Summary: The Innovation Delivery Model

Rule exemption initiatives, focused on granting more discretionary authority to agencies or jurisdictions, can convincingly prove that the rules inhibit them from innovating and creating more value. The innovation delivery model, a novel approach to navigating the bureaucratic hurdles in municipal innovation, can provide a problem-centric, data-driven, cross-silo process with strong support from the political executive. Finally, behavioural insight approaches are built on the premise that science and evidence can support fewer and better rules that drive more innovative approaches. These approaches have not yet spread widely or matured fully, and therefore it is not possible to draw conclusions about their effectiveness or universal applicability.

But if the case is just a little bit more complex, and the pros and cons of rules and procedures are slightly more nuanced, it is more helpful to look at the broader picture and consider the situation in light of the values in which the bureaucratic organisation is rooted. Cutting rules left and right may actually do more harm than good and does not address the real issue. Innovation is a delicate art that deserves careful attention, strong support and perseverance. Fortunately, public organisations and their leaders are increasingly motivated and dedicated to making the practice of innovation a permanent component of their leadership strategies. Based on what is known about rules and procedures on the one hand, and drivers of innovation on the other, it seems that a positive opportunity-oriented approach, focused on building capacity to solve social problems, is more promising than a negative obstacle-oriented approach, focused on rules and

Recently, a growing number of cities have adopted the innovation delivery team model, promoted and facilitated by Bloomberg Philanthropies. This provides researchers with an opportunity to do systematic comparative case studies on the conditions under which this particular response to inert government bureaucracies is most likely to be successful.
· Develop more in-depth research and provide practical advice on how to use and manage discretion to achieve public sector innovation. This could lead to investigating the value of developing performance frameworks that allow civil servants to focus on outcomes and to manage risks. It would also develop better knowledge about what skills are needed to take decisions in a context of uncertainty.
It has taken almost the entire 20th century to construct robust, reliable and replicable models of bureaucratic organisation, to celebrate their merits and understand their limits. Government innovators and scholars around the world are now in the process of constructing and identifying models that address the undesirable outcomes associated with bureaucracy, while preserving and upholding its most important underlying