5. Don’t overwhelm with new language
Part of our methodology series
This programme is a joint effort between development sector, technologists, NGOs, the private sector, startups and social enterprises. Each of these groups has their own language and often different names for the same things.
Where worlds and words collide = NOISE
It wouldn’t take much before we’d all be drowning in MVPs, design thinking, UCD, scrums, retrospectives and the like. And overusing buzzwords works brilliantly if your goal is to switch people off entirely — ask Dilbert.
Regular effort has been made by us to avoid this creation of noise with buzzwords and hyped up language. Here are some other the things we factored into how we named our process and talk about our method.
Reflect the blend
One of the most important decisions we made on our process was to blend the best innovation methods and remain agnostic. It would have been a fail on our part to stick to a single school of thought and their naming conventions. Instead, we’ve borrowed smart thinking from each of them and applied names and labels with common sense.
Build on what’s already there
Where language already exists as part of adaptive programming at DFID, we used it. Language must first and foremost facilitate understanding, so if there are terms that are already understood, all the better.
Name retrospectively
When it comes to lean and agile thinking, our teams were all at different starting points. For some, putting these concepts into action was quite new. We believed that introducing them to a lot of words and theory before we got started would likely be more confusing than helpful. Instead, we named retrospectively*.
For instance, we worked with the teams to determine what should be done in their first ‘batch of work’ before we began referring to those batches as ‘sprints’.
That way the teams don’t have to learn new terms and new methods all at once, but instead, could try the method on and then receive the language to consolidate the learning*.
If in doubt leave it out
Probably most important of all, we left a lot of words out. Phrases like Minimum Viable Product and Innovation Accounting were considered for inclusion but ultimately dropped… even though we’ll be ‘doing’ both. We can and may very well include them later if we believe they will contribute to our impact and effectiveness.
* Much of this thinking was borrowed from John Dewey, philosopher, education reformer and godfather of experiential learning.
