Should labs just generate possible solutions or incubate and scale them too?

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Dec 15

This is the second part of a three part blog series by Action Lab Founder, Ben Weinlick, on what we mean by innovation, what key parts of an innovation process we think a lab like Action Lab is best suited to focus on, and what we’ve been learning and unlearning working in the social innovation space. Although each post can be read independently, more richness can be gained by reading them in succession as the ideas within build upon one another.

See Part 1: What do we mean when we say innovation and social innovation?

See Part 3: Learning & Unlearning in the Social Innovation Space Over the Years

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Diving in…

“Innovation is a mix of the old, the new and a dash of surprise” - Al Etmanski

In the first blog in this 3 part series, I clarified what we, at Action Lab, mean (at present) when we say innovation and social innovation. We feel this is an important exercise because when there is a lack of clarity, terms can lose their meaning over time or become misrepresented. We see all of us working in the innovation and social innovation spaces as being part of a collective that is currently co-creating what innovation and social innovation means and how it shows up. In doing so, we recognize definitions will change and evolve over time as we all grow, learn, and contribute to the field. In no way do we mean to imply that the definitions we outline in these posts are final or the ‘only ones’, but instead want to share our learnings to date as a way of contributing to a broader conversation taking place. As a brief reminder, we talked about innovation, social innovation, and systemic design as:

Innovation: “In a nutshell, when we throw around the term innovation, we mean it is about both the processes of coming up with a relevant innovation and the relevant outcomes that emerge.”
-- Skills Society Action Lab
Social Innovation: “With Social Innovation, we believe the problem solving process should aim at not just creating more band aid solutions, but go deeper to tackle problems at their root. We see social innovation as being both about outcomes and processes. The outcomes of social innovation processes should be better solutions to complex problems facing our world. Better means social innovation solutions truly work better for people, communities, systems and the planet. Outcomes should also aim to have fewer negative side effects from proposed interventions. Social innovation really aims at helping many as easily as possible, rather than a solution just for a few in a system”
—Skills Society Action Lab
Systemic Design: “Systemic Design is a framework related to collections of sense making and problem solving methods to tackle complex challenges. It basically is a blend of systems thinking processes with design thinking problem solving methods. Also important to be aware of the common myth that systems thinking is solely a western idea, when in fact thinking in interdependent systems has deep roots in for instance 2500 year old Buddhist philosophical traditions of the east and indigenous traditions of Treaty 6 territory and beyond in Canada”
—Skills Society Action Lab

The Innovation Swirl

In our work we like to reflect on our processes through the roughly right “Innovation Swirl” framework. This was originally from Nesta in UK, and adapted by world renowned Developmental Evaluation leader and local mentor and collaborator of ours - Mark Cabaj. Key to this innovation process framework is the definition of three phases of innovation: (1) Discovery Phase, (2) Experimental Phase, and (3) Performance Phase.

Innovation Labs often focus on different things but talk about them like they’re the same things

What gets a little confusing with understanding innovation processes is the wide range of terms used to describe innovation work. Terms like: innovation, social innovation, social entrepreneurship, social labs, human centred design lab, social impact lab, systems innovation, living labs, equity centred design, humility centered design, social good incubator, social enterprise accelerator; often get thrown around interchangeably, when in fact there are important distinctions in approach, focus, and purpose.

We think one way to help make sense of this confusion, is to ask ‘what phase of the Innovation Swirl does your lab focus on?’.

You might hear some groups call themselves labs, but focus almost exclusively on the Performance Phase of incubating and scaling an already decently developed idea - these might be accelerator labs, startup incubators or social enterprise incubators.

Other groups might call themselves a lab and mainly focus on convening a grass roots collective who want to discuss a social issue like community inclusion of people with developmental disabilities. Labs like this, might be convening a diverse group to create a shared understanding of what exactly the problems, root causes, and barriers are; and make policy recommendations, or new services to address said issues. These types of labs focus mainly on Discovery and Experimentation phases of the Innovation Swirl.

