The Inclusive Innovation Playbook

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Who is This Playbook For?

Understand how this playbook can help you

This Inclusive Innovation Playbook is an essential tool for for anyone who wants to create digital products and services that work for more people, more of the time.

By understanding the importance of inclusive innovation and incorporating diversity and inclusion into standard practices, you can create more equitable, usable and useful products and services. This will not only benefit the end-users and society more broadly, but also your organisation.

Depending on your role, current maturity and priorities, you may use this playbook in a different way. It is intended to allow for a flexible user experience. You can read it end to end or dip in as you wish.

Based on your role, the following table shows how the playbook can help you, and which sections you might start with.

Playbook purpose by role

Playbook purpose by role

Your role

How can the playbook help

Where to start

All roles

🎓 Understand how (diversity, equity & inclusion) DEI impacts:

Your perspective on the world.

Your team’s interactions and outputs.

Your user’s needs and experiences.

🔊 Become a stronger advocate for change, armed with insights, case studies, reseach and guidance.

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Inclusive innovation

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Exploring Diversity

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Senior leader

💰 Understand why inclusive innovation matters and how to create a compelling business case for investment.

📈 Glean insights to help you put in place the right accountability, principles, governance and metrics to steer your organisation forward on a more inclusive innovation path.

⏩ Assess your oganisational maturity and identify ways to make your innovation, product and design practices more inclusive.

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Business Case

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3P Model - People, Product & Practice

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Product Manager

Designer

UX & Researcher

Be more intentional to:

😁 Create more inclusive user experiences that work for more people, more of the time.

👥 Diversify feedback and participation to bring in a greater range of perspectives to help inform your product, service and design choices.

❗Consider the future potential impact or harm of your offerings, especially to historically underserved or marginalised audiences.

📊 Collect and leverage user DEI data responsibily.

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Diverse Participation

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Inclusive Products

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Inclusive Practices

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Content creation & Marketing

📖 Develop a deeper understanding of the diversity within your audience and create more inclusive and relevant content that appeals to a wider range of people across genders, cultures, abilities and more.

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Inclusive Language

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Inclusive Imagery

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DEI lead

🔊 Broaden your scope from an internal focus on culture, policy and recruitment to consider DEI implications of the products and services your organisation creates.

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3P Model - People, Product & Practice

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There are no rows in this table

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Inclusive Innovation is a lever for your success

People often think inclusive innovation is an optional extra, something that would be nice to do if they had time. However, it is not about adding more work or complexity; instead, it is about working smarter to achieve better outcomes.

It is core to how you work.

Taking a more inclusive approach to innovation can help you address your fears, and frustrations and achieve your desires and aspirations.

If you can relate to the following fears and aspirations, this playbook is for you.

Fears & Frustrations

Taking a more inclusive approach can help you overcome some common fears and frustrations often faced by product creators.

🥊 1 . Fearful of competition

Taking an inclusive approach brings diverse perspectives to identify unique opportunities and stay ahead. It also helps to build your brand and reputation, which can give you a competitive edge.

🙁 2. Worried about unhappy customers

Engaging diverse customer groups give you a better finger on the pulse of what your customer base really needs, enabling you to create better solutions, increasing satisfaction and driving loyalty.

💬 3. Frustrated by limited or biased research

Involving a diverse range of users in the research process ensures greater context and a more comprehensive understanding of user needs. This leads to the development of products that cater to a broader audience and have a higher chance of success. Implementing inclusive research practices can help you obtain unbiased insights and make more informed decisions.

Desires and Aspirations

Taking a more inclusive approach can help you achieve your goals.

🙌 1. To build products that deliver value and are actually used

Inclusive innovation involves engaging diverse users throughout the product development process to identify and prioritise real-world problems. By understanding and addressing the needs of different user groups, you can create products that are relevant, usable, and meet the expectations of a wide range of customers.

📈 2. To gain market traction and scale

By considering diverse perspectives, you can develop strategies that resonate with different market segments, leading to increased market traction, greater market opportunity and success. An inclusive approach fosters collaboration and can harness collective intelligence to create products to tap into underrepresented markets.

🌍 3. To make the world a better place

By incorporating accessibility, and inclusivity principles and addressing broader social issues, you can make a real difference and create positive change.