Originally presented at a Board members conference. Illustrations by Tom Hartland

1. Building a Stronger Innovation Culture
Paul Taylor Innovation Coach

2. The challenge we face
Globally we are all working on the same problems
Technology has speeded up but productivity has slowed
Lots of money for reports but little for practical action
No coordination to scale existing innovations
Organisations have little time to experiment due to cuts

3. What Bromford set out to fix
Replacing
Poor problem definition
Fear of failure
Inertia
Zombie Projects
With
Evidence based fast fail
experimentation

4. Moving from a culture of reporting to a
culture of exploration

5. Let’s recognise that business plans are
business guesses

6. Built in obsolescence: The role of the Board in pulling the plug

7. Fewer pilots
More tests

8. tEsT
PilOt
outCOMes
“Right, that’s
sort of OK”
“Needs more
work”
Usually Crap
iDEA
Kill It,
sHelVE It,
Release It.
‘Cursory
Design’
Actual Design
Evidencing
Completing
Innovation as Good Governance

9. The launch of our new localities approach will see Neighbourhood Coaches with patches of around 175 households replacing
traditional Housing Managers who each look after 500 households. Last year we invested £1.1m in testing it, and following
successful pilots we’re rolling it out at a cost of £3.5m.
Moving from the reactive to the pre-emptive:
A move from telling to listening
A move from managing to coaching
A move from filling the gaps with services to closing the gaps through connections

10. Tenant Designed Process: Is it possible to eliminate
minor repairs?

11. Boards ought to be at the forefront
of transformations not the
rearguard

12. Board needs to reflect on
whether innovation
projects (inflight and
upcoming) receive
sufficient attention and
scrutiny

13. Boards must balance
risk and potential
benefits
However they should also
consider the very high
organisational risk of not
undertaking innovation, even
if risks are incurred in that
process.

14. paul.taylor@bromford.co.uk
@paulbromford