So, there’s been a leadership change within your department and your new Executive Director has invited you to share the things that drive you crazy about your work, or outdated practices that you know are wasting of your time. What would the result be? A list of processes that needed transformation?
What if some of those outdated processes was similar across a number of different areas within your department?
There was a specific circumstance, within a Queensland Government department, where it became evident, after the invitation to share grievances, that much of the frustration was not the WHAT (the tasks themselves were generally accepted as necessary), but the HOW (a lack of easy access to the information needed to ensure the task could be completed efficiently).
Sound familiar?
It was realised that at a business level, there was a need to improve the way things were done, make better use of resources already available, change the way internal customers could access information, and build capability across the department by doing this.
One of the managers and her team member found a solution to the lack of accessibility to information using SharePoint – a platform already available to the team (so no need for procurement approval as there was no extra cost to purchase anything). When implemented, that department saved approximately $20,000 of lost productivity (brown money).
They added $20,000 of value to their department – simply by applying an intrapreneurial mindset. They went looking for opportunities (they’re everywhere), experimented with ideas, learnt the skills they needed (they had never set up a SharePoint site before) and found solutions within the parameters of what was available to them immediately. WOW! This is just one example of intrapreneurialism in action.
INTRAPRENEURS ARE ESSENTIAL TO GOVERNMENT. Well, essential EVERYWHERE!
This is the message that Dr. Sarah Pearson will be bringing to us at the Australian Intrapreneurs Summit on the 19th of March at the Bris Convention Centre. Dr. Pearson is the new Deputy Director-General of the Department of Innovation and Tourism Industry Development where she is heading up the Advance Qld initiative. Prior to this role she served as the Chief Scientist and Chief Innovation Officer at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Canberra. We are so excited to have her join the speaker line-up. Do check out the website https://australianintrapreneurssummit.com.au/
Hope to see you there.
Kind Regards, Irena.