And finally, some labs may say they focus on all three phases. Although this is a nice intention, from our experience, if it is too easily thrown around that a lab does all three, it may reveal a bit of a lack of understanding of innovation processes and all that's entailed. The mindsets and skillsets are often very different between the discovery, experimentation and performance phases. There may be a few people and organisations out there doing all three, but very few. It’s tough for one team to do all three phases well. What we’ve found is that most labs can get decent at the Discovery and Experimental phases, but few have the resources and skills to bridge from the Experimentation phase to robust Performance phases. The Performance phase can be a little more like traditional processes for feasibility studies and business case development, but they still need to be adaptive and able to learn as a pilot attempts to scale and progress.

The extent to which labs are responsible for stewarding all three phases - Discovery, Experimentation, and Performance, is up for debate.

There are some in the innovation lab space who think the job of labs is not to implement solutions (Performance Phase), but should focus more on making sense of a challenge, deconstruct, and then generate possible service, policy or system solutions (Discovery, Experimentation Phases). Implementation from this perspective is to be determined once well tested ideas are further refined from feasibility studies and traditional planning. While others argue labs should have a role to play in incubating and implementing a solution. Debate aside, one thing we see as essential is that we collectively get better at being clear on what Phase of the Innovation Swirl we are focussing on and the approaches we are using within that phase.

With Action Lab we intentionally lean towards stewarding diverse collectives with sense making, prototyping and testing through Discovery and Experimentation phases of innovation. We have however worked on the Performance side of innovation implementation in some of our labs (for example Shift lab and the Future of Home Lab - see more on this below).

The trouble with focusing too much on the Performance Phase

What’s tricky is often those not too familiar with the complexity of these processes and often in funding positions, will lean towards judging innovation processes based on whether outcomes or created interventions scaled for impact. Which means there needs to have been considerable time, expertise and funding applied in the Performance phase before decently being able to discern whether there was a benefit or not. Another key challenge is, the more systemic a problem is, often the less tangible the solutions can be and the more complex it is to scale and incubate. This means that leaders, funders and decision makers who invest in innovation, are often biassed to solely looking through the Performance phase lens of the innovation process, without properly understanding the value and importance of the first two phases.

Why are the first two phases, Discovery and Experimentation, really important?

The first two phases are really important because we are conditioned in most western systems today to think we have to know the answers and solutions before we really understand root causes, biases and the real problems we need to solve. This current bias in systems of traditional problem solving, results in a whole lot of irrelevant, expensive and often harmful ‘band aid’ solutions. Systems stuck in traditional problem solving paradigms are often unaware about how to go about investing in the Discovery and Experimental phases and end up just doing more of what they’re used to even if it doesn’t work. Bottom line is, when there is a tough complex problem to solve, smart organisations and systems don’t jump to conclusions for solutions too quickly and instead invest in processes of Discovery and Experimental phases of solution finding. Taking a long view of innovation, if investing in good Discovery and Experimental phases, this will set the stage for solutions to emerge that make a bigger and better impact rather than jumping to conclusions too early without really understanding a problem. The other really valuable part of the Discovery and Experimentation phases is it builds shared understanding by diverse stakeholders working on a complex challenge. Often the most important side effect of good lab processes is deeper learning in a collective that uses methods of systems and design approaches in the Discovery and Experimentation phases. We’ve seen many of the best benefits coming from a lab collective spinning off new relationships and collaborations that never could have emerged if not for a diverse group going through a Discovery and Experimentation phase together.

Looking for more? Check out the other two blog posts in this series.

If you’re following the series in order you’ll now have an understanding of how we define innovation and social innovation, how we use the Innovation Swirl to help frame the different ‘phases of innovation’, and what areas we think a social innovation lab should focus most on. In the next and final blog, I share some personal learning and unlearning I’ve done, in relationship with my colleagues and collaborators, working in the social innovation space.

See Part 1: What do we mean when we say innovation and social innovation?

See Part 3: Learning & Unlearning in the Social Innovation Space Over the Years