The first stage of the model is about stimulating innovation. This will involve analysing opportunities which includes exploring whether there is a compelling need and real demand for innovation. 'Scanning the horizon' means looking at examples of the innovative ways that people are tackling similar challenges and identifying strong examples as inspiration. Bringing in the perspectives and expertise of new people is important at this stage. This involves seeking innovators with new ideas and who can become leaders and developers of innovation. It is also important to generate new ideas by understanding how a challenge is experienced from the point of view of those who experience it.
The final process of this stage is to develop a new understanding of the problem. We can help with all of these processes. This includes connecting to the relevant people and supporting the overall management. At the end of this stage people and the projects that to develop will have been identified.
The second stage is about incubating the innovative potential that you have started to develop. Mapping resources means understanding how well resources are serving the needs of the users and whether positive outcomes are produced. Having developed new insights and a new understanding of the problem it is possible to support practitioners to generate and develop ideas to meet the challenge. The developed ideas can then be prototyped - we can help with delivering a set of methods for trialling these ideas.Throughout the innovation process we will be able to support evaluation and learning and these reflections will be fed back into the programme.
At the end of this stage models will have been developed, as well as evidence from trialling the ideas and finding out about resources.
The last stage is about taking the innovation 'to scale.' This involves developing partnerships with funders, investors and commissioners with the eventual aim of securing investment. The reach of the innovation can be increased by producing practical models and toolkits to help other practitioners who might wish to adopt your ideas. We can support the process of understanding how your learning can be relevant to policymakers.
