Can a government hire reputable entrepreneurs to launch Are strategic projects for the country underway? Can you do it in the particular case of the technology sector, to create new services based on web technologies, or quickly implement a new technology throughout the administration? Can you do it to radically change the way public administration works?
It may sound bizarre, unreal, for some utopian and for others an aberration… but it is exactly what an innovative program of the United States government does. The project began with the addition of Todd Parkas CTO of the United States federal government, a well-known businessman with no prior experience in public administration. Todd tells in this videoas He brought the principles of lean entrepreneurship to the American administration and how he was able to launch in record time and at a very low cost various services within the HHS (Department of Health or U.S. Department of Health & Human Services).
Now, Todd Park has launched a new program within HHS called “entrepreneurs-in-residence” (see wikipedia) to incorporate more private sector entrepreneurs within the health department creating small teams with ambitious missions. These teams have a maximum of six months to launch key projects in the American administration and to do so they follow lean methodologies. You can see some of the projects that want to launch here.
Can we imagine a program with similar characteristics in European governments? What would be the response of entrepreneurs and businessmen? How would the structures of public administrations react? This sounds like science fiction to me.