Some Tools and Provocations to Support Social Innovation Practitioners in Scoping or
This document was created by the Action Lab team- Autumn Sanders, Paige Reeves, Rebecca Rubuliak and Ben Weinlick. It includes remixes of tools created by others including: Think Jar Collective (thinkjarcollective com), CoLab - Follow the Rabbit: A Field Guide to Systemic Design, Nesta - Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation Attribution to original sources is included throughout the text Thank you to our SDX (Systemic Design Exchange community of practice) for helping test and upgrade this tool. Be bold! Don’t Die! ✺
The Journey of Scoping
It’s messy and iterative. We’ve intentionally referred to the different parts of scoping as “stops” rather than “steps” to help show how its a winding road that might require you to revisit stops or spend more time in some than others
(continuous journey throughout the systemic design exploration)
Why Scoping?
Scoping in essence is about being real about what we can control and what we can’t control. It's about finding the right guidelines and where certain focus on a complex challenge should be aimed
AND it’s also about being bold to try against all odds to make a system, a service, a policy, an intervention better for people and planet
Good Scopers ride the Paradox or die.
Beware of Common Pitfalls and Traps:
Saying “ yes ” to an unclear request in an effort to please the client - only to find you ’ ve overpromised on something you can’t actually deliver
Getting overwhelmed by Information overload and confusion - which can pressure you into saying “ yes ” , hoping to figure things out later
Thinking you can have a direct cause and effect influence on a complex problem
Why We Made This Tool
Scoping with the wrong personsomeone has been tasked with it, but the real decision makers aren’t a part of the scoping, leading to misaligned expectations
Trying to boil the ocean This is kinda the reason you need to scope better Trying to boil the ocean means you and team are struggling to discern what parts of a challenge you and your client or community have influence within for the project.
We made this tool because we noticed scoping is an important part of innovation that's hard for many practitioners (including ourselves!). Whether your project has deep impact and influence will have much to do with how you and your team scoped.
It's easy to get overwhelmed with scoping and if the scoping process feels really clear and straightforward then we are likely oversimplifying or are not working with a wicked complex problem
We hope this tool can help you embrace the ambiguity, lean towards curiosity as best you can, try not to lock down the scope too quickly, ride the paradoxes, hold tensions and don't fall for black and white thinking. Wishing you all the best in your scoping journey!
Types of Problems Humans Tackle
Can Roughly Group 4 Main Types of Problems Humans Grapple With
Simple problems are when you can find a single agreed upon solution. Recipes to bake cakes are examples of simple problems where if you follow the recipe you’ll always get the same results.
Complicated problems are when you can find solutions through the right expertise, formulas and rules that will eventually lead to an agreed upon solution Rocket science resides more in the complicated problem realm-it’s really hard to figure out the math and physics to send a rocket to the moon, but once the formulas are worked out, we can continue to replicate success
Complex problems are problems that are not fully understood and when there is little agreement on how to address the issue. Raising children to be good humans is a complex challenge where even in the same family, one way of raising a child will not necessarily bring the same results for all the children in the family In a complex problem they depend on different views and perspectives of humans in systems
You have a Complex Problem if there is...
Not much agreement on the nature of the problem
Not much certainty on what to do about the problem
A high degree of unpredictability
This Tool Was Designed to Help Scope Complex Problems
This tool was designed to help scope mainly complex problems where the nature of the problem depends on multiple perspective(s). That said, this tool could also be used for scoping a complicated technical challenge. These tools will not be so helpful for simple and chaotic challenges.
4th is wicked hard to innovate around
Adapted from Zimmerman & Westley - Getting to Maybe & Cynefin Model
Stop One in the Scoping Journey
Getting Grounded: What’s the Ask and What’s Possible?
Scoping often starts with initial meeting(s) with the client to explore ‘the ask’. Here we outline some Questions and provide a checklist that can be used in this exploratory phase Usually at this stage you are trying to surface things like budget, stakeholders who need to be involved, what success looks like to the client, timelines, and if this is a complex challenge best solved with an innovation approach
Questions to Explore with Clients
Purpose and origins
How did you come to want to work on or solve this challenge?
Why this challenge? And why now?
What pain points or signals led you to the need for this Lab or project?
