Ingenuity: How to Encourage

Innovation in Healthcare

Simon Mosey

Andrea O’Mahony

Overview

What is innovation?

How does the ingenuity process work?

Examples of ingenuity in practice

Research on the impact of ingenuity

Overcoming barriers to innovation.

What is Innovation? Innovation Innovation is the successful exploitation of new ideas. It is

the process that carries them through to new products, new services and new ways of running the organisation or even through creating new organisations.

Creativity The generation of new ideas – either new ways of looking

at existing challenges or bringing in approaches that are new to the organisation.

Ingenuity Ingenuity is the process by which complex organisational

challenges are addressed through creativity and innovation.

Ingenuity has helped many organisations to address their challenges through taking a different approach.

An accessible and effective process built from research and practice.

Embedded learning as teams work on challenges that are important to them.

As well as High Growth SMEs, Ingenuity clients include:

Institute of Broadband Technology

Who has used Ingenuity?

Phase I

Definition

Problem Description

Problem Structure

Strategy to Solve Problem

Case Example – Definition

Challenge of lack of ideas from front line staff

Root cause analysis identified many reasons:

o Lack of time

o Lack of recognition

o Fear of failure

Agreed criteria for success with diverse problem holders

Prioritised root cause to address

o Lack of time

Phase I

Definition

Problem Description

Problem Structure

Strategy to Solve Problem

Phase II

Discover

Problem Statement

Ideas-Opportunities

Potential Concepts

Case Example – Discovery

Generated a large quantity of solutions

o Made lateral, non linear jumps to achieve creative insights

(looked outside own organisation/ experiences)

o No criticism was allowed

o ‘Hitchhiking’ was encouraged

o Aimed to generate at least 20 radically new ideas

Idea generation as part of morning meetings

Win an afternoon to spend exploring your idea

Bring ideas in from home / school / football team / dance class

10 ideas in 10 minutes.

1 idea = 1 biscuit.

Phase I

Definition

Problem Description

Problem Structure

Strategy to Solve Problem

Phase II

Discover

Problem Statement

Ideas-Opportunities

Potential Concepts

Phase III

Determine

Final Concepts

Selection Process

Implementation Plan for

Optimal Solution

Case Example - Determination

Identified sources of resistance

How to ‘sell’ the idea through anticipation and

explanation

Those likely affected by implementation should be

involved in project launch and review

o Ideas generation sessions

o All voted for best ideas

o Winning teams allowed Friday afternoons to test and

develop ideas in safe setting

Led by Dr Carol Brady, General Manager Psychological Therapies

Delivered 2 day Ingenuity programme to 17 people from different units and ranging from nurses, team leaders, head of clinical quality, purchasing manager to Trust solicitor

Identified 4 issues: Example 1: Delivering diagnosis and treatment using the

web rather than face to face

Example 2: Difficulties of transferring best practice across different teams

Investigated impact as part of Executive MBA

Highlighted the value of different perspectives:

“It was really good to have people from different areas ....working outside

your own area gives you permission to be more creative”

“It was useful using non health sector examples – in your own area you look at it from what you already know...you need to stand back..swapping ideas is a much better way of doing things...we need to look at it differently”

Drawings of the process of innovation before and after Ingenuity

Concluded that the approach had changed the capabilities of the vast majority of participants.

Chief Exec held a review 3 months after the intervention to reflect on the best way for the Innovation Champions to embed the approach.

Project teams agreed to adopt the Ingenuity approach during 3 monthly reviews to address delivering diagnosis and treatment using the web

overcoming the difficulties of inter-team work

Nottinghamshire Healthcare provides services including mental health, learning disability and physical health services.

It employs around 8,800 dedicated staff who provide services in a variety of settings, ranging from the community through to acute wards, as well as secure settings.

It has run “Invest to Lead”, it’s signature leadership programme, for several years for employees across the organisation.

In 2014 Nottinghamshire Healthcare held ‘Invest to Lead 5’ through five one-day sessions over a five month period starting in February.

400 delegates from across the organisation consisting of 140 leaders and 250 nominated guests of a clinical and non-clinical background. The groups were organised in tables of 10 participants.

We were tasked with delivering Ingenuity to all participants across all five workshops

Invest to Lead – Session 1

Each table decided which challenges they would like to take through the Ingenuity Process:

Either the NHCT challenges from the Future Forum Group OR

A challenge that would benefit from a cross divisional investigation

Business School facilitators helped groups to decide upon an appropriate challenge

Invest to Lead: Session 2

Defining root causes, identifying priorities and defining criteria for success

Groups found this stage to be the most different from their day to day approach

Required …debate …iterate … and homework

Invest to Lead: Sessions 3 and 4

Discover – idea generation was where we saw the most disparity between groups.

Some generated over 100 ideas and some struggled to overcome perceived barriers to innovation

Determine saw groups in more familiar territory – thinking about barriers to acceptance

However the majority of groups used creative thinking to overcome those barriers.

Here six groups volunteered to present

As the session progressed momentum gathered around making the ideas happen.

Invest to Lead: Session 5 – Presentation of Concepts

Reaction to the presentations

What happened next? “The problem solving skills I've learnt from the course have been completely new to me. It was fantastic to learn how to approach problems and come up with a well considered, possibly complex solution. I think the ingenuity approach will stay with me throughout my career, and I will be using it each and every time I try to address problems, it really has changed the way I think.” “And as well as that, the opportunity to present my problem and solution to a room full of such influential people would clearly never have happened without I2L. I think it's safe to say that without I2L this project would have never happened. I never thought as a fairly junior Band 6 member of staff I could have this impact, and influence an entirely new way of working. I'm proud of Notts Healthcare and how it gives this opportunity to frontline staff. I've worked for other NHS trusts and never had the opportunity to be involved in anything like this before, or to contribute towards service development to this degree. ” “We have formed a service improvement and innovation group amongst interest podiatrists since I2L as this project has inspired other frontline podiatry staff to believe that they can make a difference to service development. I'm really looking forward to working on future projects with my colleagues.”

Common Barriers to Innovation

Fear of failure

Environment

Time pressures

Lack of training

Lack of recognition of innovation in professional growth

Justification for reward scheme (budget, business case etc)

Risk averse organisation - cannot afford mistakes

Summary of Benefits of Ingenuity

An effective method to:

Increase levels of creativity amongst employees

Enhance the number of radical ideas generated

Empower employees to innovate

Enable managers to innovate themselves and facilitate innovation across the organisation