Cal-IPGCA Glossary

Cal-IPGCA Terminology

1. Board of Advisors: The Cal-IPGCA Board of Advisors serves as the front-line outreach conduit to State of California leadership and our state’s workforce. They support each cohort program by facilitating the key challenges identified that serve as the program’s Innovation Priorities (IPs).
2. Cal-IPGCA Association: The Cal-IPGCA Association was organized by graduating trainees from Cohort 2017. Graduating trainees become members of the association and carry the designation “alumni.” Membership is open to all persons (public and private) with an interest in supporting government innovation. It’s Mission: To model leadership that promotes creativity, innovation, and growth to transform government.
3. Cal-IPGCA Program Management: The Cal-IPGCA Program Management Team bridges the functions of the executive sponsors and cohort trainees into the real time program structure. They facilitate and guide the moonshot projects and the ongoing cohort program activities.
4. Change Challenge Forum: The Cal-IPGCA Board of Advisors are Change Challengers. In Q&A Forums, a cross-agency leadership panel shares their individual and collective experience on reimagining government – what can be as opposed to what has been. Kicking off each Cal-IPGCA program date, these forums ignite and inspire the moonshot teams by providing strategic insight and wisdom and an open forum for discussion.
5. Change Management: Activities involved in (1) defining and instilling new values, attitudes, norms, and behaviors within an organization that support new ways of doing work and overcome resistance to change; (2) building consensus among customers and stakeholders on specific changes designed to better meet their needs; and (3) planning, testing, and implementing all aspects of the transition from one organizational structure or business process to another.
6. Cohort: the collective group of Cal-IPGCA trainees, facilitators, and program management who work through a 5-month program year together.
7. Dashboard: An information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes and displays key performance indicators (KPI), metrics and key data points to monitor the health of an organization, department or specific process. Dashboards are customizable to meet the specific needs of the user(s). Behind the scenes, a dashboard connects to files, attachments, services and APIs, but on the surface displays all this data in the form of tables, line charts, bar charts and gauges. A data dashboard is the most efficient way to track multiple data sources because it provides a central location for organizations to monitor and analyze performance.
8. Data Analytics: Refers to qualitative and quantitative techniques and processes used to enhance productivity and business gain. Data is extracted and categorized to identify and analyze behavioral data and patterns, and techniques vary according to organizational requirements.
9. Data Driven Management: An approach to organizational governance that values decisions that can be backed up with verifiable data. The success of the data-driven approach is reliant upon the quality of the data gathered and the effectiveness of its analysis and interpretation.
10. Data Driven Storytelling: The process of translating verifiable data and analyses into non-technical language in order to influence decisions or actions.
11. Data Visualization: A general term that describes any effort to help people understand the significance of data by placing it in a visual context. Patterns, trends and correlations that might go undetected in text-based data can be exposed and recognized easier with data visualization software.
12. Day of Innovation: The culmination day of a 5-month Cal-IPGCA Program Cohort. This program date includes the Innovationist presentations, guest speakers, teamed IP presentations and the cohort graduation ceremony.
13. Delivery: The act of bringing services or programs to citizens and end users.
14. Deployment Plan: The Cal-IPGCA deployment plan outlines the scope, approach and execution planned for the deployment of a team’s IP deliverables. The plan includes, where relevant, information about system support, issue tracking, escalation processes, and roles and responsibilities before, during, and after deployment. Within a Cal-IPGCA cohort over the 5-month program, teams develop a white paper and deployment plan based on the 8-Step Path as applied to each team’s IP. Teams then present their white paper and deployment plan at the culmination of the program on the Day of Innovation.
15. Eight-Step Path: Created by Director Daniel Kim, his 8-Step Path to achieve innovative outcomes is incorporated into the deployment plan of each team’s IP. The 8-steps are as follows: Step 1. Urgency – Make the case for change. Step 2. Opportunity – Show them what the future can hold. Step 3. Incentives – What can they get out of this? Step 4. Resources – Give them the tools to succeed. Step 5. Planning – Show them how. Step 6. Accountability – Who does what by when? Step 7. Metrics – What gets measured gets done. Step 8. Recognition – Honor achievement.