What changes do you think need to be made to the system?
What are you hoping will come out of this process?
What does success look like at the end of this, and for who?
Who are the stakeholders (those impacted and influencers)?
What and who has influence over parts of the system you are trying to make a change?
How many people and organizations need to be involved? Are they already engaged and aware of this process? If not, when and how will they be engaged?
What is your familiarity with systemic design/social innovation approaches, and why do you think it could help?
Are all partners ‘bought into’ a systemic design process? Are some hesitant?
Flexibility and openness
What’s the timeline for the project?
How much flexibility is there if changes need to happen?
If you discover the issue is a symptom of deeper issues, how would you react?
Are you open to re-framing your position if the process highlights an issue or problem you didn’t think you had?
Budget
What budget do you have for this work because that will greatly influence scope?
Is there flexibility to shift the budget over time if things evolve?
Deciding if You Have a Complex Challenge
So you’ve done some initial fact finding and exploring with the client...pause and check in - is this a complex challenge that is best solved with an innovation approach? You can use the checklist below to help you decide.
Clearance to Go… or Not...
If you can answer “ yes ” to the questions below, you have clearance to go: you ’ ve got a systemic design/systems change/innovation project!
Is it a complex challenge?
Is your client open to reframing?
Does your client have top cover: a senior-level champion that will help to ensure project success?
Does the client have a sphere of influence beyond their organization to change policy, create new services, advocacy merit to rally funding, resources, or political will to move things?
Do you have commitment from your client?
Resource: can they supply the resource (time, people, etc ) required for this approach?
Implementation: are they invested and willing to see the project through after your involvement is over?
You can say no. It’s ok.
Maybe it’s not a complex problem and a systemic design/systems change approach would be overkill
Perhaps your client has no top cover
It will be challenging to build and maintain momentum for the project
The client might benefit from advice on how to create topcover and buy-in
Your client may have insufficient resources or commitment ot make the project work. Ask them:
How might you best direct the energy you have right now?
Is it possible to start with a smaller scope and build as resources increase?
Stop Two in the Scoping Journey
The Nebulous Story: [Further] Exploring the Problem You’re Scoping
The problem your scoping probably feels nebulous at this point - like a big messy cloud with hard to see edges and interconnections everywhere. That’s why its important to take time to further explore the challenge before moving ahead. The following questions help you dig further into the challenge your client wants to explore. These questions can be answered in conversation with clients, and/or after reading documents and literature, etc
Discovery Phase: Messy Challenge Filtering
It’s time to figure out what you already know (and believe you know) about the challenge.
Describe a little about what you think the challenge is about at present. Why is it important to tackle it? What makes it complex? What makes progress difficult?
Share What You Know and What You Would Like to Know More About.
Take a few minutes to answer the questions below yourself and then five minutes to discuss your answers with your team. If it’s helpful, you can use post-it notes to organize your thoughts and look for unique perspectives as well as overlaps in your team’s knowledge base.
What are the aspects of the challenge that you already know a lot about? What are your assumptions?
Where are the aspects of the challenge where you need to learn more? What don’t you know?
Do you have a sense or early signals of what needs to be kept out of scope? Be Bold here, but also be careful to not oversimplify.
What might be signals or indicators of success? What might success look like to different stakeholders in the issue?
Stakeholder or group
Why success matters to them
Signals of success, what success might look like
Adapted from Think Jar Collective Innovation field Guide
What Constraints Exist?
Could be time, resources, starting from scratch? or building on existing work?
What
are
Some Key Process Considerations?
People, organizations, systems that need to give input? Politics in the process?
What are Deliverable Expectations?
What’s expected and are we over promising?
Format expectations of deliverables? How will they be used?
Stop Three in the Scoping Journey
You've dug into the challenge more and now its time to set the frame. Here your fuzzy nebula will start to have more of a shape through the creation of one or more 'how might we...' questions, exploration of tensions, and identification of design considerations and tensions.
Setting the Frame: How Might We Questions
Identify Key Challenges and Features of the Problem
Can be messy and still fuzzy
Transform Into a ‘How Might We…’ of the
Challenge
System HMW - How might we redesign the school lunch program for a city while providing for differences in individual schools?
