What does ‘innovation’ actually mean?

Clients constantly give Paper Giant the brief “to innovate”. Often the project comes out of a bigger innovation fund, or the higher-ups have mandated that a particular service needs to be “more innovative”. I always wonder, when this happens: What exactly do people think innovation is? And how do they feel that it’s going to improve the current situation?

In a lot of cases people think innovation means a new digital product, and that a new digital product is going to solve all of the problems.

But in my experience, overlaying some shiny new tool on top of a complex, bureaucratic situation is unlikely to get the results you want. As Andy Polaine articulates in this piece, “the four horsemen of the bureaucratic apocalypse – HR, Procurement, IT and Facilities – can stymie innovation and transformation programs in very banal ways.”

So what is innovation if not the shiny new tool? To me, innovation is when diverse groups converse, produce and evaluate. And for those conversations to happen, you need the right relationships in place first. This is particularly important when dealing with systemic problems that span a variety of domain professionals and government departments.

That is what leads to system change at a deeper level.

• Emma Stryborsch, Senior Strategic Designer