This book has explored the emergence, practice and value of innovation in the public sector. I have proposed an innovation ecosystem encompassing the four dimensions of consciousness, capacity, co-creation and courage, which can power the ability of public organisations to systematically develop and realise new ideas for the benefit of society.

With the example of a healthcare project, I opened the book by suggesting that innovation, co-creation and design are future-oriented processes that hold potential for involving diverse stakeholders in shaping new approaches to complex challenges. And I concluded the last chapter by suggesting four leadership roles that articulate innovation practices at different levels of government.

Since writing the first edition of Leading Public Sector Innovation, I have researched and explored the potential for public managers in collaborating with designers to discover, generate and realise meaningful change.

In this brief epilogue to the second edition of the book, I wish to share the six leadership practices that I have found to be especially useful to drive innovation in the public sector and, indeed, in private enterprises too. The six practices have been derived from interviews with 20 public managers in five countries who have worked closely with design teams on policy and service challenges. The managers have been at three levels – top, middle and institution – and so the six practices are applicable to the administrative level of the public sector as discussed in Chapter 12.

At the heart of this book is the notion that public sector organisations are ill-equipped to systematically explore new and better futures through involving citizens, businesses and other key stakeholders in processes of co-creation. More and more organisations are looking to design thinking and design practice in order to drive innovation. But what does the collaboration with designers ‘do’ for public managers, and, equally important: what are the management behaviours that enhance the likelihood that collaborative design projects will turn out to be successful?