Since its inception, the Young Foundation has been at the forefront of social innovation. We are constantly searching for novel approaches to aid our work. In keeping with this approach, we are currently launching the Prototyping and Piloting Practice to consolidate our body of work on testing innovation in practice.

In industrial and product design, prototyping is absolutely central to the design process and usually involves building small scale, inexpensive representative models to test the fundamental thinking informing a new concepts. However, services are intangible - you cannot pick one up, bend it and see if it still works. So the question then is: "How do you prototype something that you can't build?"

At the Young Foundation we believe that prototyping can vastly improve the design and delivery of new services. It does this by:

• creating a low cost, low risk environment for exploration of ideas and concepts,

• bringing service users and a wide range of stakeholders together at an earlier stage,

• engaging in meaningful co-design,

• testing concepts more rigorously: start small, design out problems early

• embracing early failure - following the design maxim, success through failure, and

• understanding what doesn't work just as fast as what does

The current squeeze on public finances, coupled with the demand for innovative new services that deliver more for less, lends itself to finding solutions through our rapid prototyping approach. Furthermore - information gained through prototyping means that when a pilot is set up, it will be much more likely to be successful, as obvious bugs will have been ironed out. And most importantly, the prototyping stage will have tested out demand for the service - so nothing is delivered without knowing it is wanted, needed and prioritised.

Over the next few months we will be further developing our prototyping skills and expertise, applying it to active projects in our portfolio. We will also be hosting a series of learning events whereby we will share and disseminate our learning as well as hearing from experts in the field.

Our work to date testing new ideas includes:

• developing new ways of working in particular fields such as ageing and wellbeing

• the development of new ventures such as Studio Schools and Centre for Justice Innovation

• practical ways to use innovation methods like the London Collaborative and the Global Innovation Academy
  

Key reading

• The Open Book of Social Innovation - a shared resource for the global community to use, develop and improve.