recommendations

I'm an absurdist. The built world is a construct. Its structures are man-made - we can unmake and remake them better, turning chaos into purpose..

Entropy, a measure of disorder, explains why life seems to get more, not less, complicated as time goes by. Humans attempt to create order but often compound the complexity. I really am in favour of simplifying things.

I use models that employ agile decision and implementation tools or hacks to get into things as they truly are. To unblock barriers and leverage levers. I am known to ask a lot of whys and to talk a lot about problems. I love them. Problems are where breakthroughs lie.

Let's talk

Methods

My work is always visible, transferable and digital and it is often visual and co-created. I blend synchronous with asynchronous working and remote with in person. If it's the latter I usually bring sweets.

There is a keystroke crisis and a clickstream chaos out in the world today. I don't plan to add to it.

You won't see chunky reports from me but you will receive living documents, tools and dashboards based on what you have told me you are comfortable using. I favour canvasses and plans on a page, which take some doing. Vitally, I will co-work with you so that the approach is shoulder to shoulder.

We often get started with zooming out and refreshing or deepening our understanding of the problem we want to solve. We map the big picture and decide where to zoom in. We set a destination or goal and work backwards. We understand our internal and external stakeholders and audiences for the purpose of inclusion and cognitive diversity. We set some early metrics and milestones to keep things on track.

I do not benefit from this link

I'm a lean impact advocate

Late in 2019, whilst closing the doors of my traveltech startup, I read 'Lean Impact - How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good' by Ann Mei Chang. It was instantly clear that I had found the nexus of my own experiences in the non profit, small business and startup worlds.

Lean impact is where startup principles meet social impact imperatives. As a people-focused approach, lean identifies where you are and starts with what is already working. It then coaches you through cycles of continual learning, measurement and improvement until your value and efficiency are at their best. The exciting part is when you also look at your long-term impact audaciously and work backwards from these radical ambitions. Think theory of change on steroids and getting shit done.

If you are interested in learning more, I can recommend Ann Mei's book. If you are short of time you could instead read my synopsis, or if we work together, you might end up choosing it from my gratitude gift shelf!

Social change is multi-layered. This makes finding the right solutions and innovating more complex than in other sectors. In a seemingly counter-intuitive way, Lean Impact brings forward practises that simplify and validate the path to maximum impact.

It allows ethical leaders to work backwards from a notion of the problem solved and iterate forwards through the most effective increments of social good. Vitally, this is done in close collaboration with beneficiaries and stakeholders so that all learning is validated and all failures are paths towards success. In Lean Impact we do more with less and we learn by doing, so we always have real-world experiments in play and we routinely test our assumptions to be sure that we are making verifiable progress on the problem. The call to action for Lean Impact is to start with an audacious goal, much like asking yourself the question "are we trying to empty the ocean with a spoon?" (Ann Mei Chang). It is a joy to work with.

The 3 principles that underpin Lean Impact are:

Think Big – set audacious goals and build an engine for growth that will move the needle relative to the size of the problem
Start Small – build the agility to run fast experiments and drive feedback loops that will accelerate your pace of learning and reduce waste of time and money
Relentlessly Pursue Impact – identify and track the metrics that matter to increase impact and scale

Read my synopsis | Check out the Scaling Impact toolkit by Spring Impact