Innovation Management System in Burundi

Design Goal

Support CARE Burundi to be positioned as an “ecosystem catalyst” for innovation on a variety of social challenges in Burundi

Design Process

We worked closely with a core innovation task force of several staff who led the design and execution of new programs and initiatives, applying the methods and tools we introduced. We conducted several interviews with both senior management and program staff to understand current ways of working, existing activities and mechanisms that foster innovation, as well as barriers that hinder innovation. Based on this initial needs-finding, our team designed and introduced a conceptual framework and strategy for pursuing innovation, delivered several methods and mindsets workshops geared towards designing lean experiments of new solutions, and recommendations regarding new staff roles, operations, and tools.

Phase 1 /

 4-day in person strategy workshop output /

( Lead by Director and Senior Advisor )

• Conducted workshop with Burundi Innovation Task Force to teach foundational framework and Lean Experimentation approach for testing and refining ideas

• Created an internal system for managing the portfolio: roles, operations, culture, and tools.

• Prioritized key activities for Hub and designed experiments to test riskiest assumptions about each.

• 8 ideas were generated and teams was formed to validate assumptions within next 3 months 

Phase 2 /

Bi-weekly Check-in and virtual training workshops outputs

Coffee Club: Bi-weekly coffee club convened local CSO, CBO, youth, and youth entrepreneur to collectively build ideas through prescriptive design process   

Output:

• Staff unskilled design thinking approach and practiced facilitation (Trained the trainers)

• Strong interest among over 80 participants

• Youth directed initiative to run a skill-share program and established profitable business 

• Created platform for youth to present ideas to other NGOs, government, donors

Phase 3 /

In-country secondary research and system strengthening workshop output

Output:

• Surfaced challenges and roadblocks regarding innovation system, operations, and tools

• Analyze root causes and design solutions and actions with teams

• Articulated theory of change and hub metrics to evaluate performance, advance strategy communication, and team alignment.  

• Conducted workshops to introduce additional skills

• Conducted interviews with youth teams in the coffee club and provided recommendations

Big challenges reported before the workshop: Lack of time and motivation were the major challenges among the team due to their daily duty.

Root causes revealed after workshop:

Phase 4 /

The continuum from the phase 3 to iterate and refine tools and management system.

Goal:

Design team and senior leadership team wanted to make their decision in confidence and be certain about the criteria to move from stage to stage

Output:

• Finalized metrics and theory of change to enhance the communication (internally and externally) on the trajectory of impact from the hub activity

• Developed decision-making criteria and refine the tools to manage the design process.

• Support cultivating partnership to exchange learning and capacities at regional scale

Outcome/Impact

Early successful outcomes in 2019

• Ten of ideas tested at CARE Burundi in 2019

• Five new programs or ideas for continued/expanded programming that got funded from donors or made it past the MVP stage in 2019

• More than $2M USD of new funding as a result of new programs

Learning & Takeaways

• Kirundi and French are the primary languages in Burundi, and some of them can speak English like the native. The language barriers can cause misunderstandings while we were running workshops. Therefore, it’s critical to prepare a translator to be part of the relevant sessions. However, the facilitator also has to be more careful about using less jargon, being more patient to provide explanations, and speaking slower and planning out buffer time for all sessions in advance.

• Creativity is not a privilege for designers. CARE frontline staff has a great understanding of issues and the communities but they usually don't know how to be exploratory and think beyond the program lens.

• When designers introduced new tools, processes, and approaches to non-designers, we have to take several circumstances into account during building a new culture and change, like participating team's capacities, their existing tools, knowledge, and members' emotions/behaviors to change. The culture and mindset change requires constant engagement and adoption to be succeeded.

• The design team and senior leadership team wanted to make their decision in confidence and be certain about the criteria to move from stage to stage. While designing the system, it's critical to develop accessible and holistic criteria that they can adopt to address general questions.

• The visual design could play a particular role in improving communication and enhance understanding of complex new information. However, in this initiative, I didn't take a lot of time on visual design but focus more on the system, change management, and effective approaches during the experiments and iterations stages.

• Innovation (in the NGO sector) is not equal to novelty but more about addressing people's unmet needs and being receptive to incorporate with trends that can help further improve the lives of individuals and their communities. Designing an innovation system to combat the social issue in the ecosystem is complicated, so it's essential to be patient and finding allies sharing the same goals to be part of the journey.

If you would like to discuss specific tools or how to build an effective innovation management system for your organization,

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