16. Employee Retention: Efforts by an organization to maintain a working environment that encourages current staff to remain with a company or organization.
17. Executive Coaching: Executive coaching facilitates applied professional growth and is a component of the Cal-IPGCA cohort. Over the 5-month course, two, 45-minute spot coaching sessions are conducted. Participants work with a certified coach, using the Leadership Energizes 360! Executive coaching focuses on the present and future self. While some background is necessary, executive coaches will not analyze or try to diagnose psychological behaviors—this would be counseling. Instead, the conversation evolves to help participants better understand themselves, internal and external obstacles, strengths, and professional goals. The coaches challenge the discussion through active listening, and the conversation only goes where the participant chooses to take it. The two sessions are one-on-one and confidential.
18. Executive Sponsors: Cal-IPGCA’s five executive sponsors are California Government Operations Agency, California Department of General Services, California Franchise Tax Board, APSEA, and ORA Systems, Inc. Both individually and collectively, they are strategists and pathfinders leading the deployment of government innovation. As stewards they advance the human potential of state employees and organizations. These sponsors serve as the overarching framework and support system of each Cal-IPGCA Cohort program.
19. Experiential Learning: Cal-IPGCA deploys the GovOps-CalHR 9 Leadership Values through work-based LMS Training modules. The 5-Minute Training Modules feature state leadership as they articulate a lesson that trainees then demonstrate as applied outcomes in their personal and professional lives and teamed innovation projects. These videos are released on two or three mornings of each week during the 5-Month training series. Trainees receive their published results in an individual Innovation Playbook at the culmination of the cohort.
20. Facilitator: A person who helps to bring about an outcome by providing indirect or unobtrusive assistance, guidance, or supervision. Each Cal-IPGCA moonshot team has a facilitator.
21. Facilitator Assistant: A person in training to be a facilitator and assisting in facilitation functions. Each Cal-IPGCA moonshot team has one or two facilitator assistants. Only graduate trainees of Cal-IPGCA can apply to train as a facilitation assistant.
22. Implicit Bias (Also known as Unconscious Bias): Social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various social and identity groups, and these biases stem from one’s tendency to organize social worlds by categorizing.
23. Innovation Playbook: At the culmination of each Cal-IPGCA Cohort, all full-time trainees will receive both an individual and a team Innovation Playbook. These playbooks document the compiled history of each trainee’s program participation and include their experiential learning responses by date as well as all teamed outcomes.
24. IP (Innovation Priority): Each Cal-IPGCA Cohort has five or six Innovation Priorities (IPs), which focus on the most critical enterprise-wide challenges facing state government in California. Each IP is assigned to a team to develop their moonshot over the course of the 5-month program. Each IP moonshot is then considered for statewide deployment.
25. Innovation Sprint: Short bursts of coordinated activity centered on challenges and opportunities. Agile innovation allows organizations to generate and implement valuable ideas at a rapid rate.
26. Knowledge Transfer: In organizational theory, knowledge transfer is the practical problem of transferring knowledge from one part of the organization to another. Like knowledge management, knowledge transfer seeks to organize, create, capture or distribute knowledge and ensure its availability for future users.
27. KollaborNation (https://kollabornation.net/): KollaborNation is the Cal-IPGCA program web-based platform and the 24/7 environment for all full and part-time trainees. It is accessible from a PC, laptop, iPad and smartphone. On KollaborNation, trainees can access all past and current program information and outcomes, their individual and team group platforms, as well as the Cal-IPGCA library and resources. The only pages accessible to the public are the Homepage and the About section. All other areas are restricted for Cal-IPGCA trainee use only.
28. KPI’s (Key Performance Indicator’s): The critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result. KPIs provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most.
29. Leadership Values: Developed by GovOps and CalHR, these nine, state-wide Leadership Values create, embed and nurture a statewide leadership culture. They are incorporated into recruitment, onboarding, training, and performance management for leaders across state service.
30. Leadership Energizes 360!: This tool measures your leadership impacts as a snapshot in time across three broad areas: Individual Behavior and Characteristics, Group and Team Processes, and Organizational Context. The 360-degree assessment collects observations from you as well as from those to whom you report, your peers, and those who report to you. Leadership Energizes 360! is specifically designed for current and emerging leaders who are serious about their professional development and growth. As a personal leadership assessment, this web-based assessment has been designed to address your goals and ensure a positive experience for users.
