Strategic Innovation Clinic Series 2022 | Sessions Schedule

Why “Strategic” Innovation? – The Challenge of Transformation

Join this session to explore why incremental innovation is not enough to address complex development challenges, and why transformation requires a different innovation paradigm. We will discuss what this all means for UNDP and how we can accelerate the shift towards “strategic” innovation advocated by the new UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025. 

Open to all

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Ask Me Anything – So What Exactly Do We Mean by “Projects to Portfolios”?

Join this session to learn about the basic principles of portfolio work and set the stage for the clinic series. This is a chance to share your questions, doubts, and hear examples of what is emerging from pioneers of portfolio practice within UNDP, as well as the devil’s advocates!

Internal to UNDP

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How Do We Organize Ourselves for Scale?

Join this session to explore two concrete examples of change at scale. From transforming all streets of Sweden to connecting 500 million people to the grid, this session will discuss how to tackle large scale missions through portfolios and system approaches. The clinic aims to support COs with approaching large scale transformations through reframing what we mean by scale, building movements, and leveraging a portfolio logic.

Internal to UNDP

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Building a Culture That Thinks Portfolios (Not Projects) First

Join this session to reflect on approaches that regions and Country Offices are adopting to create a culture shift towards a “portfolio first” mindset. “From projects to portfolio” does not mean that we are going to get rid of projects. Rather, it means adopting a “portfolio first” mindset: a culture that examines strategically where to deploy its assets based on the overall risk and opportunities profile of the overall portfolio. It means positioning UNDP as a partner to deliver complex development challenges. This can be difficult to achieve in the context of an organization where identities, rewards and incentives are designed around individual projects.

Internal to UNDP

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Organizing your Office to Deliver on Portfolios

Join this session to learn how you can organize your office to apply portfolio approaches, embrace agility and learning, and deliver a different value proposition to partners. Unpacking and addressing challenges like depopulation, trust, urban change or digital transformation, requires interdisciplinary teams that can bring partners together, move from analysis to action quickly, and adapt over time. Current modus operandi is capabilities and resources are locked at project level, with limited spaces for joint/cross-team learning. Unlocking the potential of individual team members and enabling cross-fertilization of ideas and learnings, has the potential to usher a new era of better recognizing and growing talent, more strategic interventions and a more adaptive organization.

Internal to UNDP

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Activating Accelerator Labs R&D for Portfolio Work

Join this session to explore the role of strategic versus tactical innovation and how they work together towards transformative impact. UNDP has invested significantly over the years to build the tactical muscle of exploration, experimentation and learning, which provides an essential capability for governments and development organizations to generate new insights and rapidly prototype a variety of solutions. However, helping our partners and governments “solve the puzzle” requires augmenting the fast delivery, tactical capability with a long term, strategic approach grounded in an understanding of human-environmental systems and their dynamics.

Internal to UNDP

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Beyond Logframes – How Can We Build Agility and Learning in Our Work?

Join this session to explore what M&E approaches might privilege continuous learning and adaptation, take a systems view, and look to measuring aggregated results across a portfolio. This clinic discusses the emerging adaptive M&E practices on the ground and the M&E Sandbox developed at the corporate level to accelerate learning, navigate uncertainty and accommodate unexpected change. What are we learning about useful practices, what are the pain points for working in this way, and what does this mean for UNDP’s capabilities, systems, and practices?

Internal to UNDP

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Developing a Distinctive Value Proposition – Talking Portfolios to Donors and Governments

Join this session to learn how we can develop a portfolio value proposition and talk portfolios to donors. This clinic will aim to help participants develop an understanding of how to frame their products and offerings into investable propositions that align with the needs of donors. This approach will not only help bring a holistic view to the work we do but also create a seamless narrative of how we are creating systemic change. The panelists will explore various ideas and challenges while sharing real-life examples and methodologies; enabling the participants to implement this approach into their work.

Internal to UNDP

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