Ruth Perry, Senior Policy Manager at Natspec, shares her understanding of the place of innovation in quality improvement and invites Natspec members to enter their innovative practice into this year’s Natspec Innovation Awards.
This article originally appeared in Issue Eight of Natspec’s Quality Times.
There’s a new emphasis in this year’s Natspec Awards on innovation – hence the new name: Natspec Innovation Awards. While many education awards focus on identifying the ‘best’ teacher, team, provision or student, the Natspec awards fulfil a different purpose. We want to unearth examples of specialist colleges doing things a little differently to great effect. We are looking for innovators who’ve had the courage to test out an unusual approach, take a risk or choose the path less trodden, all in pursuit of better outcomes for learners. Where colleges have succeeded in making a positive difference for learners as result, we want to celebrate that and share their good work around the Natspec network and beyond. We also hope that others will catch the ‘innovation bug’ and begin to be more adventurous in their own quality improvement journeys.
So – what do we mean by ‘innovation’? Take a tip from me if you’re looking to explore definitions: don’t start where I did by asking Google. You’ll be offered two impractical options if you do: wade through 300 million results or go with the self-referential ‘the act of innovating’, Google’s own definition. I’ve now read a fair number of articles and assimilated the conflicting views of a wide range of different authors writing from a variety of perspectives such as business, technology, science, as well as education – and I’m still not ready to hazard a precise definition. But I have developed an understanding of the features or characteristics of innovation and feel reasonably confident that I’ll now recognise it when I see it! I’ve also got a better idea of what it’s not.
Innovation is not just about doing something new or different. It’s about doing things differently and more effectively. Innovation brings about improvements; the practice or product must be new and better than whatever preceded it. Innovation is also not just ‘a bright idea’. It’s an idea that’s worked through, tested, reviewed and refined, and which has proved its worth in practice. That’s why innovation sits so comfortably in the context of quality improvement. Valuing innovation leads us to ask, ‘Could we do something different or differently that would result in better outcomes?’ It can also help in maintaining quality: ‘As the world changes around us, do we need to innovate in order keep pace with these changes?’.
Better minds than mine have identified four main types of innovation:
Incremental innovation
Also known as continuous improvement, it involves improving an existing product or service. It is often associated with a collaborative approach, where innovative ideas, perhaps in the form of multiple small tweaks, are as likely to come from staff on the ground as from leaders. It relies on organisations valuing the ideas of all staff and of customers or service users. It may not be ‘big bang’ stuff, but it’s just as important.
Adjacent innovation
Adjacent innovators use existing capabilities (like technology or knowledge) to reach a new audience or enter a new market. In business situations, it’s commonly associated with expansions or take-overs. But it’s also about applying what has been learned in one area to another, perhaps in an unexpected way. In a college context, that might be about transferring and adapting what works in one setting to another or the principles behind the success with one cohort to a different learner group.
Disruptive innovation
This is the type of innovation where an organisation shakes up an industry or sector by coming from a completely different angle that challenges traditional ways of doing things. Think Netflix or Uber. As a result, the whole sector has to up its game and in most cases, the established companies are forced to adopt some of the practices of the disruptor in order to meet customers’ increased expectations. Disruptive practice in an education context might involve blowing away some of the assumptions about what is and isn’t possible typically held by most colleges and daring to demonstrate that what others may think unachievable can be done.
Radical innovation
Radical innovators create a brand-new product or service that nobody saw coming and perhaps at the time nobody thought was needed. It appeals swiftly to those who define themselves as ‘early adopters’ but over time often becomes a must-have for a much wider market. The Kindle is great example for me. I loved books, the physical objects, the smell and feel of them, and couldn’t see why anyone needed an e-book. I can’t remember when I last read a whole physical book. I’m team-Kindle all the way now. Can colleges be radical innovators? I can’t see why not. The fact that I can’t really come up with suggestions for radical college innovation just plays into the definition. When it happens, we’ll recognise it for what it is – but we won’t have seen it coming!
If you recognise yourself, your colleagues, your college, or aspects of your provision in any of these definitions of innovation, then check out the Natspec Innovation Awards. Remember we are looking for snippets of innovative practice rather than seeking to make judgements about the quality of your provision as a whole. You can use our new innovation checker to test out how innovative your practice might be before applying.
Help us evidence and celebrate the way in which innovation, however large or small and of whatever variety, can help colleges maintain and improve the quality of provision for learners. You have until 4pm on 29 March to apply.