how to do innovation
This post is part of innov-hate, a brief series of thoughts and reflections on innovation in Government.
How do you do innovation?
In what is innovation I spoke about the differences in context and risk spectrum between private and public sector innovation and reframed activity in the latter as speculative (distinct from discovery).
Speculate was the best word I could come up with. I’m not entirely happy with it. It can mean
- think and talk — form a theory
- act — take a chance
I mean the combination of both. More specifically I mean
- think and talk — to identify specific opportunities to better solve problems or improve outcomes and then
- act — to prove the concept in context to lower the risk and increase the ease of adoption.
We will look at these in turn.
Innovation needs wide networks and deep thinking
Thinking deeply and talking about ways to deliver outcomes, about opportunities which currently exist beyond your organisational context or norms is healthy. Many pieces of work kick off by examining what people have done elsewhere — ‘let’s look at the [enter name of country or company] model’.
However, talking too confidently too early about potential outcomes without consideration of context and pre-requisites such as infrastructure, standards, ethics, skills and culture carries risk and will set unrealistic expectations. (It is also equally irresponsible to dismiss opportunities out of hand). I believe there is a process.
1. Exploration and experiences: finding the dots
Making a conscious effort to widen and strengthen your understanding of opportunities and choices. Be hungry for knowledge. A big part of this is engaging with people, consulting experts — both inside and outside of your profession, organisation or industry — to broaden your experiences and boundaries. This step needs
- humbleness and coming to terms with your own ignorance
- curiosity and courage to embrace uncertainty and the unknown
- openness to new points of view, information, contradictions, and challenges to your own way of thinking
Plus of course the permission or authority to do this.
Meet-ups, unconferences, social media, blogposts, articles, academic papers and of course purposefully talking to new people are all great for understanding what is possible, improving savviness and providing fuel for cultivating hunches. Openness and sharing experiences is vital to innovation — but so is understanding the context of those you are engaging with.
2. Inspiration and ideation: connecting the dots
This part is difficult to define — but it is rarely a lightbulb eureka moment. It needs
- time and space to think deeply
- a childlike mindset to create and imagine without boundaries
- patience and comfort with ambiguity
We are mostly blind to the remarkable interconnectedness of things. Seeing it is definitely not a universal skill. More often than not many dots connect over time. This might be user needs, data or tech but by constantly revising understanding, reconsidering problems, something with a solid structure fades into view. The connections become obvious, forming a framework concept.
3. Application: a viable use case to prove the value
This is the most important part of thinking. Translating and transitioning a concept into your own context via a relevant use case — this need for these people — test a hypothesis to prove the value. This requires
- a broad base of knowledge of your own context or organisation or user group
- sufficient knowledge of the technical detail of the proposed concept including any prerequisites
- judgement and intuition to define a suitable use case that balances proportionate effort and achievable value now (easier than it sounds)
Find the dots, connect the dots, decide whether/what you need to prove and how. To prove (or disprove) that outcomes can be realised in a particular context needs the right combination of thinking, talking and practical action. This is where most innovation fails.
Innovation needs the right sort of practical action
Doing something different (rather than the same thing better) carries risk. Iterative change managed within product and service teams allows autonomy and effective prioritisation. However speculative activity can get constrained to a collection of ad hoc, isolated and competing efforts. Speculation needs a suitable degree of distinction from business norms and different expectations initially and the right business sponsor at the right stage.
Making concepts real, testing and proving hypotheses in context can lower the risk and increase the ease of adoption. It doesn’t always work like this.
Proof of concept is often a wholly inappropriate name for the activity that takes place under the banner of innovation. Typically, speculative work in technology and data is carried out in isolated, less constrained environments and conditions. This allows nimbleness and the separation from day to day systems reduces risk. However it also makes it very difficult to prove or test anything in context — or indeed fully understand the infrastructural and other challenges — especially when data is involved.
Much speculative work polishes a concept. It gets a little shinier but is left unproven in context. This sometimes dazzling effect makes further investment decisions more difficult and often more risky.
Innovation needs patience
Doing it right means more work. Empowering people to explore, which can be a hard sell. A relatively undefined scope for an uncomfortable amount of time. Infrastructural investment to get the basics in place first. Speculative activity needs this time, slack and investment to take it “far enough”. Timeboxing is important to maintain the right discipline — and timeboxes will definitely be longer when using data — but of course after all of that there is still a chance of failure.
The next post — managing innovation — covers the foundations needed.
