1. Blend the innovation methods and remain agnostic

Part of our methodology series

The first and most significant decision we made was to remain untethered to a specific innovation paradigm. So while we generally we talk about agile and lean, that’s just shorthand for ‘the best, most useful method for the job’.

Our first call we’ve blended the best of Lean Startup, design thinking, human-centred design, agile method and others. This has given us the room to think critically about asking the right question and then answering that question with the best possible method.

Asking the right question is where we started, we noted our questions for each project in order of dependency, starting with the most profound. From there, we’ve spent time thinking about the smallest batch of work that would answer the question and provide feedback for the step that follows. Being method agnostic has meant that we could draw on the best of all to answer the question most usefully.

For some projects like our 3D Printing work in Nepal, the most critical question lies in the business model. So on that project we’ve started with a Mechanical Turk or pretotype of the Makernet, to test the viability of the business model and get to grips with the ideal use cases for 3D printing.

Meanwhile, in Tanzania, where we’re looking at ways to use machine learning to automate the surveying of low volume roads, the most important first thing for us to ascertain was whether our pilot would have any influence with those who were conducting the manual surveys. So that’s where we started.

This agnostic approach to specific schools of innovation thought has served us well so far. If anything it’s underlined the aspects that they all have in common: a belief in the importance to get work off the page and out into the world as quickly as possible so that we can learn from the way people respond and react to it.