This white paperis written by Dan McClure (Innovation Design Practice Leader, Ӱֱ)and Ian Gray (Director, Gray Dot Catalyst). This is the first of four contributions on the subject of 'Innovation Scaling'submitted for the 'Transformation Through Innovation' theme forthe World Humanitarian Summit. You can read the and parts here.
Despite enthusiasm for small-scale investment in piloting new innovations, thereappears to be a broad failure in the Humanitarian Sector’s ability to scale up andscale out successful ideas.
This creates a need to understand and address the neglected elements of theinnovation lifecycle that lie between the conclusion of a pilot program and theultimate wide scale operation and optimization of an established program.
This is innovation’s missing middle. It is a complex space that needs much moreattention if an ever growing number of pilot program investments are to “grow up”and deliver meaningful value in the world.
Both authors are hands on practitioners of innovation within an enterprise context.Dan has spent several decades driving innovations with global commercialenterprises and government agencies. Ian has 15 years experience in theDevelopment and Humanitarian sectors and has been directly engaged in leadinginnovation in the areas of their development, humanitarian and policy work.
Leveraging this hands-on perspective and interviews with key figures engaged indeveloping, managing and funding innovation in the humanitarian sector, this paperseeks to provide a framework for thinking about what blocks scaling and how totechnically progress from proven idea to broad based operation. We hope this willhelp organisations as they attempt to fund, manage, and execute the scaling journey.
To read the complete white paper, download the PDFhere.
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Ӱֱ.