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In an entirely \u2018non-scientific poll\u2019, the <\/span>Centre for Impact<\/span><\/a> asked respondents where different government \u2018innovation initiatives\u2019 sit on a so-called hype cycle. Respondents indicated that [policy] labs were the \u2018peak of inflated expectations\u2019. The next \u2018looming\u2019 step for these policy labs is dramatically framed by the Centre as: the \u2018Trough of Disillusionment\u2019. In this trough, we face the vast disparities between what has been \u2018promised\u2019 and what can feasibly be delivered. The conclusion: we are at \u2018Peak Lab\u2019. But, does this also apply to humanitarian innovation – are we also suffering similar disillusionment and lack of delivery? <\/span><\/p>\n In a conversation with <\/span>DEVEX<\/span><\/a> earlier this year Chris Fabian, co-founder of the Innovation Unit at the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), described how \u2018<\/span>The word innovation is dangerous, and the term innovation lab is doubly dangerous\u2019. UNICEF has now deleted the term Innovation Lab from their innovation vocabulary. A <\/span>Ground Truth solutions<\/span><\/a> blog in September delivered a further, more damning, death blow to humanitarian innovation labs: \u2018Absent a clear sense of direction, labs tend to focus on \u201cinnovation by gadget.\u201d\u2019 The growing backlash is clear. Keen not to jump blindly on the \u2018no-labs bandwagon\u2019, UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service wanted to establish what other modalities could work instead of the now beleaguered lab. However, on this journey, we realised we might not have had labs to begin with – recognising this leaves us in a better position for 2018. <\/span><\/p>\n In its <\/span>\u2018Guide for Making Innovation Work\u2019 \u00a0<\/span><\/a>the IBM Centre for the Business of Government details five different structural models that have been adopted by government offices in pursuit of Innovation. These are: Laboratory, Facilitator, Advisor, Technology-build-out and Liaison. Each has a functional description. A \u2018Laboratory\u2019 is an autonomous group charged with developing new technologies, products, fixes. This structural model description, and external interpretations of what \u2018makes a lab\u2019 has caused a mild identity crisis within UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service. We didn\u2019t have laboratories. We are certainly not an autonomous group, guided by the organisation\u2019s mandate and working within the hierarchies of our structure. In fact, our stated <\/span>aim<\/span><\/a> is to \u2018support a culture of creativity and collaboration across the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)\u2019. We\u2019d also strongly argue against the criticism of being \u2018technology-driven\u2019 and spent a substantial amount of 2017 debunking the \u2018innovation is technology\u2019 myth. <\/span><\/p>\n Returning to IBM\u2019s guide, The Innovation Service finds greater resonance with the other structural models than with \u2018Laboratory\u2019. The model of Facilitator fits well for example: one person or small group working to convene government departments on internal improvements or external projects. Our UNHCR Innovation website even reflects this identity conflict: \u2018We don\u2019t consider ourselves innovators per se, but rather, the facilitators who bring innovation tools, and learning environments to those who require support, in order to help contribute to improvements in how UNHCR works\u2019.<\/span> So we didn\u2019t need to \u2018kill\u2019 our Labs, but rather capitalise on \u2018how\u2019 to better facilitate innovation. How can we best address the criticism of Labs, and more broadly innovation, for refugees and the organisation? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just over a year ago the Harvard Business Review published consolidated scientific research on <\/span>\u2018Why Diverse Teams are Smarter\u2019<\/span><\/a>, summarising that diverse teams process facts better and are \u2018more innovative\u2019. In 2017, UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service began a process-change in the way it worked, based on this \u2018diversity\u2019 assumption. Project teams began working outside the constructed silos of \u2018Labs\u2019. Practically speaking, this saw us mirror a common way-of-working in the wider organisation: the multi-functional team approach. For UNHCR, the multi-functional team brings together different professional backgrounds and experiences – as well as gender diversity – to work together on similar projects or outcomes. Recognising the advantages this multi-functional team working brings to UNHCR, the Innovation Service wanted to experiment with this approach and innovation facilitation. <\/span><\/p>\n Key project groups were formed around focus thematics – including Social Media Monitoring, Predictive Analytics, and Communication with Communities (CwC) in emergency contexts. This also saw joint missions to operations, to allow us to bring a range of perspectives and experiences into conversations with field-colleagues. We moved away from framing our missions as \u2018a Learn Lab mission\u2019 or \u2018an Emergency Lab mission\u2019, but rather work with an operation to determine which areas (thematics) of support they would need. This facilitation team model is still work-in-progress. Through an experimentation phase, we plan to determine how best to formulate these facilitation teams and how we can leverage wider collective expertise within the organisation.