I was lucky enough to spend 90 minutes visiting Christian Bason, Director of Innovation, at MindLab on a frosty day in Copenhagen last week.
Through the Sauder d.studio, Professor Moura Quayle and I have been invited to help shape a proposal for a new social innovation “change lab” in British Columbia with the B.C. Advisory Council on Social Entrepreneurship. So I had a million questions for Christian, about governance, funding, scope, evaluation, ROI and citizen-centred design practice. Christian literally wrote the book on innovation in the public sector (which, in Canada, seems an oxymoron). He is, without a doubt, the most passionate (and interesting) civil servant I’ve ever met.
Photo: MindLab
He hosted me in the famous MindLab “dome”, a circular white ball lined from floor to ceiling with white-boards. Our conversation soared from thirty thousand feet to ground level and back into the stratosphere as we explored the logistics, policy and pitfalls of managing such an enterprise in government. To complicate things, MindLab actually serves three Danish ministries simultaneously.
I’ll continue to share insights and ideas from our discussion here over the next few weeks. In the short term, these are my top take-aways for us to consider:
- Invest serious time up front in strategic planning to define and scope the initiative. The MindLab team spent several days crafting their “theory of change” model, which serves as the foundation for all their work.
- Start with the end in mind. Don’t position this as a prototype or test. Such an approach weakens commitment from both sponsors and participants.
- Ensure that the sponsors are ready for and open to change – and are committed to the endeavour. Change is hard and you don’t want them to panic at the first signs of resistance.
- Develop a robust model to measure performance and impact early on. Such metrics will inform and improve future operations and outcomes.