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Management Type Four: Peer-Vetted Creative Production Not all ideation problems have empirically “right” answers. Policy, aesthetic, and design problems are matters of subjective taste or public support. For these ideation problems, this approach to crowdsourcing is most appropriate. In type four crowdsourcing, an organization issues a challenge to an online community, the community replies with possible solutions, and the community is also empowered to choose among the submitted solutions, often through a commenting and voting mechanism. The most prominent, classic business case of this form of crowdsourcing is Threadless, a clothing company whose members submit graphic T-shirt designs and vote on the designs of peers. Threadless prints the top-rated designs and sells them back to the online community. With support from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration and in cooperation with the Utah Transit Authority (UTA), the Next Stop Design project ran in 2009–2010 as an attempt to replicate the business case of Threadless in a transit planning context. At Next Stop Design, participants were asked to respond to the challenge of designing an ideal bus stop shelter for a real transit hub in the UTA system. In just a few months and with no tangible reward offered, nearly 3,200 participants registered on the site, submitting 260 high-quality architectural renderings for bus stop shelter designs and casting more than 10,000 votes in the competition. Conclusion For a term that did not exist seven years ago, crowdsourcing has enjoyed quite an enthusiastic embrace by government agencies in the U.S. and abroad. In the U.S., there have been high-dollar calls for proposals from the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); the National Science Foundation; NASA; the Broadcasting Board of Governors; the Department of the Interior; the Department of Veterans Affairs; and other agencies that specifically use the word crowdsourcing, demonstrating a level of commitment to continue funding these innovative processes. Around the world, other governments have invested in crowdsourcing, too, and so has the United Nations, which held a meeting in 2012 to explore crowdsourced crisis mapping for disaster relief. Considering the common criticism that government moves slowly and is notoriously unwilling to take risks, the rate at which crowdsourcing has taken hold in government, in spite of its many risks, is perhaps a signal that there is a sea change happening in the business practices of government and the way citizens engage with elected officials and public administrators. In the spirit of participatory democracy, this is no doubt a good sign. ¥ TO LEARN MORE Using Crowdsourcing In Government by Daren C. Brabham The report can be obtained: • In .pdf (Acrobat) format at the Center website, www.businessofgovernment.org • By e-mailing the Center at businessofgovernment@us.ibm.com • By calling the Center at (202) 551-9342 94 www.businessofgovernment.org The Business of Government
Forum: Six Trends Driving Change in Government Management This article is adapted from Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, Coordinating for Results: Lessons from a Case Study of Interagency Coordination in Afghanistan, (Washington, DC: IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2013). Coordinating for Results: Lessons from a Case Study of Interagency Coordination in Afghanistan By Andrea Strimling Yodsampa Interagency coordination is an essential element of effective public leadership. Few agencies have the funding, expertise, or influence to achieve their goals single-handedly. Moreover, complex problems require interdisciplinary—and hence interagency—solutions. To succeed, public executives and managers must leverage the financial, human, and organizational resources of multiple agencies. This requires coordination. Coordination, however, is easier said than done. Agencies differ in their goals, priorities, and cultures. They compete for resources and turf. And they have different interests and concerns relative to coordination itself. Coordination also takes time and money; coordination processes must compete for resources with other mission needs and priorities. Compounding these challenges, executives and managers rarely have line authority over agencies and individuals with whom they must coordinate. In the face of these challenges, how can executives and managers deliver consistent coordinated results? Those who have led or served on interagency teams often argue that coordination is driven by personalities and relationships. Personalities and relationships do matter, of course. Public executives and managers must pay careful attention to the composition of interagency teams. But they must not stop there. Attitudes and relationships are deeply affected by organizational factors. Therefore, public executives and managers must institutionalize systems and processes that foster the attitudes, relationships, and behaviors conducive to coordination. A case study of U.S. stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2009 illuminates concrete examples of successful coordination amidst extensive coordination failures. It then identifies the organizational systems and processes that made those successes possible. While the Afghan context was unique in many respects, the agencies on the ground faced many of the same challenges domestic agencies face in attempting to coordinate. The lessons about interagency coordination therefore are broadly relevant. Background The U.S. experience in Afghanistan demonstrates that coordination is possible even in the most challenging of contexts. Civil-military coordination in Afghanistan was immensely difficult. The Department of Defense, Department of State, and USAID differed not only in their priorities and timelines, but also in their organizational cultures, lexicons, and operating norms. Power disparities, reflected in DoD’s overwhelming financial and human resources on the ground, contributed to longstanding mistrust and tension between civilians and military. Add to this the fact that they were working seven days a week in complex, volatile, and often dangerous conditions, and a perfect storm for interagency conflict and competition ensued. In such a context, it is not surprising that coordination often floundered. What is significant is that civilians and military on the ground delivered some important coordinated results. These coordinated results, in turn, advanced agency missions, saved resources, and contributed to the achievement of U.S. and multinational goals in Afghanistan. The case study shows that when coordinated results were achieved, it was because civilians and military put in place organizational systems and processes conducive to coordination. When coordination failed, it was because critical factors necessary for consistent coordinated results were lacking. While these lessons emerged in a unique context, they are relevant to public executives and managers seeking to enhance coordination in any issue area or context. SPRING 2014 IBM Center for The Business of Government 95
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