources to create an innovative human capital management framework based on successful industry examples;
Building the government image and reputation to offer solutions based on global best practice for embedding values in the government.

We devised the lab content so as to ensure that a solution to any problem mainly emphasises people and their needs, and the participants, aided by an iterative approach and elements of design thinking such as prototyping, find user-oriented solutions.

Implementing #GovLabLatvia innovation laboratories

The outcome

The innovation labs resulted in a total of 16 solution prototypes being developed. One of those prototypes, Civil Servants Shadowing Business Executives, has already been implemented, giving civil servants more insights into the day-to-day running of companies. The initiative saw business executives putting up an idea or achievement or a problem they face and inviting a civil servant from a selected government agency to visit them. The first run of the initiative was attended by 35 companies and 98 civil servants.

Guidelines for easing the administrative burden were drawn up as part of #GovLabLatvia to help everyone who works for a central or local government agency, cares about the quality of public services, processes, initiatives and reforms, and wishes to make improvements by developing the best solutions.

To promote sustainable innovation, this is the first time the government has had access to a methodology manual put together by PwC that mentions 54 innovation tools and gives detailed instructions with working templates for 18 innovative methods.