Calgary’s Network for Collaborative Social Innovation — Backgrounder Series #3
What is the Process of Collaborative Social Innovation?
To understand the key process elements of collaborative social innovation (CSI), we reviewed the literature on key social innovation approaches and summarized the most salient ones in Table 1.
Table 1: Social Innovation Process Comparisons Intentional Innovation
1
Design Thinking2 Open Book on
Social Innovation3
Innovative Intelligence
4
Change Lab / “U-Process”
5
1. Setting the right conditions
Co-Initiating: Build
common intent
2. Frame the issue or design question
Inspiration (hear):
develop a design brief
Prompts: Inspiration
and diagnosis
Framework:
Understand the issue and develop a project charter
Co-Sensing:
Observe, learn, learning journeys, systems analysis, frame
Issue Redefinition:
Surface the underlying issues
3. Generate Ideas Ideate (create): the
process of generating, developing and testing ideas.
Proposals and
ideas
Idea Generation Co-Presencing:
Allow new ideas to emerge
4. Prototype: Experiment to test the ideas
Prototyping and
pilots; build to think; make solutions tangible
Implementation Planning: evaluate
the best ideas and mitigate risk
Co-Creating:
Rapid cycle prototyping; design thinking, etc.
5. Implement Implementation the
path that leads from the project into people’s lives
Sustaining (as
every day practice includes budgets, teams, policy, etc.)
Implement Co-Evolving:
Create new realities; strategic design to scale up
6. Share innovations with a broader set of stakeholders
Scaling/Diffusion:
strategies for growing & spread-ing an innovation
Systems Change:
the ultimate goal of social innovation
1 W.K. Kellogg Foundation. 2008. Intentional Innovation: How Getting More Systematic about Innovation Could
Improve Philanthropy and Increase Social Impact. http://www.monitorinstitute.com/downloads/IntentionalInnovation-
ExecutiveSummary.pdf 2 Brown, Tim and Jocelyn Wyatt. Winter 2010. Design Thinking for Social Innovation. Stanford Social Innovation
Review. http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/design_thinking_for_social_innovation 3 Murray, Robin; Julie Caulier-Grice and Geoff Mulgan. 2012. The Open Book of Social Innovation. NESTA & The
Young Foundation. http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/assets/features/the_open_book_of_social_innovation 4 Weiss, David and Claude Legrand. 2011 Innovative Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Leading Sustainable
Innovation in your Organization. 5 Reos Partners Change Labs http://reospartners.com/services; http://www.meadowlark.co/theory_u_overview.pdf
Calgary’s Network for Collaborative Social Innovation — Backgrounder Series #3
The LBN Process of Collaborative Social Innovation
Each of the processes in Table 1 have informed the LBN approach to CSI. However, none alone have adequately captured all of the specifics of LBN’s context of:
a) Taking an overtly collaborative approach,
b) Focusing on system level change, and
c) Being very intentional about using a rigourous approach to prototyping.
Therefore, inspired by the above processes and our experience and learning so far, LBN has proposed an eight step CSI process to successfully set the stage and collaboratively take social innovation ideas from spark to impact to scale (see Table 2: LBN’s 8 Step CSI Process).
Here are the caveats.
Firstly, this is a working model and may be revised as we learn more.
Often depicted in a spiral or “U” shape, the process of CSI is not linear and the steps are not always sequential.
o “Often, the end use of an innovation will be very different from the one that was originally envisaged; sometimes action precedes understanding and sometimes taking action crystallizes the idea. There are feedback loops and leaps between every stage, which
make real innovations more like multiple spirals than straight lines.”6
There are feedback loops between the steps and they can also be thought of as overlapping spaces, with distinct cultures and skills.
The steps can also be used as a framework for thinking about the different kinds of support that innovators and innovations need in order to make progress on complex social issues.
o The symbol (→) in the table suggests key points for securing resources to support the next phase.
6 From http://www.socialinnovator.info/process-social-innovation
Calgary’s Network for Collaborative Social Innovation — Backgrounder Series #3
Table 2: LBN’s 8 Step CSI Process
The LBN Process of Collaborative Social Innovation — Working Model
→Secure resources to support next steps
1. Co-Initiate — Set the right conditions and culture
Curate connections and a culture supportive of CSI
2. Co-Sensing — Frame the issue or design question
Observe and learn to understand the issue and develop a ‘CSI initiative design brief’ to frame the problem space.
→Secure resources to support next steps
3. Co-Presence — Generate Ideas
Imagine solutions that address the most influential leverage points within the problem space as framed in the design brief
4. Prepare for Prototyping
Confirm the innovation team; document a clear hypothesis of record and key assumptions; develop a plan for testing the hypothesis.
5. Co-create /Prototype — Experiment to test ideas
Run rapid small-scale disciplined experiments to test assumptions, document observations/feedback through reflection-in-action, compare predictions with the actual outcomes, assess lessons learned. Revise the plan and repeat (as needed). Admit and learn from failure or choose the most viable, feasible and desirable version of the innovation idea.
→If the prototype results prove to be promising, secure resources to support next steps
6. Co-Evolve — Implement*
Deliver & Sustain: identify the path that leads from the prototype stage to pilot stage to everyday practice and improving people’s lives (includes budgets, human resources, policy change needed, etc.)
7. Scale Out — Share innovations with a broader set of stakeholders
Replication & Diffusion: develop strategies for growing and spreading the innovation.
8. Scale Up —Systems Change
The ultimate goal of collaborative social innovation involves changes to concepts and mindsets—systems only change when people think and behave in new ways, and may involve changes in patterns of resource flow, power and practices. CSI involves multiple sectors – new relationships between business, government, civil society and individual citizens.
* Note that we are not yet here in our own learning process such that this is our best guess at what this
looks like and, likewise, are still conducting research on this step and beyond in the literature.