System HMW - How might we design a banking system for low-income citizens who don’t have bank cards or won’t get one?
Environment HMW- How might we design hospital waiting rooms to mitigate the transmission of airborne diseases?
Service HMW - How might we create a flexible, client led social service case management and reporting process that works for both person ’ s served and reporting on outcomes to funders?
Mapping Design Considerations and Tensions
Surface and make sense of constraints and tensions that may shape (i.e., scope) your project. Below we introduce an activity that you and your team can use to do this. *Note- You may want to transfer the boxes & grids on the following pages to large sheets of paper to work with either on your own or wth a team
Suggested Activity: Using 2x2 Grids to Plot
Design Considerations
Begin by brainstorming as many constraints and tensions you can think of Think broadly These might relate to people, relationships, systems, structures, values, assumptions, resources, and the context itself.
Tensions to Navigate
What is likely to be tricky in the process, expectations, and deliverables?
Transfer each tension/constraint to a sticky note. Using one of the three 2x2 axes, map your sticky notes Each of the 2x2 axes offers a different way of viewing the constraints
Engage in conversation with your team - What are you noticing? What are the implications for scope? Design? Process?
Grid Option One:
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
High Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems or missed opportunities?
Low Control
As a leader of the project
High Control
As a leader of the project
Low Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems
Participants Engaged in a 2x2 to sort tensions in scoping
Grid Option Two:
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
High Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems or missed opportunities?
Emergent/Hidden Known/Explicit
Low Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems or missed opportunities?
Grid Option Three:
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
High Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems or missed opportunities?
Constraints to Strategize Around
Leverage Points
Peripheral Constraints
Additional
Information on Grid 3:
Background Potential
Low Consideration
For design? For process? Would ignoring it create problems or missed opportunities?
Rather than viewing all design considerations as constraints (restricting), this tool recognizes that some can be enabling - opening up possibilities. Each quadrant helps interpret the design considerations and supports converging on the key considerations.
Restricting + high consideration: These are both limiting and highly important, and may require strategizing around
Enabling + high consideration: These may serve as leverage points for the design or process.
Restricting + low consideration: These are peripheral - they are limiting but not central to the design or process They likely don't require major focus unless they grow in importance
Enabling + low consideration: These are background potential. Lower in importance, however there may be potential to draw on them later.
Mapping Stakeholders
A big part of scoping is identifying and more deeply exploring stakeholders in the system you’re trying to innovate around Some stakeholders might be obvious while others will emerge as you explore the challenge Ensuring the right people are participants in the process is a key part of ensuring success and can support the uptake of proposed pathways or potential solutions in the end
With most stakeholder mapping of a system, it’s a smart idea to consider ways to gain insights from a diverse cross section of the whole system. You likely won’t be able to consult everyone in a system, but you can plan for getting a decent set of diverse perspectives. Try to be careful of biases with whom you want to include Biases can often lean multiple ways some biases can lean towards wanting to engage system leaders with hands on levers, and some biases can lean towards wanting to pay more attention to stakeholders with lived experience of challenges in a system. Try to map with a whole system mindset and consider constraints, contexts, and what ways of engaging a particular stakeholder group fits best with each groups unique needs.
One thing you will run into is a tension around stakeholders who really care about the problem because maybe they experience difficulties in a system, and the other side of the tension around engaging a stakeholder who holds more power to shift parts of an existing systems That tension will affect time and what gets more attention in your scope
The next activity will help you consider the multiple perspectives (stakeholders) that matter for the challenge you ’ re scoping. You might want to print out multiple copies to map the different stakeholder perspectives you ’ re aware of at present
Tool: Stakeholder in the Challenge
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
Person:
Why their perspective needs to be considered?
What might be tricky to navigate and engage with them about this issue?
Level of how much they care about solving it?
Hopes and needs?
Level of influence on solving
Implications for design?
Challenges and pain points they’re grappling with?
Tool: Stakeholder in the Challenge
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
Organization:
Why their perspective need to be considered?
What might be tricky to navigate and engage with them about this issue?
Level of how much they care about solving it?
Hopes and needs?
Challenges and pain points they’re grappling with?
Level of influence on solving
Implications for design?
