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Inspiration for Action
🎉 Congratulations on taking the first step towards inclusive innovation.
By picking up this playbook, you have shown a desire to create positive change by advocating for diversity, equity and inclusion in your organisation and the products and services you create.
Welcome to our movement of change makers! The world needs more people like you in it.
Inclusivity is a journey, not a destination. We hope this playbook will serve as a useful guide to help you find your path forward. It will give you a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with inclusive innovation. But ultimately we hope it will support you to take action, and to inspire more people to also become advocates for change.
If you are just starting out these are the common first steps. It with education and understanding the missed opportunity and potential harm are ignoring inclusion. You’ll then need to connect it to your context and gain buy in from others who also see the importance for action. You’ll typically start by reflecting on what inclusive innovation means for you and define the principles you think will be important to embed into your innovation practices. You’ll then be ready to bring the relevant people together to define your strategy and plan of action.
Use the table below as a guide to identify the strategies that will have the biggest impact for you. We have provided a holistic view to enable you to take an organisation wide collective approach. This playbook is filled with strategies and guidance to help you. Depending on your role you can dip into the areas most relevant to you.
Inclusion innovation actions
Action
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Action
How?
Who?
Assess your maturity
Take the to assess your organisation’s maturity and identify your priority areas for change. Diversily can assist with an independent assessment.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Product
Agree on your principles
Define the , tailored for your organisation and tied to your values, vision and mission, that will guide people to innovate inclusively.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Product
Create accountability
Review and change your organisational structures and responsibilities for inclusive innovation to ensure organisational and individual accountability.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Team Leads
Product
Prioritise
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Content & Marketing
Product
UX & Research
Design
Invest
Put together a to secure dedicated funding to support your inclusive innovation efforts.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Product
Educate
All teams and leaders should have training and development opportunities to build the mindset, skillset and toolset for inclusive innovation. Start by reading and sharing this playbook! Define your training needs. Learn more about .
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Content & Marketing
Product
UX & Research
Design
Team Leads
Build inclusive teams
Review your and interactions, such as when in meetings, making decisions or generating ideas, to change behaviour to create psychological safety, foster inclusion and boost engagement.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Content & Marketing
Product
UX & Research
Design
Team Leads
Enable diverse participation
Review and change how you and amplify feedback from underserved groups throughout the lifecycle from research to user testing.
Product
UX & Research
Design
Content & Marketing
Adopt inclusive practices
Review and change your current across the lifecycle and ceremonies to embed inclusion and cater for diversity.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Team Leads
Product
Counter bias
Conduct a
review to see where bias may be showing up in your products and practices and identify the changes you could make to mitigate. Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Content & Marketing
Product
UX & Research
Design
Team Leads
Create inclusive user experiences
Review your user experience through the lens of different underserved groups (e.g. , , and ) to understand unique challenges and identify opportunities to empower more users, create equity and reduce potential harm. Use and the .
Product
UX & Research
Design
Create inclusive content
Review your content to identify opportunities to use more or throughout the user lifecycle.
Content & Marketing
Product
UX & Research
Design
Adopt inclusive data collection practices
Review your and technology choices to create safer, equitable and more empowering experiences for all.
Data & Technology
DEI Lead
Product
UX & Research
Consider impact
Consider the and of your innovations. Implement to build it into your process. Conduct a ‘’ exercise to explore the potential future social impact of your products or services and how you can play your part in creating a more equitable future.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Product
UX & Research
Design
Content & Marketing
Team Leads
Data & Technology
Measure success
Review your current product or service and see how you can expand these to glean insights and drive progress around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Senior Leaders
DEI Lead
Team Leads
Product
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The Diversily Canvas Collection
Diversily is known for our visual frameworks. Our first ever canvas is called The Change Canvas, which has been used by thousands of people around the world to drive inclusive change. The Diversily Canvas Collection has grown to include a number of visual frameworks to help you drive inclusive action.
You can learn more and download all canvases in the section of this playbook.
Inclusive innovation is a marathon, not a sprint.
It takes time, effort, and commitment.
You can’t do everything at once. Start with small steps and build momentum over time. Small changes can have a dramatic impact. Celebrate your successes along the way and learn from your challenges.
Creating inclusive products is a mix of science and art.
Creating innovative solutions that meet the needs of diverse users, while still achieving your overall product goals isn’t easy. You’ll need:
A balanced approach is needed. For example if you rely solely on data driven qualitative insights, you may never understand the true reality of your users from minority groups, whose voices may never be heard. Similarly if you focus too much on certain groups of users, you run the risk of excluding others.
The path for each organisation is different.
Inclusive innovation starts with you
Unlike other strategic product initiatives, inclusive innovation starts with self reflection. The products we build are a direct reflection of our society, our beliefs and our view of the world.
We see the world not how it is, but as we are. Our perception plays a big part in defining what is truth to us. As Inclusive innovators we have to be able to see the world from other people’s perspectives. This starts with:
The identities and experiences of everyone in your team will influence how you design products or services. Frank conversations are needed to explore who you are as a team and acknowledge your gaps. This will help you move away from only building for the dominant group, towards building with and for all.
By working together and staying committed to the journey, we can create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive world for everyone.
So, take the first step today and keep moving forward!
We’re here to help
We offer Inclusive Leadership programmes, Inclusive Innovation Masterclasses, maturity assessments and inclusive culture building events as well as bespoke consultancy.
: We love hearing stories about how the playbook is being used, what is working well and suggestions for improvement. .
We have made the Inclusive Innovation Playbook freely available to maximise its impact and reach.
Please consider making a donation that reflects the value you gain from it, in order to show your appreciation for our contributing volunteers, and enable it’s continued evolution.
Your contribution will make a huge difference. Thank you!
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