This session provided a pre-recorded primer on scaling up social innovations and impact. The presentation explored how to create conditions for success by taking short-term actions in the context of long-term plans. It highlighted that considering possible futures needs to happen throughout the lifecycle of projects. What might sustaining efforts and impacts look like? What about scaling them up, out, and deep? Under what conditions do these possible futures make sense? How do we build conditions for success from the outset?

Key messages

• • Relentless and systematic experimentation is a key ingredient of context-sensitive scaling up
  • Not all innovations should be scaled up
  • The ‘why’ of scaling up innovations is clear and the ‘how’ to do it in a context-sensitive way is emerging

Speaker

• • Mark Cabaj, President, Here to There Consulting Inc.

In the words of the speaker

Lots of innovations are not scaled. However, the emphasis on not having enough talent, or not having enough funding or being poor in the art of implementation science is, I think, important but… not managing context is another feature that is equally… important. Mark Cabaj

Context-sensitive approach to scaling social innovation is not counter-intuitive, but it is counter-cultural. Mark Cabaj

Resources related to this session

• • Presentation slides
  • List of additional resources

 

January 27, 2021