Stop Four in the Scoping Journey
Bringing
it All
Together: Creating Design Briefs, Primers, and Theories of Change
Now you’ve explored many considerations related to the complex challenge you are trying to tackle. Your messy nebula has some shape and you’re ready to move forward in the innovation process.
What next? We find a good scoping process often results in one or more of the following tools (depending on time and resources available):
1.
2.
A Challenge Brief: A challenge brief is a succinct, one or two page document that highlights hoped for outcomes and key considerations. You can view an example challenge brief here.
The Following Sections Can Help You Structure Your Challenge Brief:
How might we question
Who it matters for Stakeholders
Challenge overview and context
Background on the issue
Hoped for outcomes
Desired future - What would be a headline from the future if this issue was solved?
Key design considerations
Key process considerations
Key tensions
A Primer Document: A Primer is a report like document that brings together research, gray literature, insights from stakeholders, and promising examples of existing solutions together in one place for participants in the innovation process to use to ground themselves during the empathy and discovery phases. You can see an example primer document here.
You can see an example theory of change here 3.
A Theory of Change: This provides a succinct overview of how your proposed project or Lab intends to make a difference It usually draws on different literature and perspectives and articulates your ‘theory’ for how change will unfold
Iterate and Evaluate
Even though your project has taken some shape and likely has some clear(er) boundaries around it now, scoping doesn’t stop there Scope is something you need to continually think about and check in on as the project unfolds One approach we like to use to support this is Developmental Evaluation
Developmental Evaluation in a Nutshell
Developmental Evaluation (DE) is a particular approach to evaluation that compliments an innovation approach Michael Quinn Patton, a big thinker and contributor in the DE space, says “developmental evaluation informs and supports innovative and adaptive developments in complex dynamic environments”
Focuses on development (versus improvement, accountability or summative judgement) and encourages strategic and emergent learning In a nutshell DE is about supporting social innovators to tackle complex challenges. Developmental Evaluation:
Employs participatory approaches with stakeholders in a lab to define what the ‘it’ of what is to be learned from a lab is.
Helps a lab to explore and adapt to emergent feedback
Helps a lab team to explore what they are learning about the problem/ challenge and its context and where there are areas of promise emerging.
Helps a Lab team to learn and make decisions that inform workshop design, prototype iterations, and reflective learning activities for Lab teams
Avoiding Scope Creep
Building in processes and opportunities that support you in checking on scoping as the project unfolds can help you combat ‘ scope creep ’ or the likely situation where the client asks for more than they did originally. Having deliverables like the challenge briefs and clear expectations outlined in proposals and contracts can give you something to point to throughout to remind the client what was originally agreed upon and show how what they might be asking for now is in or out of scope
Best of Luck!
Wishing you all the best in your scoping journ(ies) ahead! Embrace the ambiguity, lean towards curiosity as best you can, try not to lock down the scope too quickly, ride the paradoxes, hold tensions and don't fall for black and white thinking And remember, good scopers hold the paradoxes or die...! Kidding... sort of.
Other Helpful Tools You Might Play With When Scoping
Below we include a compilation of tools taken from different sources that we find helpful in our scoping process
1. Causes Diagram
This tool was created by Nesta - Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation
Why this Tool is Helpful with Scoping
What is the root cause of a problem? Often there isn’t one simple answer. The bigger the problem, the more likely it is that the roots will be widespread, and mapping out the causes can quickly get out of hand, making the task seem overwhelming. The Causes Diagram helps you think of a problem in a thorough manner and provides a structured way to analyse it. It pushes you to deconstruct all possible causes for the problem rather than the obvious ones. You can use it both to analyse a new problem and to highlight the gaps in an existing one It differentiates causes from effects or symptoms, giving you a better idea of the solutions needed to solve a problem permanently, and helps to build a shared understanding of what it is you ’ re working on
First, identify and write down the core problem you are trying to resolve. 1. 2. 3.
Working your way from this starting point, write down the direct, underlying and contributing symptoms you see as a result of it These may be people involved with the problem, systems, equipment, materials, external forces, etc Try drawing out as many contributing factors as possible Now fill out the causes that correspond to these symptoms. Once the worksheet has been filled out, go through each symptom and cause with your team and consider if they are correctly placed, and discuss what you can learn from this in terms of clarifying your aims.