31. Metric: A quantifiable measure that is used to track and assess the status of a specific business process.
32. Moonshot: Reimagining an outcome. Creating a capacity for 10 x rather than incremental improvement. Originating as Google terminology, instead of incremental improvement, a moonshot aims for an exponential improvement over what currently exists. The essence of a Moonshot is the combination of a huge problem, a re-imagined solution to that problem, and the creation of innovative ideas that can shift approach and outcomes of people, process and technology to make that solution possible. To develop their Moonshot projects, the Cohort Innovation Teams are given enterprise-wide government challenges, identified by the Cal-IPGCA Board of Advisors, or other key state leadership.
33. Moonshot Teams: Each Cal-IPGCA cohort trainee is assigned to a moonshot team. Under the guidance and direction of a team facilitator and facilitator assistant, each moonshot team strives to develop outcomes with exponential rather than incremental improvement. They develop their IP over the course of the 5-month program to present at the Day of Innovation for statewide deployment consideration. Moonshot teams are also guided by SMEs as well as project champions, program sponsors, advisors and management. The collective teamed outcomes are published as a Cohort-wide Innovation Playbook.
34. Moonshot Project Champions: Champions are both state and private enterprise leaders and SMEs that provide strategic direction to projects because they have a shared interest in the project outcome.
35. PDH (Professional Development Hour): Each Cal-IPGCA trainee who successfully completes the program requirements will receive a Certificate of Completion awarding earned PDHs during the Day of Innovation. The PDHs awarded qualify under the State of California’s biennial leadership training requirements (GC19995.4).
36. Problem Statement: A concise description of an issue to be addressed or a condition to be improved upon. It identifies the gap between the current (problem) state and desired (goal) state of a process or product. Problem statements often have three elements: 1) the problem itself, stated clearly and with enough contextual detail to establish why it is important; 2) the method of solving the problem, often stated as a claim or a working thesis; and 3) the purpose, statement of objective and scope of the document the writer is preparing.
37. Prototyping Model: A systems development method in which a prototype (an early approximation of a final system or product) is built, tested, and then reworked as necessary until an acceptable prototype is finally achieved from which the complete system or product can now be developed.
38. Risk Aversion: The behavior of humans, when exposed to uncertainty, to attempt to reduce that uncertainty. It is the reluctance of a person to accept an option with an uncertain payoff rather than another option with a more certain, but possibly lower, expected payoff.
39. Risk Management: The forecasting and evaluation of risks together with the identification of procedures to avoid or minimize their impact.
40. ROI (Return on Investment): An indicator used to measure the value of a project in relation to its cost. Typically, it is used in determining whether a project will yield a positive payback and have value.
41. Silo: Occurs when departments or management groups do not share information, goals, tools, priorities and processes with other departments. The silo mentality is believed to impact operations, reduce employee morale and may contribute to the overall failure of an organization or its products and culture.
42. SME (Subject Matter Expert): A person who is an authority in a particular area or topic.
43. Standardization: Processes have exactly the same steps, in the same sequence, and completed by the same rules for all units doing the process. At an even more stringent level, standardization means that the process runs at the same speed and maintains a stated level of inventories. But when customers demand varying outcomes or service levels, standardization needs to allow variations to meet those different needs.
44. Succession Planning: A process for identifying and developing new leaders who can replace current leaders when they leave the organization. Succession planning increases the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared to assume these roles as they become available.
45. Team Champion: Team champions are leaders and SMEs that provide strategic direction to projects because they share an interest in the project outcome.
46. Upskilling: To enhance and improve an employee’s abilities and skills, usually through training.
    
47. White Paper: The literal definition of a white paper is a government or other authoritative report giving information or proposals on an issue. Within a Cal-IPGCA cohort over the 5-month program, each team develops a white paper and deployment plan based on the 8-Step Path as applied to each team’s IP. Each team presents their white paper and deployment plan at the culmination of the program on the Day of Innovation.