Innovation doesn’t occur without experimentation. We’re moving the County forward by taking smart, calculated risks.
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What is Innovation?
It’s not just a buzzword to us. We define innovation with three simple criteria.
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Our Focus Areas
Currently our projects fall into three categories based on County need, opportunity and interest.
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Safe Place to Fail
The Innovation Program will follow a small set of basic principles that will help us create a “safe place to fail.”
The Innovation Program is new to the County and questions about how it will operate will continually present themselves. These may be questions with no clear answer, but reflecting on the basic principles may help guide us to answers.
Be the “Department of Yes” – Test as many ideas as our resources will allow.
Use the best, invent the rest – Take the best ideas and lessons from others whenever possible and go from there. Invent only when you have to.
Work quickly and move on – The Program is not meant to own other programs.
Understand the current state – Spend time with departments and in the community.
Keep churning – Avoid insular thinking by staying fluid; continuously bring outside resources in and shift inside resources out.
If we’re not failing occasionally we’re not trying hard enough – In order to create a safe place to experiment and try, we have to be comfortable with the occasional misstep.
Innovation Criteria
The Montgomery County Innovation Program, led by the CInO, coordinates, promotes, identifies, educates, manages, and executes a variety of projects and ideas designed to institutionalize and support the County’s Innovation Program objectives. Broadly stated, for any new or ongoing project/idea to be included in this program, it must meet the following base criteria:
The concept is entrepreneurial, iterative, and testable. This means that desired outcomes can be identified and measured in a lean, focused way.
The project is experimental, and thus has some degree of inherent risk. The project involves a new process, technology, or skill that is not yet fully understood in the context of County operations.
The concept is scalable to provide a meaningful return on investment. If deemed viable the concept can be implemented more broadly.
Due to County need, opportunity and interest, three focus areas have emerged in the Innovation Program.
These core focus areas are not meant to limit the ideas innovators submit to the program, but they do effectively describe the projects we are currently working on. Exploring current projects may spark an entirely new idea that will improve the quality of life for County residents.
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The Innovation Program is managed by the Office of the Montgomery County Executive in collaboration with County departments, community partners, academia, and innovative businesses.
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