Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 174

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box” perspective and re-organising how a service is delivered by questioning
assumptions. One such assumption is whether a procedure needs to be
carried out by a particular person or by someone trained to do it.
Scaling on the other hand often requires a catalytic innovation. The best
idea may reach a natural plateau at some point and getting to the next
level requires not just working or pushing harder, but also doing something
different - innovating, rethinking, perhaps even changing the way service
delivery has worked for decades. Scaling often requires more stakeholders,
partnerships and networks.
Equally critical is to enable leaders to know whether or not to scale. And
it begins with gathering evidence of impact and how the impact happens.
This is to ensure that what is to be scaled has evidential impact on the clients
and is not used for promotional reasons. The evidence or data will instruct
on the readiness to scale.
Social service leaders looking to scale any programme or service should
take a very critical look at their work, their programme model, and their
impact before tackling the question of scale. It is useful to answer these
questions squarely: Is the programme or service something that people
really need? Can we prove that it works and will have a broader application?
And, always, always, always check if anyone is already doing something
similar and determine whether partnering might help them do it better. It is
through partnerships that the social service sector can succeed at innovating
and scaling social service delivery solutions. This is so because sustained
interventions and solutions for the social needs in today’s complex world will
require skills from across organisations.
So capacity and capability building is not an option but is critical in order
for us to be relevant in the increasingly complex and unpredictable world.

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