Being a Community Guide

There are countless types of innovations you could facilitate - each with their own strategy, design, timeframe, and more.  The important thing to know is that each type of problem you’re working to solve has a unique run of play for how that innovation should be facilitated.  My goal here is to unpack seven core types of innovations to consider.  It’s important that you help your client understand which innovation they are desiring before launching the event.   #1 Concept Sketch Overview: A Concept Sketch Innovation is when there is a felt need and/or a basic idea with a very open minded or open-handed approach to how that might come to life.   Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a fresh idea, in concept format, for how to approach this problem.     #2 Framework Design Overview: A Framework Design Innovation is when there is a defined project/goal but there is a needed framework or picture needed to help simply capture the overall complexity.  Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be sketches of this framework (picture, pathway, etc.)   #3 Vetting Concept Overview: A Vetting Concept Innovation is when there is a plan in motion and a fairly good picture of the desired goal, but a desire to “vet” out the concept more and gain more collaborative buy-in. Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be more details to the plan, a stronger prototype of the concept, and greater unity around the vision.   #4 Business Plan Overview: A Business Plan Innovation is when there’s an agreed upon plan already existing, but there is lacking a more comprehensive business plan with specific details for execution   Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a multi-page business plan outlining specific Go to Market strategies.   #5 Resource Design Overview: A Resource Design Innovation is when there is a need to design (or potentially redesign) a resource - focusing on the resource design, purpose, and delivery.    Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be the prototyping of fresh resources with some content creation and strategy.   #6 Process Design Overview: A Process Design Innovation is when there is a new process (or a process to re-vision) and a need to collaboratively streamline and make a process.   Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a process design map with detailed steps, dependencies, and outcomes.   #7 Rethink Overview: A Rethink Innovation is when there is a pre-existing program that could use some fresh thought and fresh ideas.      Goal: The outcome from this innovation would be a new concept plan for how to approach this in a more current context.   As you can see, there are many types of innovations you could facilitate.  More than likely, just seeing the list sparked a few ideas for innovations you might consider.   Cause Machine Solutions Here at Cause Machine, we help organizations solve complex community engagement problems/questions.  We use these disciplines of innovation ourselves in our own development process and have helped lead many organizations through their own process of innovation discovery.  Leveraging the Cause Machine platform for engaging your community helps you be confident that the foundations of this platform are built on time-tested best practices of great processes like innovation and design thinking.  Schedule a demo today!

Creating a culture of innovation is no easy task.  Truthfully, creating a culture of anything isn’t an easy task!  But some things are more critical than others for what they mean to your culture.  As we’ve unpacked before… innovation is far more a process than a skillset.  This is important, especially if your goal is to create a culture of innovation because you can scale a process (but it’s difficult to scale skillset with limited human resources).     Before we talk specifically about innovation culture, it’s probably best to start with understanding and having some agreed upon idea about organizational culture in general.  Let’s give this some definition or at least some talking points. Co-Owned - people in your organization feel ownership and it’s not centralized with a person or a team Repetative - the action or manifestation of that cultural idea is being repeating and lived out in various forms in your organization Catalyst - there are core catalytic events and moments for bringing/driving this culture to life Stewardship - there are dedicated people to “own” this cultural mandate and help see if become part of the overall organization   So then we dive into innovation culture and what makes that unique.  Innovation culture is when an organization embraces a standard process approach to help solve organzational problems.  It’s what happens when there’s a discipline to allow an objective process to help flush out better ways to solve a problem (than one person carrying that weight on themself).  Let’s give this some more talking points as well. Branding - give your process, space, and team a name - something that makes this unique to your organization Dedicated Space - creation of a dedicated space to lead and facilitate innovation sessions Defined Process - refining the innovation (or design thinking) processes to clarify your organization’s version and vernacular Campaigns - starting with strong campaigns to get others on board, initiating early innovation sessions, and educating people Facilitators - building a team of trained facilitators from across the organization   Lastly, it’s important to give people the opportunity to engage and leading them to how to make that step of engagement.  While there are many ways to engage, here are three recommendations.   Participate - give people the opportunity to sign up and be a team member of an upcoming innovation  Submit - give team leaders the ability to submit innovation concepts for their team to have an innovation facilitated Facilitate - request to be trained as a facilitator to learn the skillset and be on your roster of facilitators   In short, creating a culture of innovation is a discipline of activity and steadiness over time to see your process well leveraged for the betterment of organization.  Add to our list here and get started creating your own culture of innovation!   Cause Machine Solutions Here at Cause Machine, we help organizations solve complex community engagement problems/questions.  We use these disciplines of innovation ourselves in our own development process and have helped lead many organizations throught their own process of innovation discovery.  Leveraging the Cause Machine platform for engaging your community helps you be confident that the foundations of this platform are built on time-tested best practices of great processes like innovation and design thinking.  Schedule a demo today!