4.
Be careful to not mix the causes of a problem with its symptoms as you note these down: a cause is the reason why something happens, while a symptom is usually what we see as the end result of the problem.
Tool: Causes Diagram Core Problem
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
Causes are the reason why something happens
Symptoms are what we see as a result of the problem
Direct Symptoms
Direct Causes
Underlying Symptoms
Underlying Causes
Contributing Factors
Contributing Factors
2. Three Horizons Canvas
This tool was created by Action Lab (www.actionlab.ca), adapted from McKinsey & Company's Three Horizons of Growth with input from Mark Cabaj, Here2There Consulting"
Why this Tool is Helpful with Scoping
The Three Horizons Canvas can be used as a sensemaking tool to help groups work across the present reality toward visionary futures by sorting innovative ideas across three horizons:
Horizon 1 ideas are innovative actions that can be implemented with minor tweaks to existing policies and systems. These innovations push the limits of how far one can go with current systems without reforming them.
Horizon 2 ideas require substantive change to existing systems and policies in order to make a deeper and more lasting change
Horizon 3 ideas are based on entirely new values and beliefs and require radical changes to current systems and policies.
By mapping ideas across the three horizons, groups can scope realistically, surface tensions between what’s needed today and what we are aiming for long-term, and let go of the search for quick fixes - instead holding a more honest, layered view of systems change.
This tool is especially helpful in the ideation phase of a project. It also illustrates how scoping is an iterative journey throughout any social innovation process - and how it can help teams avoid scope creep.
This tool can help people see the value of ideas that fit within each horizon, and appreciate the tensions For example, you can’t have a horizon 3 paradigm shifts on existing Horizon 1 budgets and thinking Often Horizon 3 takes a generation to develop and in the meantime some systems require some horizon 1 and 2 upgraders and tweaks.
Start by gathering your list of ideas
Sort each idea into one of the three horizons: Horizon 1 includes ideas that support or improve the current system, Horizon 2 includes ideas that begin to stretch or evolve it, and Horizon 3 includes ideas that imagine future-facing or transformational change.
When sorting ideas, place ideas in one of the 3 horizons and relate to feasibility from least to most This will help your team make sense of whether ideas lean towards transformational change or incremental
Tool: Three Horizons Canvas
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
Imagining possibilities for
Incremental Innovation
Same game, same rules
Reform Oriented Innovation Same game, different rules
Transformative Innovation Different game, different rules
Most Feasible
Feasibility
3. Evidence Planning
This tool was created by Nesta - Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation
Why this Tool is Helpful with Scoping
Why do you do what you do? The evidence planning tool is a quick way to help articulate and improve what you are trying to accomplish. It gives you an easy way to define and share what you ’ re trying to do, and the assumptions and evidence upon which this is based. By making you think more broadly about your work’s effect on target beneficiaries, society and other organizations, Evidence Planning helps you construct an evidence based case for the impact you want to have.
The Evidence Planning tool provides a structured way to project the effects of your activities onto the future This will help you reflect on what you may want to change or retain This tool also helps to highlight at an early stage any potential problems or easy to make mistakes
Start by filling out the key focus for your work or organization in the middle of the worksheet
l
Then use the questions in the four quadrants to reflect on what your key focus enhances, replaces or even limits. Think of changes that your work would make in the sector, on other public and private bodies, as well as the effect it would have on society. This offers you a window to consider the impact your work may have.
Look at the key aspects from diverse points of view While filling out the four quadrants think of:
The wider world. (Think as big as possible.) Your particular field or area of interest. (eg. How it might impact current practices)
Your beneficiaries (What benefits will it bring them?) Yourself (What impact could it have on your work/life?)
Nesta (2014) Development Impact & You: Practical Tools to Trigger & Support Social Innovation (pp 11) Nesta and Rockefeller Foundation Retrieved from https://wwwdiytoolkitorg
Tool: Evidence Planning
This tool works best when printed in large format so there’s enough space to work with it (Download the PDF here to print larger)
Enhance What does it bring new value to?
Key focus of your project or organization
Replace
What does it make less desirable?
Re-use What does it build upon?
Limit What could be the negative effect when pushed to extremes?