<\/span><\/p>\n Has this model been successful so far, or are we repeating the \u2018mistakes\u2019 of the Innovation Lab? Joseph Guay, an Associate at <\/span>The Policy Lab<\/span><\/a>, describes how \u2018research and experience shows that when innovation does happen, it can be ad hoc, incremental, siloed and forgotten, affected populations and local communities are often excluded from the process\u2019. Does our focus towards diverse teams go anyway to addressing this? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Feedback from colleagues sees them welcoming this project focused, multi-functional approach – it\u2019s a functional way of working that they are familiar with to some extent. From the Innovation Service\u2019s viewpoint, there have been tangible benefits to adopting this \u2018non-siloed\u2019 working model, even in early stages. Working with differing opinions and experiences is inherently creative if space is allowed for disagreement and diversity. There have been some real breakthroughs for the Innovation Service this year, due in part to the power of these diverse teams. An example of such would be \u2018Project Jetson\u2019, the predictive analytics project bringing together data scientists, strategic designers, coders, data visualisers and former and current Mogadishu residents, to design an artificially intelligent model to predict displacement (arrival figures), in Somalia. This project demonstrates how we can work free of silos, with the early results showing more than incremental change in the area of applied humanitarian predictive analytics. <\/span><\/p>\n The Innovation Service is not claiming an innovation breakthrough – but are fully committed to rise to the \u2018challenges\u2019 our contemporary innovation critics share.<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout this process, have we lost our thematic focus? The Emergency Lab was designed to support innovation in the field of Communicating with Communities (CwC) – is this no longer a priority for UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service? Quite the contrary, the need to bring affected populations into our multi-functional team approach is a key priority for 2018. The eternal challenge being, how to move beyond tokenistic representation and to their meaningful participation and leadership in the development of innovative solutions. Communicating with Communities is everybody\u2019s job. <\/span><\/p>\n The Emergency Lab is dead, long live communication.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This\u00a0essay was originally posted in the recently released report: UNHCR Innovation Service: Year in Review 2017.\u00a0This report highlights and showcases some of the innovative approaches the organization is taking to address complex refugee challenges and discover new opportunities. You can view the full Year in Review microsite here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Peak Lab\u2019 In an entirely \u2018non-scientific poll\u2019, the Centre for Impact asked respondents where different government \u2018innovation initiatives\u2019 sit on a so-called hype cycle. Respondents indicated that [policy] labs were the \u2018peak of inflated expectations\u2019. The next \u2018looming\u2019 step for these policy labs is dramatically framed by the Centre as: the \u2018Trough of Disillusionment\u2019. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" In an entirely \u2018non-scientific poll\u2019, the <\/span>Centre for Impact<\/span><\/a> asked respondents where different government \u2018innovation initiatives\u2019 sit on a so-called hype cycle. Respondents indicated that [policy] labs were the \u2018peak of inflated expectations\u2019. The next \u2018looming\u2019 step for these policy labs is dramatically framed by the Centre as: the \u2018Trough of Disillusionment\u2019. In this trough, we face the vast disparities between what has been \u2018promised\u2019 and what can feasibly be delivered. The conclusion: we are at \u2018Peak Lab\u2019. But, does this also apply to humanitarian innovation - are we also suffering similar disillusionment and lack of delivery? <\/span><\/p> In a conversation with <\/span>DEVEX<\/span><\/a> earlier this year Chris Fabian, co-founder of the Innovation Unit at the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF), described how \u2018<\/span>The word innovation is dangerous, and the term innovation lab is doubly dangerous\u2019. UNICEF has now deleted the term Innovation Lab from their innovation vocabulary. A <\/span>Ground Truth solutions<\/span><\/a> blog in September delivered a further, more damning, death blow to humanitarian innovation labs: \u2018Absent a clear sense of direction, labs tend to focus on \u201cinnovation by gadget.