How We Get Government Thinking Like Entrepreneurs
Our surroundings are ever changing and it’s hard to predict the future. We must create strategies that take change seriously so adaption can take place quickly. Leaders we’ve talked to say it’s hard to be good at new solutions, technologies and services when they must simultaneously challenge themselves with core business activities. Subsequently, we decided to create our own Spinoff Accelerator Program to provide the latest methods from the startup environment to established businesses and governmental institutions.
The challenge is connecting the players and closing the gaps.
NTNU Accel is working with tech-startups spun out of NTNU who base their business on research-driven innovation. Together, we work daily to develop new products and services, break existing patterns and create new business models. Lean Startup thinking with empathically driven innovation and rapid prototype development has become part of our DNA.
Over the past three months we’ve been running Spinoff Accelerator Program for co-creative social innovation in close cooperation with Trondheim Kommune (municipality of Trondheim). Our ultimate goal has been to build trust between startups, Trondheim Kommune and established businesses (Atea, Sparebank1 SMN and Cisco). We are convinced that there is no geography or definite profession to passion and intelligence. We want to create a context where all parties can learn to innovate together to solve the present and future societal challenges. Co-creation is about involvement, thus we use the beautiful city of Trondheim as an arena for co-creative social innovation.
This week, all teams presented their findings and end-results at Trondheim Kommune’s Headquarters. You might be asking how the whole process evolved; let’s take a quick look…
Phase 1: Research
Gather Awesome People
In order to facilitate open innovation, we needed to gather the most awesome teams. So we invited six startups, three corporations and of course — Trondheim Kommune. All corporations contributed with around 5 employees, while 5 startups offered 1–2 experienced entrepreneurs. In total we gathered 35 participants and divided them in 4 teams!
Set a Current Issue at the Agenda
While collaborating with Trondheim Kommune on this series of our Spinoff Accelerator, we based the program on Trondheim Municipality’s leadership development and innovation ideas developed and presented by the municipality’s leaders within health and welfare. More specifically, participants were asked to “solve” the welfare issues arising with the aging population.
Phase 2: Ideation
We started with learning how to break the rules. We got help from the best rulebreaker at NTNU — Federico Lozano. We learned “the hard way” how to be empathetic while creating new products and services. Our personal borders has been challenged, but “what doesn’t kill us, make us stronger”, right?
Stop. Think again.
Let’s think about mindfulness for a minute. Yes, you actually have to stop and think “to observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad.”
Too touchy feely you say? Tell that to Apple, Google, Facebook, and Nike — whom all have incorporated mindfulness into their cultural fabric. Nike, for instance, offers quiet rooms, where employees can take part in meditation and yoga classes without ever having to leave the office.
So, does mindfulness offer a key to innovation through design thinking?
We believe so. We do so.
Goal of the exercises? Simple answer….
Why? Well, who says it better than Henry Ford…
After “out of comfort zone”-exercises, participants were provided tools to meet the next three phases with an open mind, ready and willing to break boundaries.
Phase 3: Prototyping
Having built empathy and completed a challenge, it is time to put our brains to work. So for this phase, we use all observations from the health and welfare-sector in Trondheim Kommune to ideate and build prototypes.
By the way, did you know that you need a lot of bad ideas (literally) before they start turning into good ones? So, together with another NTNU champion, Phd Arne Jenssen, and the NTNU Accel team we took a neuroscientific approach to ideation.
With tools borrowed from Design Thinking and Open Innovation, we built solutions to think and feel!
A prototype transforms an idea into something tangible and something that can be used for further experiments! As IDEO puts it:
A prototype is worth a thousand meetings
There are essentially three stages in this phase:
Inspiring — “What can it be?”
Developing — “What should it be?”
Confirmation — “What will it be?”
A prototype is a great tool to help you quickly fail in order to learn quickly. It is much cheaper to fail early (during the startup of a project), than later after a lot of resources have been allocated and more people are working on the project. We build prototypes to learn, resolve conflicting ideas, start conversations and manage the “building process”.
By thinking outside the set frames in Trondheim Kommune, teams came up with several different prototypes.
Phase 4: Testing
For the fourth phase we started testing the best ideas from the previous phase, this time with the city of Trondheim as a testlab.
When prototypes are created, they need to be tested by and on “real” people. We tested to fine-tune our prototypes and to learn more about the end-user. When we tested our prototypes, we let users use the prototypes while watching and listening. When small tweaks were easy to implement, we did it over and tested again. Through this process, all teams got closer to their users. However, an important lesson for this exercise was to never fall in love with your own ideas. If it didn’t work out the way expected, teams took a step back and generated something new!
Phase 5: Pitch
Similar to a classic Accelerator program, after three months of extensive mentoring and organizational setup, the program culminates in a public demo day. Normally, this is when the company is presented to potential investors for possible funding. For Trondheim Kommune’s behalf this is the day they decide which ideas to further test and develop.
During the demo day we were presented to technology easing communication in the welfare sector, gamification to use at elderly homes, voluntary platforms and chatbots to be installed at elderly homes. All teams had established the same goal. They wanted elders to feel more like this:…
All teams seemed to agree on one fact: In order to transform systems while improving the lives of people on a large scale, there is need of a high-performing public sector being agile, nimble, data-driven, collaborative, and focused on applying and leveraging public resources in the most effective ways to drive shared prosperity for all people. Through NTNU Accel Spinoff Accelerator we work to convene and support mayoral chiefs of staff and policy leaders who advance transformative change through open innovation in city government to improve the lives of residents.
After three intense months of co-creative social innovation, Trondheim Kommune currently holds at least four new ideas to further develop, test and implement! We believe the real magic happens when connecting great people with different backgrounds to drive shared prosperity for all people.
All participants gave blessings to the program, stating it had been a unique experience. “Intense discovery-driven learning,” we heard them to say. “Something I can do together with my department,”- one of the Trondheim kommune’s managers stated.
NTNU Accel and Trondheim Kommune take it even further by inviting leaders from public educational sector to participate in the next round of Spinoff Accelerator during the fall of 2018. We are carefully searching for relevant startups and large corporate organisations to bring their passionate and intelligent employees to this program. Those will be equipped with a solid toolbox to surmount innovation challenges of their own industries.
