An incumbent to this position reports directly to the Executive Director of Strategic Planning. Under the general direction of the Executive Director of Strategic Planning, the Chief Innovation Officer works to implement an innovation strategy and ecosystem in order to foster positive change with a focus on measures that reduce costs, increase revenue, and/or improve departmental operations and performance, service delivery and quality of life while helping to maintain a culture of cross-departmental collaboration and continuous improvement. The Chief Innovation Officer will lead a team of innovators that work with internal and external stakeholders to co-develop and implement new ideas that improve residents’ lives, set strategic priorities, and build a culture of innovation. 

TYPICAL WORK ACTIVITIES

• Work with internal stakeholders to develop and implement a city-wide innovation strategy.
• Promote, encourage and lead innovation inside and outside of City Hall
• Manage a team that will foster innovation and work with departments to identify and implement new ideas to increase efficiency and performance. 
• Lead innovation trainings, build capacity, and shift the culture across municipal government
• Challenge the status quo and encourage creative ways to increase performance
• Build cross-functional teams specific to each innovation project 
• Engage with departments in the city, other public sector agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private sector companies in establishing collaborations and offering support to solve policy challenges that are relevant to the City 
• Promote and embed design-based innovation and other innovation approaches to problem solving within city government
• Utilizes a data driven and evidence-based approach to recommend innovation and performance improvement. 
• Advocate for and employ best-practice digital service design, technology, and digital service transformation skills to generate improved experiences for residents
• Manage the diverse skill sets of the innovation team to maximize creativity and impact
• Maintain strong relationships and foster collaboration among a broad set of stakeholders, including senior government officials and private and nonprofit sector leaders in the community
• Communicate progress to stakeholders, including regular reporting to the Mayor and the Executive Director of Strategic Planning;
• Ensure that there are clear and appropriate implementation plans for delivery on all major initiatives in the identified priority areas
• Identify internal priorities, goals and metrics to measure success
• Provide guidance, mentorship, assistance, and feedback regarding innovation and performance best practices to City employees
• Establish a process for public employees, citizens, professionals, and academics to effectively contribute innovative ideas
• Develop and implement new ideas that have a positive impact on residents' lives
• Develop and manage a life-cycle process for test projects, to include design, deployment, testing, and performance evaluation
• Plan, organize, and establish agreement around intended outcomes through active engagement of diverse stakeholder groups
• Provide overall innovation leadership, both to the Innovation Team and City of Buffalo as a whole, including by serving as a consultant and facilitator for City employees seeking to develop new solutions to civic challenges
• Leverage technology and work with Executive Director of Strategic Planning or a designee to innovate new and existing services
• Locate and support new process improvement opportunities
• Compile and prepare Innovation and Performance Reports for the Mayor on a regular basis and when requested;
• Develops a performance management strategy that leverages city data for better alignment of city resources (human, financial, capital, strategic) outcomes; decision-making, departmental collaboration;
• Lead performance review sessions based on executive briefings developed by a team of analysts, the data reported by departments, and the Mayor’s priorities;
• Develop meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) for departments participating in the stat process;
• Automate performance reporting and visualization of the KPIs as groups of KPIs are standardized;
• Increase access to city data both internally and externally;
• Identify opportunities for advanced analytics that support the priorities of the administration;
• Champion data visualization and process improvement training to increase the ranks of employees within departments fluent in translating data into insight, process mapping, and performance improvement;
• Coordinate improvement sessions applying lean and six sigma principals to broken processes that are causing performance deficits as measured by KPIs discussed in the “stat” process;
• Perform other tasks as delegated by the Executive Director of Strategic Planning; 

FULL PERFORMANCE – KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS=

• Thorough knowledge of principles and practices of design-based innovation, data, digital innovation, or other innovation methods and tools
• Good knowledge of the geographic, social and economic structure of the City of Buffalo
• Good knowledge of municipal governance
• Good knowledge of best practices and available tools for insourcing, crowdsourcing and community-sourcing innovative solutions
• Analytical capabilities (i.e., quantitative data analysis and qualitative investigation such as research, interviews, and observations)
• Skilled in project management, performance management, and facilitation
• Skilled in Microsoft 365 suite
• Skilled in developing and managing a high-performing team and driving standards of excellence within an organization
• Skilled in creative and critical thinking
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to identify trends and factors influencing performance
• Ability to analyze large amounts of data and to present information succinctly and understandably
• Ability to establish targets and deliver measurable results on time and within budget
• Ability to communicate with and inspire individuals, teams and groups to think ambitiously and creatively
• Aptitude for moving people outside their comfort zones to embrace new approaches, mindsets, and solutions
• Ability to work with senior government leaders and deliver significant innovation results and impact
• Ability to leverage networks and mobilize stakeholder groups to identify innovative solutions to civic challenges
• Experience facilitating workshops and other meetings with senior-level stakeholders
• Knowledge of performance management programs, CitiStat programs (or equivalent programs), and accountability models that foster cultures of continuous improvement
• Skill in motivating and empowering all levels of staff to be proactive and participatory in recognizing needed changes in policy and work practices; developing and implementing such changes
• Skill in application of such principles and practices as program evaluation, policy analysis, organizational development, and organizational learning to ensure pro-active programs/operations that meet City and citizen needs

• Skill in working with senior executives to develop and implement organizational strategy, action plans, and tracking and measuring attainment of organizational goals
• Ability to oversee a citywide comprehensive performance management program that includes design and development of departmental performance management agreements, Citistat programs (or equivalent programs), and continuous improvement processes focused on improving operations through consultant measure of key data and metrics;
• Excellent written and oral communication

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

The Chief Innovation Officer possesses a Bachelor’s degree or higher from a college or university recognized by a regional, national, or specialized agency as an accrediting agency by the U.S. Department of Education/U.S. Secretary of Education, and 4+ years of relevant experience in managing complex projects and leading cross-functional teams, preferably in a government setting, or an equivalent combination of training and experience sufficient, in the opinion of the Commissioner of Human Resources, to indicate the ability to perform the duties of the position.

A graduate degree in a relevant field (urban planning, public policy, creative studies, design, economics, business, law, computer science, data science, engineering, management information systems, analytics, etc.) is preferred. 

$ 109,148