Here in innovation, people often make the mistake of thinking we are a bit crazy and that our job consists of playing with gadgets or Mario Kart all day (which Paul ALWAYS wins BTW), whilst thinking up new things that will never work in the real world today.
Part of that is right (as in looking for and testing new gadgets or processes) but we are actually performing a very important role in ensuring Bromford is keeping its services to both colleagues and customers relevant and in keeping with our ethos. With technological changes happening every day, we are the guys who you see in movies in the lookout tower - scanning the horizon for any changes we need to be aware of, whether these be immediate or in the future.
Another assumption people make is that everything is driven from gut feelings or assumptions - whilst there is an element of this, here in the Lab, we are huge promoters of taking decisions based on evidence. Here enter our colleagues in our Insight Team.
Don't worry, we don't actually make them work from phone boxes as in Hackers.......
Insight are the brain to Innovations eyes and ears. You ask them a question and they will know how and where to find the answer. They provide us with the data we need to support our work in researching, scoping, testing or piloting the concepts we have picked up, making sure we are taking a fully informed decision when looking to scale up or kill off particular concepts at the end of a round of tests. We already work well together, but as the Bromford 2.0 programme starts to ramp up, we will be developing this working relationship further as the exploration pipeline is surfaced and we start to delve further into some of the key questions 2.0 has raised and make recommendations to support this.
Last week, both teams joined up for our first collaboration meeting to discuss how the pipeline is shaping up, before agreeing some principles of how we will work together, not just for this piece of work, but also for any of our proposed future innovation projects or tests that come from our day to day roles as Lab Designers. Like I said, we already work well together but 2.0 brings its own set of challenges, with important milestones and deadlines that we're not exactly used to with our day to day projects and tests. Certainly here in the Lab, we work quite fluidly, but being involved in a program this big, there is understandably a need to respect the project techniques and dependencies needed to manage it and made sure its on schedule and meets all the criteria set out by our Executives and Board.
Whilst this is nothing new or groundbreaking, it’s important for us to vocalise these as quite often simple things like actually starting off thinking out the problem can be forgotten, or not given the attention that it needs.
How many of us have rushed straight into solution mode before we’ve even thought about whether there is a problem to answer to in the first place?
Or involved customers because you feel it's the fashionable thing to do, but not necessarily the right thing at that moment in time or for this particular problem?
More than this though, by vocalising these intentions, it helps colleagues to further understand that here is more to Innovation and Insight than just cooking up new ideas or providing answers to questions at a moment's notice. We are here to help Bromford and all colleagues (as well as anyone else who wants to work with us) to be the best it can be. Plus we are a pretty fun crowd to work with even if I do say so myself.
Not the pipeline I was imagining, but seeing as we're so good at Mario Kart....
Have a great week everyone and as always, stay tuned!