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Session 8 Next steps in planning for a Living Lab
Session 8 Next steps in planning for a Living Lab
Your next step is to watch the following video. This will set you up for studying the rest of this final session
Transcript
EMILS KILIS:
Now that you have learned about Living Labs and what we have done and learned at AgriLink, it is time for you to judge if you want to start up a Living Lab or help others to set up a Living Lab. In this session, we will look at four conditions that we think are important when taking such a decision.
The first condition is to appreciate the complexity of the challenge and accept that there will be a diversity of issues, interests, relationships, and communications to manage. The second condition is to ensure there is an enabling settling, with people having the appropriate skills, experiences, and attitudes for experimenting and working together.
Next, it is important that everyone has the energy to move, that they agree on the need and urgency and have the capacity to engage. Lastly, success relies on good methodological preparation, having agreed rules and process that encourage trust but allow for adaptation when needed.
This can all seem daunting, but as with any journey, start by making the first steps, which you are doing by studying this course.
By this stage, the final session of the course, you may be eager to get going on setting up a Living Lab to create a new agricultural advisory service, unsure what to do next or given up on the idea altogether.
Even if you are in the latter group, I hope you will read on as I reflect on some of the different frameworks and methods we used in our Living Labs, frameworks and methods that you may want to use anyway, just not within the context of a Living Lab.
I also want to set out the main conclusions in answer to the central question we were trying to answer in AgriLink:
How and to what extent are Living Labs appropriate settings and means for development of improved innovation support services that contribute to learning and innovation for more sustainable agriculture? |
Once I have done all that, I will finish by suggesting how you could use this course, or what you have learned from this course, to train or support others in learning how to set up and run Living Labs and/or use some of the tools we deployed.
Now go to the next section.
The monitoring and evaluation process
In AgriLink, the monitoring and evaluation process has been a key feature of the Living Labs.
Although we have not looked at the monitoring and evaluation process in detail in this course, feedback from the Living Lab monitors and facilitators strongly suggest that the monitoring and evaluation process was essential to help the individual Living Labs document, reflect and adapt their ideas, progress and direction and improve conceptual, methodological and practical skills and expertise over time. The discussions, training and peer-review exercises in each of the meetings we ran allowed for learning and adaptations within, between and beyond the Living Labs.
As befits a research project, the monitoring and evaluation process was resource intensive and intellectually demanding for all involved. While this had clear benefits as noted, it also ran the risk of ‘weighing down’ facilitators and monitors (and perhaps Living Lab processes), especially when trying to deal with the day-to-day realities of convening and supporting Living Lab.
There is a fine balance to be struck as the work of a Living Lab, as an open-ended learning processes, is dependent on some form of ‘local’ monitoring and evaluation process. Where the monitoring and evaluation process can be extended across several Living Labs, then the potential for learning increases considerably.
Design thinking
Comments made by the facilitators and monitors suggested that the design thinking process was useful, but each Living Lab chartered its own course after the empathising stage.
Collectively, key insights into the design thinking process included:
All groups were aware of the need for iteration. |
It was not necessary to start with the empathy phase, but you can start with an existing product or prototype. This can help provide ‘concrete’ focus and energy and the other phases can be brought into play in due course. |
Not all Living Lab stakeholders wanted to be engaged in the ideate phase. Reasons for this included lack of time, cultural preferences, unfamiliarity with process, lack of trust, uncertainty of the outcome, or reluctance to voice their opinions or concerns in open fora. |
The prototype stage was particularly challenging, but rapid prototyping can also help provide energy to the Living Lab in helping to define the problem and determine stakeholder needs and interests. Prototyping enables learning by doing (and potentially failing). |
The early steps are easier, even if the define phase often did not get enough attention. More time spent during the first stages can reduce later problems during, for example, the prototype phase. |
Iteration is not a failure. Changes in context, legislation or technology or understanding of stakeholder preferences could result in need for a change in problem definition and/or prototype. |
Recommendations for new innovation services based on Living Labs
On the basis of the AgriLink Living Lab experiences and monitoring and evaluation, the lessons and learning arising from the Living Labs are summarised below.
| Useful in situations where there is a ‘pressing concern’, some enthusiasm for change, but uncertainty about how to proceed. |
| The open-ended nature of Living Lab is appropriate for situations experienced as complex and contested. |
| Longer duration of Living Lab (compared to e.g. workshops) allows for trust, relationships and insights into the situation to develop. |
| Energy and enthusiasm is derived from a mandate and/or invitation from stakeholders. |
| Flexible to changes in understanding and needs of stakeholders and can be adapted to new conditions/situations as learning develops. |
| Can provide space and time for new ideas and practices to be explored in collaboration with others. |
| Skilled facilitator, monitoring processes and organisational support. |
| Are not a panacea for all problems and situations. |
| May not suit particular cultural and social contexts with limited experience of collaboration. |
| May be inappropriate for mostly technical discussions which can be progressed using other less intensive and less open-ended processes. |
| Resource intensive, particularly early on when trust and relationships are being developed and the potential focus for a LL is being determined. |
| Can be experienced as ‘slow’ extended processes. Time requirements on participants (e.g. farmers) can limit participation. |
| May be experienced as threat to existing relationships, particularly where commercial interests are at stake. |
| Are not guaranteed to provide pre-determined results within a given time frame. Many outcomes will be emergent. |
| Open-ended and emergent nature of Living Lab can be difficult for organisations to commit to funding and participating in Living Lab. |
There was broad agreement across the AgriLink Living Labs that they were positive, successful initiatives that achieved, to a greater or lesser degree, the development of new innovations in agriculture advisory services. But there were also very real difficulties and problems for the Living Labs, particularly in the earlier stages in deciding on focus, finding ways of engaging with and being trusted by diverse stakeholders and managing inter-organisational differences.
