Innovation
Standards are sometimes wrongly presented as a barrier to creativity and innovation. On the contrary, standards can unlock an organisation's innovation.
Making the most of your ideas
A standard sets out the expert consensus on a point of best practice. But using standards doesn't mean relying on other people's ideas. It means ensuring you make the most of your ideas, by:
- creating a framework that encourages the sharing of knowledge and innovation
- making sure that less time is wasted within and between departments on 'reinventing the wheel'
- ensuring the interoperability of all the elements that need to tie together for a project to succeed
Getting the most out of your innovation
Take globalisation as an example. It's now a basic fact of life in the public sector. Standards can help organisations manage and exploit the challenges it presents.
"Standards offer assurance that UK programmes are compatible with those developed elsewhere in the world," says Marek Rejman-Greene, head of the Home Office's Biometrics Centre of Expertise.
Standards have a role to play at every stage of the innovation process, by:
- reducing the need for costly research and development where an off-the-shelf solution already exists
- ensuring that all new research and development follows best-practice guidelines and is geared towards an interoperable end-product
- streamlining the process of rolling out new products and services, so that quality is kept high while waste and inefficiencies are minimised
Applications across the board
Innovation is only one of the areas in which standards can deliver public-sector improvements in quality and efficieny. We've produced a guide highlighting some of the others, which you can download here.
