The RiGNB Innovation Accelerator — a six-week intensive sprint where government and community teams co-designed solutions to complex challenges facing Children & Youth, and Older Adults in New Brunswick.
The Promising Practices Accelerator was a cohort-based innovation sprint run under the Reimagine GNB (RiGNB) initiative. Four cross-functional teams — each comprising government staff and community partners — worked through a structured six-week process to develop, test, and refine solutions to urgent challenges in two life-phase portfolios: Children & Youth (ages 0–26) and Older Adults acquiring new care needs.
The accelerator was designed and facilitated by All In Research & Innovation, Inc. in collaboration with the RiGNB team. It aimed not only to produce actionable solution prototypes, but to model the human-centred, collaborative, test-and-learn ways of working that RiGNB seeks to embed across government.
RiGNB is a cross-cutting governmental transformation initiative created by the Executive Council Office. Its goal is to apply a human-centred approach to the design and development of government services, programs, and objectives — shifting GNB's collective mindset toward innovation and expanding capabilities in design and systems thinking.
The initiative's draft transformation framework called for "a fundamental shift in how we design, deliver, and govern public services," with an operational strategy including life-events-based service integration, portfolio-based innovation governance, internal capacity building in human-centred design (HCD), and innovation performance metrics. Critically, this was not a structural reorganization — it was a transformation of how GNB thinks, works, and measures success.
RiGNB's approach was threefold: supplement slow, top-down planning with rapid, inclusive experimentation; equip public servants with tools, skills, and collaborative mindsets to work across departments and with communities; and identify, amplify, and build on successful examples already in place.
The original plan envisioned full-scale innovation labs with robust discovery phases, primary research with people with lived experience, and extended co-design. Several factors led to scaling back to a tighter accelerator format: a dramatic shift in New Brunswick's financial situation due to trade shortfalls, institutional pressure to leverage existing research rather than conduct new discovery, a backlog of existing initiatives that departments felt should be advanced before exploring new solutions, and timeline misalignment between innovation activities and budget decision cycles.
"We know what to do, we just don't have time or capacity to do it." — Recurring theme across participant feedback
Early groundwork surfaced significant barriers to successful implementation. Based on interviews, workshops, and desk research, All In identified required conditions and recommended actions before innovation work began:
Understand diverse experiences around problem-solving and innovation in GNB. Locate change champions. Co-create the vision of success with transparency about challenges. Identify enabling conditions for human-centred approaches.
Identify a cohort of HCD early adopters with existing opportunities. Leverage the Innovation Community of Practice (ICoP). Provide dedicated time, coaching, and training. Outfit early adopters with team support, ride-along coaching, and flexible budgets.
Shift processes to make collaboration the default. Shift perceptions through inspiring impact stories. Shift rewards to recognize innovation capabilities. Shift measures by establishing department-level HCD outcomes with 2–3 tracked metrics.
| Barrier | Description |
|---|---|
| Scattered Capability | Skilled HCD capability is scattered across departments or missing altogether, needing alignment and expansion |
| Undefined Metrics | Success metrics are undefined; iterative, collaborative program design is needed to support showing work early and often |
| Trust & Change Fatigue | Staff lack trust in the process due to organizational change fatigue and prior negative experiences with transformation initiatives |
| Timeline Mismatch | ROI timelines compete with the slow pace of mindset change and capability development across a workforce |
| Missing Enabling Structures | Key gaps include lack of dedicated budget for skill building, storytelling, evaluation, and removing cross-cutting barriers |
An accelerator is a cohort-based program that provides structured process and support for community and government teams to work together on promising approaches to complex challenges. It is designed to build on existing work, move from concept to implementation, and compress years of learning into months.
Move from ideas to testable, implementable solutions within the sprint period.
Test ideas with people outside the room — service users, frontline staff, community partners.
Connect teams to leadership support, coaching, subject matter experts, and cross-departmental resources.
Collaborative, hands-on practice of human-centred design and innovation methods.
Learn from and let go of solutions that don't work. Failure is data, not defeat.
Two life-phase portfolios were selected, each with two accelerator projects:
| Portfolio | Team 1 | Team 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Children & Youth | ISD Governance & Decision-Making Model | ISD Data Collection & Outcomes Measurement |
| Aging Well | Connected Caregiver Support Hub for Older Adults | Outcomes for Home Support |
The accelerator aimed to produce 4–6 opportunities identified, tested, and roadmapped to next phase; tangible changes in ways of working among the cohort (collaboration with partners, test-and-learn approach, communicating insights from failed solutions); and new narratives of what can be achieved on complex challenges.
