innovate / scanning the technology horizon

By the end of the programme, participants will be able to:

• Scan ahead for emerging technology and new ways of working relevant to your team or service, knowing what to look at, where and how

• Judge what is worth backing early and what can wait for maturity

• Weigh that judgement against risk, compliance burden and disruption, including how to test safely and in line with current guidance

• Build the case for early adoption where it is worth pursuing and put it to decision makers

• Leaders who keep their own thinking current on technology and new ways of working

• A common approach across your group, so ideas are judged on shared criteria

• Ideas that reach decision makers with their compliance route, safe test and disruption plan already worked through

• Small, well-defined trials that give decision makers evidence to work with

• A scanning routine your group keeps up after the day

Discovery: A conversation with you and a short pre-workshop questionnaire. It covers how your group scans today, the blockers it meets, the rules and approvals that apply to trying something new and the services and ways of working it is responsible for. The results shape the examples and the compliance checklist used on the day.

Full-day core workshop: In person or virtual. Every session is built around practice, role play and habit building.

09:30 - 09:45 | Welcome and expectations
Introductions and aims for the day. Participants add to an expectations wall what they want to be able to judge and back by the end of the session, and the group reviews the pre-workshop results.

09:45 - 10:15 | Who scans: myths and mindsets
Groups sort common beliefs about scanning into myth and truth, for example that it belongs to the technology team or that an idea must be certain before it is raised. They pick the two most active in their context and agree the mindset to practise through the day.

10:15 - 10:45 | Where your work meets the horizon
Groups choose a service or way of working they are responsible for. They complete an empathy map and a journey map for the people who use or depend on it and mark where friction, delay or cost sits today. This gives the scan a clear focus.

10:45 - 11:00 | Break

11:00 - 12:00 | Scanning for signals: what to look at, where and how
Participants learn five kinds of signal: central direction and guidance, peers’ pilots and published lessons, supplier and market developments, research and evidence, and what colleagues and service users report. Groups build a scanning map of where each comes from in their area and which specialists to ask, such as digital and data, security, data protection and commercial colleagues. They log signals on post-its, place them on their journey map and sort them by when each is likely to affect the work: now, next or later. Groups agree the rhythm for their own scan.

12:00 - 12:45 | From signals to ideas
Groups turn their strongest signals into “How might we…” prompts. Each participant sketches eight ways a signal could change the journey in a Crazy 8s round, shares their favourites and votes with dots for the strongest.

12:45 - 13:30 | Lunch

13:30 - 14:10 | Back it now or let it mature
Groups agree their own criteria for value and maturity, such as evidence of use elsewhere, available guidance and standards, and the skills needed. They place the ideas on an effort versus impact grid adapted to value and maturity and sort them into back now, trial in a sandbox or watch. Each group defends its placements to a challenge panel in a short role play.

14:10 - 14:55 | Risk, compliance burden and disruption
Groups overlay the journey map to show who is affected by each idea and where disruption would fall. They work through a compliance checklist covering data protection, security, accessibility, procurement, governance approvals and current guidance, rate the burden of each and note which specialist to involve. Groups then define a safe test environment: what can be tested, with what data, who signs off and when it stops. They revise their placements on the grid in light of the findings.

14:55 - 15:10 | Break

15:10 - 16:00 | Building the case for early adoption
Each group writes a one-page case for an idea worth pursuing, addressed to a named decision maker. It sets out the opportunity, the evidence, the compliance route, the disruption plan and a small sandbox test with its scope, success measures and the point at which to continue or stop. Groups sketch a low-fidelity version of the trial, and peers respond in “I like / I wish / What if” rounds. Each group refines its case and rehearses a two-minute pitch to the challenge panel.

16:00 - 16:30 | Commitments and close
Each participant writes a pledge card with one change in how they scan and sponsor. The group agrees its scanning routine, covering who scans, which sources, which template and how often it reviews signals together. The group then revisits the expectations wall and closes with questions.