The recommendations in this report offer a multi- year roadmap for civic innovation – they cannot all be reasonably and effectively accomplished instantaneously. Instead, these initiatives should be incorporated into existing short-term and long- term work plans so as to allow departments the opportunity of identifying priorities, staffing, and funding resources in consultation with the City Manager and City Council as part of the City’s two- year budget cycle.
Successful implementation requires that each discrete initiative in this report be assigned an Owner and a Sponsor. The Owner is responsible for day-to-day implementation and is typically, but not always, a Division Manager in the City. The Sponsor is responsible for the overall success of the initiative and is usually a Department Director. In most cases, several departments or divisions will collaborate and partner for the successful implementation of an initiative. Regardless of the number of partnering departments or divisions, only one Owner and one Sponsor should be assigned to each initiative. Identification of Owners and Sponsors for each initiative should be provided at the City’s next budget cycle milestone.
While each initiative will be assigned an Owner and Sponsor, it is important that partners within or outside City Hall are engaged to collaborate on the development and implementation of each initiative.
For example, the City’s Innovation and Strategic Initiatives Division and Innovation Catalyst Group can offer support and advise Owners on problem solving, developing implementation strategies, generating effective assessment tools, and establishing specific, measurable targets. In addition, partnering with the City’s businesses community may also provide new insights into innovative delivery of services, help identify new innovation opportunities, and cultivate a cross-sector collaborative culture.
The innovation process is not static but a continuous cycle of investigation, discovery, implementation, and adaptation. Therefore, the initiatives and solutions in this report will evolve along with the emergence and adoption of new technologies and changes in citywide priorities. New initiatives will be added to department’s work plans as others get implemented successfully. In order to track the success and evolution of each initiative in this report, the status of each initiative should be updated and included at each budget cycle milestone as well as reported in future Innovations Annual Reports. Developing annual evaluations of progress towards key goals and metrics for the City will help show the positive impact of innovative programs across departments and content areas.
These efforts will help build on West Hollywood’s success as a beacon of civic innovation.