Each team produced a tested, roadmapped solution concept. Below are the four promising practices pitched to senior leadership on December 16th.
The ISD Data team proposed redesigning the common plan as a living document with embedded critical information: demographics, cultural context, timelines, goals, and progress tracking.
Key design features:
Key insight from testing: Frontline staff liked the onboarding concept and feedback form but didn't see a strong connection to data collection. The common plan emerged as the recurring theme — staff weren't using it because it felt like too much work, and it wasn't always clear when to use it. "ISD is a way of working, not a tool."
Potential impacts: Shared ownership of ISD; measurable data to identify challenges and needs; improved collaboration; ability to evaluate integration of service delivery.
The ISD Governance team proposed a collaborative governance model to address the core finding that "decision-making should happen at the frontline."
Three key elements:
Key insight from testing: Everyone must act as owners. Accountability structures exist but aren't enforced. ISD requires defined cross-departmental authority — it should not be siloed within one department.
Potential impacts: Timely access for children and youth needing special funding; providers leveraging partner services via collaborative tools; more efficient handling of complex situations; data-informed executive decisions with a systems thinking approach.
The Older Adults' Home Support Outcomes team proposed a phased transition to outcome-based funding that acknowledges current sector concerns and constraints.
Key elements:
Key insight from testing: Agencies have complex, sophisticated systems already and serve more than just GNB clients. Concerns about privacy, fear, and trust dominate. Any solution must work with — not replace — existing infrastructure.
Potential impacts: Consistency in data collection; clarity of expectations; enhanced visibility of the sector and its impact; support for sector resilience; promotion of innovation; increased impact of better outcomes.
The Connected Caregiver Support Hub team's ah-ha moment: "We can't expect caregivers to come to us. We need to meet them where they already are."
They proposed a toolkit and education program for key caregiver touchpoints that:
Key insight from testing: Caregivers are hard to identify — many don't see themselves as caregivers, and needs are often hidden by guilt. Human connection matters most: caregivers respond to trusted people, not platforms. Help doesn't have to be big — small, practical supports (rides, companionship, short breaks) make a real difference. Adding another digital "hub" increases noise without fixing fragmentation.
Potential impacts: Help caregivers feel seen and cared for; contribute to keeping seniors home longer; provide data to inform next steps.
Between January 14th and February 19th, 2026, nineteen interviews were conducted with accelerator participants: 1 Portfolio Champion, 4 Team Facilitators, 3 Team Leads, and 11 Team Members. Their reflections revealed what worked, what didn't, and what should come next.
Participants were motivated by the explicit learning opportunity to develop innovation skills. Many practised adjacent skills — presenting, facilitating collaboration in complexity, peer leadership, and openness to change. For some it was a completely new approach they found valuable; for others it validated their preference for collaborative, agile working.
"I think it's very valuable. The way that you set out to co-design something is really important... If you kind of look back at every workshop, I'd say you had a tool at every workshop that I learned from, and I actually put in a file."
The dedicated time, speed, and structure allowed teams to focus on a single challenge and explore solutions faster than they otherwise could. Some felt their teams could have reached the same result over a much longer period; others had been working on these solutions "off the side of their desks" since 2014.
"It was eye opening to see how fast you can get something done if you ever would have the time to dedicate it to just that one thing. Holy shit. Look at what we did… I think we could have got there without this, but I'm not sure. And I also think it would have taken us a hell of a lot longer."
Perhaps the most transformative impact was in the relationships developed and strengthened. Working shoulder-to-shoulder built bonds and empathy across layers, departments, and sectors. Participants described "aha moments" around shared pain points and learning about others' contexts.
"That was what the accelerator provided us — we need to really bring that sector along with us. It really built stronger rapport and I really feel like in my role, I needed to build that with the sector."
Using prototypes to test and learn — gaining insights from users and others not in the room — was cited as a highlight. The speed of the accelerator demonstrated that tests could be carried out in manageable chunks.
"It really is about being person centred. Some of the stuff that has some potential to maintain legs and sure as hell helps me is the idea of test your ideas early."
The presence of Ministers and Deputy Ministers sent a strong signal of importance and increased visibility of the work and participants. Many felt this was not "just another exercise."
