Facilitating Innovation in the Federal Statistical System Summary of a Workshop (2011) / Chapter Skim
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3 Barriers to Innovation
3 Barriers to Innovation
Pages 23-32
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From page 23... ...
Census Bureau in the early 1990s and his involvement in projects to reduce mea surement and nonresponse errors. He observes that three interconnected features of large government survey organizations make it difficult to create an environment of innovation: 1.
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At the same time, those from the research culture have in mind carefully designed treatment factors and a full factorial design. Preordained rules of assignment to treatment and control groups as well as rules for interpretation of evidence must be scrupulously followed.
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Difficulty of Resolving the Culture Differences Dillman notes that government statistical agencies, such as the Census Bureau, are highly complex organizations with many different tasks.1 Not only are there several levels of hierarchy inside the organization, which makes identifying the originator of any material difficult, but also, and more importantly, there are several levels of hierarchy outside the statistical agency. He noted, for example, that the then-proposed 2000 research and development program of the Census Bureau might go through a minimum of eight entities outside the agency.
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A further problem of hierarchical decision making, according to Dillman, is that horizontal flows of innovative ideas and the promotion of active discussion of these ideas at an early stage are discouraged. In the absence of a more formal regularized process to discuss possible innovations, the ideas that do flow horizontally are usually by word of mouth.
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With respect to not being able to attract sufficient num bers of new staff with the correct skill set, he observed that prospective students know which organizations are research friendly and that leadership is needed to create research friendly organizations. Following on this subject, Ivan Fellegi (Statistics Canada)
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Citro noted that one of the barriers related to communication is a lack of understanding between the user community and the research community and between the federal statistical agencies and private contractors. Allen Schirm (Mathematica Policy Research)
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In response to earlier comments from Graham Kalton about the need for large, major innovation projects, Madans suggested that implementation of big innovation projects can set up a tension between who is thought to be doing innovation and who is not. One of the results of this tension can be a lack of communication between the operations staff and the research staff.
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Therefore, the federal statistical system should remove any barriers that prevent linking communities inside and outside government that employ statisticians. For example, the federal system should look to other mature organizations that have encountered the barriers discussed in the background papers and in the workshop discussions.
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As an example, he stated that the recent recession did create such a mandate for improve ments in data collection in the service sector, and the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program became a very easy sell in the wake of the recent financial crisis. With respect to procurement and recruitment, Carlson said that current government-wide rules make it difficult, if not impossible, to enter into flexible agreements with contractors to pursue innovation projects.
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Agency research organizations are properly dedicated to the function of research, although they can still be integrated into the work of the agency. Users as a Barrier With respect to the barriers to innovation, Eva Jacobs (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
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