How to have fun while driving change: 10 top tips on experimenting
Experimentation is only one aspect of innovation, but even small experiments can lead to big results.
By Amy Lynn Smith — Independent Writer + Strategist
And the Innovation Service
Without experimentation, there would be no innovation. Experimenting and iterating allow us to test ideas, refine them, and test again, ultimately determining whether a new approach delivers value. It’s through experimentation that we can learn and grow — figuring out better ways to work toward our goals. But experimenting can also feel risky and unfamiliar. That’s where the year-long UNHCR Innovation Fellowship comes in.
Run by the Innovation Service, the Fellowship is designed to guide fellows’ through the process of innovation, giving them opportunities to learn about and put into practice the sometimes challenging steps this process can entail. Fellows — who are drawn from within and beyond UNHCR — develop and exercise experimentation skills, which they can then apply to their work and share with colleagues, boosting broader innovation capacity.
We asked three members of the 2021 intake what they’ve learned about experimentation during their Fellowship journeys. At the time of this interview, Hellen Carvalho was an Associate Refugee Status Determination Officer with UNHCR Mexico; she is now supporting UNHCR in Venezuela. Pedro Martínez is an Associate Information Management Officer with UNHCR Guatemala, and Arun Dhugel is an Associate Programme Officer with the UN Environment Programme’s Enabling Innovation Unit in Kenya.
In a lively discussion, Hellen, Arun, and Pedro discussed their experiences, helping us formulate 10 top tips for would-be experimenters.
1. Make space
When you’re run off your feet, it can be hard to take a step back, identify challenges, and think up new solutions. But, by carving out even small increments of time, you can start bringing an experimentation mindset to your daily work. Pedro and his team, for instance, set aside some moments each month — no matter how busy — to try something new and generate ideas.
2. Build trust
For some teams and organizations (like Arun’s), innovation is part of the mandate. In other cases, convincing colleagues to adopt innovative and experimental approaches can take time and creativity. Part of this is building trust with management or partners, so they buy into your vision and are willing to create the space to allow you to work toward it. Another part is building trust with the wider team, so they understand the experimentation process and feel comfortable with some level of uncertainty.
3. Start small!
As Hellen learned, you don’t need to have a huge, perfect idea from the get-go. Zeroing in on a small part of a larger puzzle can lower barriers to entry, making experimentation feel more manageable. In fact, small experiments are often ideal, because they’re conducive to quick, easy iteration. They’re an excellent way to demonstrate proof of concept, and they keep the stakes relatively low.
Pedro, for instance, has an ambitious idea about using data art — complex visualizations — to convey information. Right now, though, he’s working to implement a more modest plan that might be just as impactful: a Twitter campaign to regularly share refugee-related data, ensuring donors and the public are kept informed.
4. Get inspired
Good experiments start with good ideas. A key part of this is collaborative brainstorming, drawing on diverse experiences and skillsets to inform better experiments. But good ideas don’t have to be brand new. Someone might already have a great solution to the problem you’re facing — your experiment could simply be to test that approach in your own context.
In Hellen’s daily work in Mexico, for instance, she confronted the question of how to accelerate the recognition rate of Venezuelan refugees. She looked to Canada — a country with a comparatively large-scale asylum system — and realized the triage system used there could be implemented on a smaller scale in Mexico, to prioritize and expedite cases.
5. Have fun
Change might seem scary — but the experience of iterating and experimenting can be very enjoyable. Pedro and Arun agree that embracing the fun side of this process is a really great way to get colleagues on board and to take some of the pressure off. Pedro found that some of his more skeptical and stressed co-workers hit their stride when they realized embracing some leeway to try things out could bring playfulness and flexibility to certain tasks.
6. Iterate, iterate, iterate
Continuous improvement requires learning, and one of the best ways to learn is to iterate: by testing new ideas, assessing their impact, refining and testing again, we create new data points and open our minds to solutions we might not have seen before.
Arun tells a story, drawn from the 1985 book Art and Fear, about an experiment in which one group was assigned to make as many clay vases as possible, while another was tasked with making the most perfect single vessel possible. Surprisingly, the high-volume team also produced higher-quality pots! By focusing on a process of iterative learning, the pressure to be perfect is alleviated — which, counterintuitively, can result in more finely calibrated work.
7. Fail wisely
Inevitably, some experiments will not have the desired outcome — and that’s OK! In fact, it’s a valuable learning experience. The key here is learning how to fail well and embracing the information failure can provide. An important part of this is, of course, having all necessary safeguards in place.
Pedro emphasizes the critical insights that even a rocky experimentation journey can bring. But he’s careful to note that certain key humanitarian and protection principles must be kept in mind when designing new initiatives within UNHCR, to ensure that — no matter the outcome — the people the agency is mandated to assist are not negatively affected.
Arun, too, highlights the learnings that can emerge from failure — and the importance of recognizing that even a successful small-scale experiment might not scale up effectively. It’s not possible to control all the variables in any given experiment, but, with the right mindset, it’s always possible to come away with new information.
8. Build community
Sometimes, if you’re identifying systemic issues or trying to generate excitement about a new way of doing things, it can feel a little like you’re yelling into the void. Changing the status quo and getting people to see things differently can be hard and lonely work. The Innovation Fellowship brings together a community of like-minded people who can support and inspire each other’s experimentation efforts.
Pedro found this sense of community to be very comforting — and he also sees it as strategically essential to driving change in the long run. There’s particular value, he says, in forging connections across teams and disciplines, to have more holistic conversations and to mainstream innovation across all levels of an organization.
9. Be humble
It can be easy, when you’re coming up with new ideas, to think you’re reinventing the wheel. But, as Hellen points out, it’s important to recognize the innovative ideas and carefully crafted experiments that went into establishing our current status quo. This can help keep us grounded — and boost our belief in our own agency to effect change.
At the UN, for instance, innovation is a key component of how the organization is evolving to meet fast-changing realities. This pace of change feels characteristic of contemporary life — but experimentation has always been essential to human progress. A clear sense of the transformations of the past can help inspire our work toward a better future.
10. Stay curious
Sometimes, the ideas that need changing might be our own. Looking ahead, Arun imagines a time when the reality his experiments enabled has become the status quo. At that stage, he says, it will be crucial to stay open to novel ideas and to accept that a certain way of doing things may no longer be fit for purpose — even if it once seemed revolutionary.
The UNHCR Innovation Fellowship gives fellows the space to put these tips into practice, opening the door to fresh thinking, new initiatives, and more impactful ways of achieving goals. But you don’t have to be an innovation fellow to experiment. You can use these insights as a starting point to develop new approaches to your job or projects — and see how experimentation opens up new perspectives and opportunities in your daily life.
Read more about the UNHCR Innovation Fellowship here and look out for a companion story in which fellows’ share insights on the importance of collaboration to innovation.
