Why?
Understanding what (older) people ‘need’ as well as what they ‘want’ allows for innovations that are person-focused, economically viable, and high-quality, that is, solutions that users eventually embrace.
How?
Social innovation asks for a problem-solving approach as well as a sense-making one. On the problem-solving side, the focus is on utility and function (what a specific innovation – product or service – does and how) while on the sense-making side the emphasis is on form and beauty (what that innovation means and to whom).
Examples of possible techniques
Photo elicitation
Photo elicitation is a method that uses visual images to elicit comments. The types of images used include photographs, video, paintings, cartoons, graffiti, and advertising.
Why?
A service-oriented view implies attention to both technical and social dimensions that characterize contemporary society. Moreover, many human, financial, and material resources are needed in order to make a new service sustainable and long-lasting: to achieve such a purpose asks for a joined effort.
How?
To make a new service doable calls for a process of building relations with diverse and relevant actors (individuals and organizations), and a fairly flexible allotment of time and resources. This implies a constellation of activities aimed at creating a motivation for the actors to create a common view and a collaborative mindset lasting through time.
Examples of possible means:
- Feasibility study
- Pilots
- Function or innovation bids (specifying functions to be provided by a service)
Examples of possible techniques
Concept sorting
Concept sorting is a disciplined effort to go through the collection of concepts, rationally organize them, and categorize them into groups. The concepts are most often generated during focused ideation sessions.
Persona
Persona is a method through which user personalities are defined and documented. Analyzing the types of potential users and organizing them according to sets of shared attributes define the personas. It is helpful to think of a persona as a personality type. A finite number of such personas are created and considered as representing the target users for the project. This range of selected personas frames the opportunity space so that innovation teams can focus on them for building concepts. Concepts are built to address the needs of these personas and to fit with the context
User journey map
A user journey map is a flow map that tracks the user’s steps through an entire experience. This method breaks down the user’s journey into component parts to gain insights into problems that may be present or opportunities for innovations.
Why?
To bring a solution to life is the final step of a longer process. Collaboration at this stage enables us to review the conditions and possible strategies to implement and assess the pros and cons of alternatives not considered yet. Members to be involved are not only managers and decision-makers at large, but also people operating on the front line, whose participation increases the legitimacy and actualization of the process overall.
How?
To facilitate the implementation, organizations and employees should collaborate on different aspects: testing details, feasibility, viability, and technical specifications; identifying and sharing capabilities necessary to achieve strategies and plan development trajectory.
Examples of possible means:
- Risk analysis as part of the project models used, typically done at the beginning of the process of implementation.
- An activity list that is updated as the process proceeds.
- Specific project management models, prescribing roles (such as steering group, etc) and milestones.
Examples of possible techniques
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is a facilitated meeting, communication, and problem-solving process in which participants are led through a series of questions, probing deeper and deeper into the subject. Each participant builds his or her own 3D LEGO® model in response to the facilitator´s questions using specially selected LEGO® elements. These 3D models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge sharing, problem solving and decision making.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is a facilitated meeting, communication, and problem-solving process in which participants are led through a series of questions, probing deeper and deeper into the subject. Each participant builds his or her own 3D LEGO® model in response to the facilitator´s questions using specially selected LEGO® elements. These 3D models serve as a basis for group discussion, knowledge sharing, problem solving and decision making.
Open Space Technology
Open Space Technology is an approach for hosting meetings, conferences, corporate-style retreats and community summit events, focused on a specific and important purpose or task – but beginning without any formal agenda, beyond the overall.