As part of my innovation fellowship, I have been trying to bring some ‘innovative ways of working’ back into my team at JIPS. I have been trying to pick out relevant tools learnt during the workshops and my further reading, to build them into our day-to-day work and generally encourage a productive and creative team to develop more systematic approaches to innovative project development and problem solving.
In this blog, I want to share some thoughts about this experience.
The main tools we have been working with are the following: brainstorming, engaging with external partners, facilitation skill development, prototype testing and ‘negotiation’ skills for change management processes.
When each new project starts – trying to fill a perceived gap or overcome an apparent and prioritized challenge – the team gets together for a brainstorming session or series of sessions as needed. Brainstorming sessions always try to include the whole team, even colleagues without obvious ‘area expertise’ or direct relation to the project. You never know whose idea will transform into something good! In these sessions we try to approach the issue from all angles: specifying the challenge and identifying the target audience we have found to be key.
Brainstorming on our online analysis tool – what shall we call it?
Some projects, like the online profiling data analysis tool we are developing, have also been prototyped and tested. Early prototypes – static images of screen shots and functionalities – were tested within the team, but more developed online models were shared quite widely for user-end testing which generated much useful feedback for the projects further development. This feedback even sparked phase two before phase one even finished!
Another practice we have started to implement is inviting external partners into early stages of ‘problem solving’ to broaden input and benefit from different ways of thinking. As part of our strategy development process this year, for example, we invited colleagues from the i-team, UNHCR’s Information Management unit and the Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS) to identify and try to plan a solution to fix challenges that JIPS faces in its profiling support service functions. Teams selected challenges to tackle and had to pitch the idea to JIPS management for take up in our new strategy development.
Group work during JIPS strategy development process
Lastly, I am trying to share learning about different approaches to negotiation that are useful for our work in the field. In our work at JIPS we provide technical and coordination support to collaborative profiling exercises in displacement contexts. This work necessarily involves identifying interest of different partners in the exercise to be able to shape high impact projects. More systematic thinking about negotiation tactics shared through the i-fellow workshop in Amman through the ‘science of persuasion’ presentation have helped me on field support missions and I aim to build this practice into our standard operating procedures for field support delivery that are currently under development. ‘Reciprocity’, ‘authority’, ‘consistency’ and ‘liking’ I have found to be most effective in these contexts.
Some positive things have become clear to me through this process.
- Working with others and involving ‘non-experts’ in brainstorming sessions and ideation processes generates better ideas.
- Testing prototypes is crucial and is an economically viable way of piloting products.
- Persuasion skills, well practiced, are effective in saving time and affecting change with little resource implications.
- ‘Innovation tools’ taught through the fellowship need to be practiced – practice makes perfect!
However, as always, challenges remain. Most importantly time needs to be allocated to implement unhurried brainstorming sessions and multiple partner consultations and product testing. It is also important to have buy-in from team members to explore these ways of working – something that was not a challenge with the JIPS team but could be elsewhere. Seeing the results, however, I put my hands in the air as a convert and it is thanks to the innovation fellowship for encouraging me to take this time to improve not just what we do at JIPS, but the way we do it.
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