\u201d\u2019 The growing backlash is clear. Keen not to jump blindly on the \u2018no-labs bandwagon\u2019, UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service wanted to establish what other modalities could work instead of the now beleaguered lab. However, on this journey, we realised we might not have had labs to begin with - recognising this leaves us in a better position for 2018. <\/span><\/p> In its <\/span>\u2018Guide for Making Innovation Work\u2019 \u00a0<\/span><\/a>the IBM Centre for the Business of Government details five different structural models that have been adopted by government offices in pursuit of Innovation. These are: Laboratory, Facilitator, Advisor, Technology-build-out and Liaison. Each has a functional description. A \u2018Laboratory\u2019 is an autonomous group charged with developing new technologies, products, fixes. This structural model description, and external interpretations of what \u2018makes a lab\u2019 has caused a mild identity crisis within UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service. We didn\u2019t have laboratories. We are certainly not an autonomous group, guided by the organisation\u2019s mandate and working within the hierarchies of our structure. In fact, our stated <\/span>aim<\/span><\/a> is to \u2018support a culture of creativity and collaboration across the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)\u2019. We\u2019d also strongly argue against the criticism of being \u2018technology-driven\u2019 and spent a substantial amount of 2017 debunking the \u2018innovation is technology\u2019 myth. <\/span><\/p> Returning to IBM\u2019s guide, The Innovation Service finds greater resonance with the other structural models than with \u2018Laboratory\u2019. The model of Facilitator fits well for example: one person or small group working to convene government departments on internal improvements or external projects. Our UNHCR Innovation website even reflects this identity conflict: \u2018We don\u2019t consider ourselves innovators per se, but rather, the facilitators who bring innovation tools, and learning environments to those who require support, in order to help contribute to improvements in how UNHCR works\u2019.<\/span> So we didn\u2019t need to \u2018kill\u2019 our Labs, but rather capitalise on \u2018how\u2019 to better facilitate innovation. How can we best address the criticism of Labs, and more broadly innovation, for refugees and the organisation? \u00a0<\/span><\/p> Just over a year ago the Harvard Business Review published consolidated scientific research on <\/span>\u2018Why Diverse Teams are Smarter\u2019<\/span><\/a>, summarising that diverse teams process facts better and are \u2018more innovative\u2019. In 2017, UNHCR\u2019s Innovation Service began a process-change in the way it worked, based on this \u2018diversity\u2019 assumption. Project teams began working outside the constructed silos of \u2018Labs\u2019. Practically speaking, this saw us mirror a common way-of-working in the wider organisation: the multi-functional team approach. For UNHCR, the multi-functional team brings together different professional backgrounds and experiences - as well as gender diversity - to work together on similar projects or outcomes. Recognising the advantages this multi-functional team working brings to UNHCR, the Innovation Service wanted to experiment with this approach and innovation facilitation. <\/span><\/p> Key project groups were formed around focus thematics - including Social Media Monitoring, Predictive Analytics, and Communication with Communities (CwC) in emergency contexts. This also saw joint missions to operations, to allow us to bring a range of perspectives and experiences into conversations with field-colleagues. We moved away from framing our missions as \u2018a Learn Lab mission\u2019 or \u2018an Emergency Lab mission\u2019, but rather work with an operation to determine which areas (thematics) of support they would need. This facilitation team model is still work-in-progress. Through an experimentation phase, we plan to determine how best to formulate these facilitation teams and how we can leverage wider collective expertise within the organisation.<\/span><\/p>UNHCR Innovation Labs: an identity crisis <\/b><\/h2>\n
2017: A new way-of-working <\/b><\/h2>\n
A Lab by any other name ..? <\/b><\/h2>\n
2018: Keeping our Communicating with Communities focus<\/b><\/h2>\n
\u2018Peak Lab\u2019 <\/b><\/h2>
UNHCR Innovation Labs: an identity crisis <\/b><\/h2>
2017: A new way-of-working <\/b><\/h2>
A Lab by any other name ..? <\/b><\/h2>