This is how White Arkitekter creates innovation and new businesses. For real.
Photo: White Arkitekter
As one of Scandinavia's leading architectural firms, White works with sustainable architecture, design and urban development in an international context.
White's mission is to use the power of architecture to drive the transition to a sustainable life, and the company has long invested in research and development to build new knowledge and develop the industry and society.
The architecture industry, like many other industries, faces great opportunities and challenges as the world around us develops at an increasingly rapid pace. In order to increase the pace so that more development projects and ideas can be transformed into new business offerings, there was a need to strengthen its capacity for innovation.
“The purpose of the innovation initiative is to develop the company and its employees and to create new innovative solutions and sustainable business together with our customers” — Jennie Lack, project manager and involved in the work of developing the innovation initiative at White.
In a lecture for Innovation Pioneers, Petter Green — Director of digital business, talks about the work of going from creativity and curiosity to taking new business to the market and finding unique business models. Our world is suffering and how we build properties, cities, and communities has a major impact on our environment. As a leading player, White wants to promote a sustainable future through new innovations and good architecture. In our work, we innovate in a value chain that has not changed for many years.
Expectations of the initiative
In 2019, work began to formalize an innovation program that evolved into the White Innovation Lab — an incubator that helps innovation teams from across the company to develop and refine business ideas and bring them to market.
An innovation lab in place with structure and methodology
Increased understanding and knowledge around innovation, business development and service design
A number of teams are up and running, exploring new business opportunities
At least one service contributing to White's business
How have you collaborated?
Jens Wedin, innovation coach and with extensive experience in early-stage business development, what has the work and collaboration been like?
When we started at White, the work on innovation had been going on for a few months. White had decided in its business plan to focus on innovation. Originally, it was mainly the steering group that worked on setting the right conditions and understanding what innovation was and how White would work with innovation. When we started, the main focus was on starting two innovation pilots and establishing a process and methodology linked to innovation work. We built the process as we went along.
Everything we created provided reusability and that we could scale up efficiently. During 2.5 years, the focus has changed depending on which phase we are in. At first, the focus was mainly on the operational level and supporting the teams. Afterwards, we focused on describing the process and methodology and setting structures at the tactical level and packaging. During the this spring, we have mainly worked with communication and anchoring in the organization to get as much commitment as possible from employees. Most recently, we have worked to educate and train internal employees at White to take over when we as consultants have gone home.
What have been the success factors?
How have you worked, and what have been the most important factors for success? Lars-Erik Nilsson, project manager at White, talks about the six most essential pieces of the puzzle?
Dare to do, dare to run! We have always focused on “building the bridge while walking on it", an agile approach to how we have built our innovation system. Pilots have been started early on, and they have been involved in influencing the design and working methods.
Ensure strategic support! Clear objectives from company management and a strategic steering group that provides the right conditions and support.
Have a business focus from day one! We have had a number of senior employees who support and challenge the teams on the new products and services.
Get help from expertise! We have brought in external methodological expertise to help and coach teams forward. Working with innovation requires new ways of working and approaches.
Build a can-do attitude! We had a tactical working group that identifies opportunities in the organization and builds internal innovation capacity. We train internal innovation coaches who can support the methodology and approach, and lead the work forward when the external experts have “gone home”.
Communicate, communicate, communicate! Don't think it will happen by itself. Establishing a new way of thinking in an established organization requires diligent communication and hard work. Communicate more than you think you need to, create engagement and communicate stories of ongoing innovation journeys that motivate others to try.
What has been fun and the main challenges of the job?
Working with innovation and new business development is no walk in the park. It can be seen more as a hard workout. It's incredibly hard when you're in the middle of it, just like always in creative processes. But afterwards, you feel a great sense of pride and joy. If you don't get training pains, you probably haven't done enough, then just go out and do another session.
Niklas Eriksson, business owner. You have been part of one of the innovation teams that have developed White ReCapture, a new service that combines 3D scanning, sustainability expertise and automation, and that integrates into the design process to simplify large-scale reuse. How have you experienced the work?
It has been incredibly inspiring, I have gained new knowledge and an entirely new way of working through the innovation work. To further develop an idea from a business perspective has been very stimulating and educational. The most fun has been to work in a really competent team and to get an external consultant's experience and coaching. The most challenging thing has probably been to find time for the team, as many work in parallel with other assignments with different deadlines. Niklas Eriksson, member of one of the innovation teams and business owner.
What impact, benefits or changes in behaviour have you noticed?
Jens, what effects or changes have you seen during the project? This type of change that we have worked with at White affects people, employees, and leaders in several ways. Creating a new approach and way of working takes time. It often takes many years before everything has settled in an organization, that most people have an understanding of what the purpose is, how to work and what effect or benefit it provides. It's not enough to hold a big meeting or have an introductory training course for something to happen; you have to nurture this over a long period of time. The major effects I see are;
We get new services on the market that create added value and business for both White and their customers.
We build competence and experience within White and reduce dependence on consultants.
Employees get to work in new ways and create new services, which makes them even more motivated.
White can strengthen its position even more as an attractive workplace.
What are we working on right now and what is the next step?
Lars-Erik, you have been involved for a long time, what is the focus now and in the future? Right now, we are working on three parts;
Motivate: Going into an innovation project is for many to go outside their comfort zone. We stimulate and help employees to take their ideas to the next step.
Formalize: From being a project, we now need to refine and improve structure and management. How do we ensure that innovation becomes part of the culture at White? We want to find a good model to follow up on innovation projects and to integrate the results into the existing organization over time.
Support: It is like a roller coaster where sometimes things go well, and sometimes you get stuck and have to take a new path. Just like innovation and business development should be. We support the teams that have started and build up an innovation capacity with internal innovation coaches.
Read more about White Innovation Lab
Note: This work was done together with SeventyOne Group, the group which Studio Manfred is part of.
