Own the gap

‘Mind the gap’ is a phrase many Londoners have become accustomed to. An audio-visual warning to rail passengers to take caution while making their way onto the train from the station platform. I liken this to the leap that colleagues who work with ‘Innovators’ must take. However, instead of issuing a warning to mind the gap, I have learned that there is greater power in choosing instead to own the gap.

Where are we?

With my title as a No.10 Innovation Fellow came the expectation that I would be an enabler, supporting Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO or ‘the organisation’) as it embarks on a journey to wider adoption of innovative technologies. The destination, as prescribed by my brief, was to support the wider use and adoption of geospatial technologies in the organisation. Based on experience, to know how best to reach that destination, we first needed to understand more about our starting point.?

A scratch beneath the surface proved Scott D. Anthony, David S. Duncan, and Pontus M.A. Siren’s summary that ‘in far too many organisations, successive efforts to jump-start innovation through hack-a-thons, cash prizes for inventive concepts, and on-again, off-again task forces frequently prove fruitless’ (Harvard Business Review, 2014).?

Adopting the timelines for building a ‘minimum viable’ innovation function within the term of the fellowship, myself and my co-fellow got to work mapping the organisation’s technology adoption levels against industry, based on our early observations. We were aware of existing research, projects and technologies, but needed to also identify where there was overlap, where there might be challenges and why, before highlighting the best in class that were worth investment and had potential to scale.

Where are we going?

Tracking back to my three objectives at the start of the year, the end goal from my role’s perspective is to: articulate the value of geospatial data, and the organisation’s role within the wider geospatial ecosystem. This was my third and final objective. As I understood it, doing so would empower the organisation to strategically target where to direct future funding and resources that deliver impact.

How do we get there?

The absence of process coupled with intelligence shared by my co-fellow as to the approximate data readiness (Neil D. Lawrence, 2017) of the organisation, informed our subsequent steps. We had identified pockets of excellence across the organisation. However, we lacked the expertise, frameworks or resources to identify others and scale the good ideas. We were aware of the gap and now needed a way to fill it - we needed a user-centred researcher and/or service designer. Conscious also that we lacked the time (due to the length of the fellowship), authority, or resources to recruit, we needed to think on our feet.

Enter FCDO Labs, the result of the organisation’s drive to become more ‘data-driven’. Labs is a design and innovation team seeking to normalise the use of agile, user-centred and iterative approaches within the organisation. However, awareness of this team’s existence and expertise is not widespread. Securing their expertise seemed simple - completion of an ‘Ideas Pad’. Estimated to take no longer than 10 minutes - not entirely accurate, if done well - we were required to scope out our potential project.

After securing senior sponsorship, we were satisfied and submitted our pitch but were met with a blanket refusal to engage. Confused, I revised our brief and pulled out areas of contention. I conceded that this type of work could be mistaken for one requiring extensive time to complete. On the face of it, we were asking for a comprehensive analysis of the as-is and project management support thereafter. Instead I pitched for a hybrid approach, adapting the methodology I had grown accustomed to during my time at the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI). Adopting Nesta’s Collective Intelligence methodology, and pulling together already gathered insights from our time thus far, we would run discovery sprints with a handful of Civil Servants and their expert partners. Subsequent steps will be informed by the outcomes of these sprints.

More hesitation. I re-pitched. This time, calling for a face-to-face (virtual) meeting. I could no longer hypothesise the reasoning behind their reluctance to engage. A few minutes in, and it became evident that what lay at the root of their hesitation was fear. I stepped forward as the owner, accountable for the project in its entirety.?

[Innovation] “is more ambiguous than any other business activity, requiring bold bets in the face of uncertain outcomes and a willingness to persevere despite setbacks, criticism, and self-doubt.” Laura Furstenthal, Alex Morris, and Erik Roth (McKinsey, 2022)

An overt erasure of failure on their watch, seemed to quell concerns. How? I pitched a series of train-the-trainer masterclasses. They wouldn’t be leading as service designers or user researchers. Rather, I would identify what the Fellows’s intentions were, and our desired result. Our main ask is for them to share the how, aka the mechanisms, frameworks and systems for doing so. I was stepping forward to own the gap.

I’m sharing this because so many of us, in our capacity as innovators, often think our main responsibility is to implore colleagues to ‘Mind the gap’. Pointing to what we lack and highlighting how to fill it, and asking them to embark on the journey with us with little to no assurance of risk. My experience has shown me that often hesitation to engage is not the result of a lack of awareness. It may be rooted in fear. “When we believe our decisions can put our advancement or compensation at risk, loss aversion takes the steering wheel and drives us to hedge our bets” Laura Furstenthal, Alex Morris, and Erik Roth (McKinsey, 2022). Highlighting the systems, processes, infrastructure or funding gaps can only get us so far. Someone needs to step forward to own the gap between where we currently are, and how we can get to where we want to go. That person just might be you.