Despite, and in some cases because of, these difficulties, the Living Labs have led to considerable learning about the Living Lab approach itself, stakeholder engagement practices, roles, techniques and skills. In several Living Labs, this has led to changes in the work and cultural norms of the advisory organisations and farming groups, and a new understanding of more collaborative forms of advisory service development. These shifts offer considerable scope for new agricultural practices to be explored and adapted to particular contexts.
In addition, the Living Labs facilitated wider understanding, development and, in some cases, use of particular technologies to improve farming methods and approaches. But not all innovations are technologically orientated. In several of the Living Labs, enabling information and knowledge development within stakeholder networks were the focus of the innovation and key to the success of new outputs and practices with financial, social and environmental benefits.
While the Living Labs led to increased opportunities for more sustainable agriculture, determining ‘final’ outcomes were tempered by the relatively short timescale of the Living Labs and often ‘indirect’ effects, such as increased confidence to try new ideas, which are less tangible and may occur outside the Living Lab boundary or research timeline.
Efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness
Efficacy
Assessing the extent to which the Living Lab achieved their purpose must be qualified by several elements including the changes during the life of the Living Lab as to their purpose and focus, the ongoing nature of some of the Living Lab, and the interruptions to the later activities of the Living Lab in 2020 due to Covid-19. However, taking these elements into account, for the most part the Living Labs did achieve their main goals, even if these changed and developed over the course of the Living Lab.
Overall, the efficacy of the Living Lab was maximised when deployed in the right context in situations of some complexity with a degree of stakeholder interest, a sense of urgency to address a problem situation and a willingness to review existing practices. All of the Living Labs were able to bring farmers, advisors and experts together to identify needs and explore possible improvements to advisory services. From the participants’ point of view, by engaging in the Living Lab they experienced (to greater or lesser extent depending on their own preferences) the opportunity and realities of participating in framing issues and determining possible actions in more collaborative ways with other stakeholders. This has opened up discussions and new ideas for advisory services.
However, as open innovation tools, the efficacy of Living Lab is reduced when used for more defined, small scale initiatives which are largely incontrovertible among the stakeholder and/or user community. In these instances, a Living Lab is too significant and an unnecessary undertaking simply to ‘agree’ on technical aspects.
Efficiency
The efficiency of Living Labs (did they use resources, e.g. time, staff, budgets, well?) resulted in an evaluation dilemma. Many of the Living Labs required up-front investment in resources, especially time to develop relationships and understandings. This investment was often more than expected and sometimes experienced by the researchers and others as ‘delay’. This is perhaps inevitable as the Living Labs were focusing on surfacing understanding of complex situations from diverse perspectives and developing trusting relationships.
An additional factor contributing to the ‘time consuming’ nature of the Living Labs was the common experience of the limited time availability of farmers and advisors to participate in the Living Lab, especially at planting and harvesting. This aspect of efficiency is a significant consideration: the AgriLink Living Labs were competing with many other demands on farmers’ time. To be attractive, the Living Labs had to offer some added value and benefit for farmers to warrant their participation and adjust to the farmers’ schedules which also introduce scope for ‘delay’.
In some cases, the resource use was reduced by cooperation with other projects, though this form of cooperation also caused further delay in at least one Living Lab.
Nonetheless, the monitoring and evaluation revealed that, in retrospect, the degree of early investment, in particular, proved to be essential for the later success (or otherwise) of Living Labs. Even so, the use of Living Labs for largely technical discussions and technical issues was less efficient and could perhaps have been progressed using a ‘lighter’ version of a Living Lab or some other process.
It is important to remember that for the purposes of AgriLink, as a research project, the Living Labs were fully invested in and also included a facilitator and a monitor in order to determine their overall usefulness as innovations for AKIS. In more commercial, advisory contexts, the efficiencies of a Living Lab would require careful scrutiny in relation to the nature of the situation and issue. Sufficient, longer term funding (if needed) of a Living Lab also remains an important consideration and has considerable bearing on efficiency if the work of a Living Lab can only be supported for a limited time and ends before outputs and outcomes are evident.
