This white paperÌýis written by Dan McClure (Innovation Design Practice Leader, ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥)Ìýand Ian Gray (Director, Gray Dot Catalyst).ÌýThis is the second of four contributions on the subject of 'Innovation Scaling'Ìýsubmitted for the 'Transformation Through Innovation' theme forÌýthe World Humanitarian Summit. ÌýYou can read the and parts here.Ìý
The premise of our initial paper,ÌýThe Missing Middle of Innovation, was that Humanitarian innovations frequently fail to go to scale because innovation teams are in fact confronting fundamentally new problem domains. They must now Scale Up and Scale Out their programs. ÌýÌý
This work is very different from theÌýfast moving exploration practiced during pilot innovation.ÌýFunders and their teams need to set aside many of the most popular techniques for early stage innovation and replace them with a new perspective and appropriately tailored tools.
Once a pilot program has proven itself, the innovation team must incorporate complexity that was previously ignored,Ìýduring the fast moving pilot stage. While there are some common principles shared with lightweight prototyping, there are good reasons for the structure and management of Scale Up engagements to be quite different.
Scaling requires us to directly engage with the complexity of wicked problems. This paper explores Scale Up’s distinctly unique innovation management needs. The nature of the work, type of leadership, form of engagement and tools for measuring success must all be tailored to the job of constructing a sustainable solution in the real world.
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There is a growing body of research on innovations in numerous sectors including Cash, Programming, Health, Shelter, WASH and Digital solutions. They include many stories that provide anecdotal insights into the innovation journey.
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What they generally do not do, is construct a practical guide for action that is rootedÌýin a thinking model. There is little help for the funder or practitioner when it comes to structuring, decision making and management of Scale Up initiatives. We hope to start filling those gaps.
Two follow up papers are planned. ÌýOne looks more closely at the complex design challenges that exist for Scaled Up solutions. ÌýThe other explores the challenge of replicating solutions (Scaling Out) once a scaled up solution is in place. ÌýÌý
To read the complete white paper, download the PDF here.
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions of ÷ÈÓ°Ö±²¥.