"The fact that the ministers were there, the deputy ministers were there — I didn't feel like it was another exercise just to do another exercise. I felt that it was something that was taken seriously."
Participants expressed strong appreciation for the facilitation of the overall process. Those familiar with All In felt reassured, and participants valued having dedicated internal team facilitators at the table throughout.
Some participants were "voluntold" to participate without support to offset existing responsibilities. Team facilitators wanted more preparation time. Many expressed overwhelm as the workload ran atop existing duties.
"It's going to add work. You're not going to have really a choice of what's going to be targeted. This is just a new initiative. Sorry, you're voluntold."
Participants questioned how people were chosen, some objected to specific inclusions, and many wanted more frontline and community representation. Despite onboarding materials, confusion persisted about roles, expectations, how challenge areas were determined, and how each activity linked to overall goals.
Criticisms included not starting with adequately defined problem statements, lack of time for relationship building, and the push to narrow focus on specific elements that distracted from the overall objective. Some questioned the effectiveness of the approach when it didn't match their expectations.
As of February 2026, no formal communication had been shared regarding next steps for the Aging Well teams' work. This was perceived as disrespectful and devaluing of commitment.
"It makes me feel disrespected. Fatigued. Frustrated… I understand the size of investment that was made in this accelerator, and those are expensive rooms. My time is more precious than anything else. And so it feels disrespectful."
Despite the limitations, participants expressed a strong desire to continue.
"I say we keep doing this. I think it's extremely valuable."
"Projects don't need to take a year, they don't need to take three years. You can get a lot accomplished in a few days. I love that they had the eight days."
"From this new way of working — having the government go from top down to bottom up. Having the knowledge of the people on the field to create change is fantastic."
The accelerator surfaced a fundamental dynamic: the tension between what the organization currently is and what it might become. Three key friction points illuminated this tension:
The report identifies a dynamic from organizational design literature called the "Scope Bind" — the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of design, where it is tolerated as harmless but kept sealed off from anything of strategic importance. This prevents design from doing what it does best: reframing problems by challenging fundamentals.
"Reframing problems by challenging fundamentals is a core design skill. The Scope Bind cuts designers off from this critical phase... It leads to innovations that may be coherent but strategically wrong; that miss crucial insights and opportunities to transform; or that stress continuity where radical change is called for." — Dunne, Ferguson & Korre, Redesigning Value (2025)
Based on participant reflections and analysis of the systemic tensions, the report outlines what must happen for human-centred innovation to move from isolated experiments to mainstream practice in GNB.
Creating dedicated time and space for cross-sector and cross-department collaboration on important challenges is essential to continue. Skilled facilitation to bring diverse perspectives together is a critical enabler.
The practice of testing draft concepts with service users and frontline staff was the primary method takeaway. This appears closest to ready to mainstream across the organization with proper training and support.
Skilled HCD and innovation practitioners must be hired into departments in numbers capable of supporting needs — not just small pockets of enthusiasts or one limited-scope unit. GNB needs to speak the language of human-centredness as fluently as Lean Six Sigma.
Training must include senior leaders to ensure teams are supported and ROI is maximized. Leaders need to understand how to procure, govern, and deploy design capabilities, and when HCD may be preferable to other approaches.
Use developmental evaluation to structure regular reflection on the impact of human-centred approaches. The question "When are we transformed?" may feel impossible, but regular reflection is where the organization begins to understand itself as changed.
Co-design and implement a robust organizational collective intelligence framework across departments — storytelling successes and lessons, regular cross-department standups, transparent feedback from service users, and more. This builds system-wide awareness and a rich source of innovation potential.
The accelerator demonstrated that focused efforts to address barriers can succeed, and that further action is needed even as future transformation work is planned. Participants' closing sentiment captures the aspiration:
"I think it should be like maybe an annual thing. What are the objectives that we want to work on as a province this year? What are our priorities? Put them in the accelerator at the start of the year and then go from there."
"Design has been oversold, as an easy process anyone can follow to get miraculous results. But design is neither easy nor miraculous. Nor is it just a process: it is an entirely different way of thinking and working, one that does not fit comfortably within the routines of many organizations. Failure to provide the working conditions for good design leads to underperformance, and ultimately to the failure of design." — Dunne, Ferguson & Korre, Redesigning Value (2025)