How Do YOU Spell Innovation?
Innovation takes many forms in an organization, and one part of FCC’s strategic plan identifies innovation as a key to realizing the agency’s Vision to be “The leading provider of human services in western Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota through quality, access and service.” Innovation is also one of our stated Values: “We continually strive to improve our services and operations, focusing on current and future needs”.
We want to do two things to increase the level of innovation at FCC – provide some clarity on what innovation looks like so we are all thinking about it the same way, and spotlight naturally occurring examples of innovation in an effort to encourage more of it. Simple, right? Well, once we get past the definition it will be much clearer!
By definition, innovation is a new method, idea or product. The first level of innovation happens all around us every day, most often in small steps. This level is the creative adjustments you make on the fly:
- “The med log can be hard to follow so I moved the third column to the end and….”
- “We are going to try starting our group sessions with…..”
- Recovery plans can be time consuming when entering in Procentive and I think it would take less time if we …”
The next level, a little more challenging one, is developing improvements in a more focused and systematic way. For example, if we are looking at how we might improve a specific outcome, those efforts are likely to start with gathering some data or other background information, creating a path/hypothesis, and implementing it. Sure, it takes more than a sentence to change program fundamentals, but you get the idea!
Based on these two levels we are working on two ideas for improving the level of innovation at FCC.
Initially we are going to establish a routine to identify and promote the innovative things that happen regularly. The focus is not necessarily on “big deal” items but rather to increase the recognition factor of innovation which encourages and reinforces creative problem solving. If you remember your Skinner, if we do this right we end up with innovative work becoming part of our cultural DNA. OK, this may not be innovative, but it should be fun! Our goal is to have a Depot post every three weeks or so highlighting something innovative that happened on the job. Maybe you will be in one of those stories.
The other idea is to have our own version of Shark Tank to solicit ideas that may be bigger deals for others. We have some details to work out yet, but we are looking to have an annual event to build some excitement over this, and maybe add some spark to the work we are already doing to develop new programs and increase the impact the agency can have for our clients and the communities we serve.
So now that we have defined innovation and know how it can be recognized and used for improvements we will be looking for your stories. We know that each of you use innovative ideas every day to be more efficient and effective at what you do and we look forward to hearing all of them!