Effectiveness
The third criterion is focused on whether a Living Lab has contributed to its higher purpose within AgriLink. This is interpreted as whether the Living Labs improved innovation support services that contributed to learning and innovation for more sustainable agriculture. Although this was a difficult criterion to assess because of different perspectives and time lags (and disruptions due to Covid-19), the commentaries and reflections by the AgriLink Living Lab researchers suggested there were some significant successes.
Irrespective of their contributions to innovations in advisory services and sustainable agriculture in their specific localities, all of the Living Labs have provided insight and lessons on applying Living Lab methodologies. In this sense, their effectiveness, even where specific outcomes are limited, can be measured in terms of their contribution to understanding Living Labs as innovations spaces in advisory services. Consistent with the research emphasis of AgriLink, all of the Living Labs have helped determine how, when and why a Living Lab can be used to improve agriculture advisory services.
Enabling conditions
From all that I have reported in Session 7 and in this session, we found that there were four conditions for enabling a Living Lab to ‘succeed’, considering the range of contexts, issues and innovations in agricultural advisory services that were involved.
Complexity of the challenge
This condition relates to the level of challenge, indications of the expected ease or difficulty of running a Living Lab. Key questions might include the following:
| Do stakeholders agree about the direction of change? |
| Do stakeholders agree on the possible solutions to the challenge? |
| Is the sustainability challenge in alignment with the private interest of the end user? |
Enabling setting
This condition refers to the whether the setting (context) is conducive to the establishment and continuation of the Living Lab over time. Some key questions to assess this condition include the following:
| Is there room for experimentation and flexibility in the outcome of the process? |
| Can organisers and participants in the LL mobilise enough resources (time, capacity, finance) for the process? |
| Are the consequences of failure acceptable? |
| Are stakeholders used to discussing and participating? |
Energy to move
This condition refers to the existence of a ‘pressing issue’ recognised by stakeholders which generates and focuses the energy of participants to convene the LL and to ensure its continuation. Key questions for assessing this condition include:
| Do the stakeholders experience a sense of urgency/pressing issue to change? |
| Do the stakeholders have the capacity to engage in the LL? |
| Do stakeholders recognise their interdependence in solving the challenge? |
| Do stakeholders trust each other enough to collaborate? |
Methodological preparation
The fourth condition relates mostly to the influence sphere of the facilitator or similar intermediary. This role requires knowledge and experience of methodologies and relevant tools in combination with a reflexive approach and experience to select appropriate tools as required. Relevant questions to assess this condition include the following:
| Does the facilitator combine leadership and mandate with a curious and flexible attitude? |
| Does the facilitator have influence and/or knowledge to convene and shape the LL? |
| Does the facilitator have access to diversity of methods and tools? |
| Is the facilitator experienced to select appropriate tools in unexpected situations? |
Although expressed separately, in practice, the conditions and the elements within them overlap. The list of conditions is not exhaustive, but they have emerged as significant in the range of contexts encountered with AgriLink. No single condition emerges as key for the success or otherwise of Living Lab, but some are important for ‘go/no go’ decision-making on whether to embark on a Living Lab in the first place.
A positive decision not to pursue a Living Lab, if determined with insight and agreement, is a positive result and should not be considered as a failure. The conditions also provide insights into the processes and key challenges associated with implementing and continuing a Living Lab.
To help with making a decision on running a Living Lab or not, we have produced a document Assessment tool – Conditions for a Living Lab to use with other people
Teaching others
You may recall that three of the learning outcomes for this course are:
| Interpret and apply design thinking and systems thinking methods and tools |
| Assess and develop your facilitation practices, including running a blended learning course using the trainers guide |
| Plan your own approach to establishing a Living Lab to provide an innovative agricultural advisory service. |
However, there is only so far you can go with studying what I have set out in this course without actually doing them for real. I cannot provide the opportunity to do practice these skills in a self-study course. This is learning by doing, as we did in AgriLink, as well as learning by reading and thinking, as you are doing in this course. You could dive straight in and plan a Living Lab, but I hope we have shown you that there is a lot to running a Living Lab and not to do it alone.
So, one way to learn by doing is to study along with colleagues and/or teach people you work with about Living Labs (or whatever you want to call them) and the processes that can be helpful in creating and facilitating them. You may or may not have any experience of formal teaching, but if you work with and advise others then you should have some of the skills needed to facilitate learning as well as facilitate a Living Lab.
Even so, you may feel that is a daunting task. That is why we have also written a Living Lab Trainers’ Handbook. This is not going to make you a teacher overnight, but it does give guidance on how you could use the AgriLink course, or materials from it, to run some training sessions. As with a Living Lab, you may want to start small and focus on one or more of the participatory methods outlined in the AgriLink Living Lab Toolbox. As things develop, you might go further and work through a cycle of design thinking on an issue that you and work colleagues can all agree on. Only when you are comfortable with the ideas and processes do you need to try them out with other people who you want to introduce the notion of a Living Lab to.
All learning journeys start with small steps and if you have completed this course then you have come a long way and can expect to go even further as you look to create innovative agricultural advisory services, whether that be through a Living Lab or some other participatory approach. I have also provided links to more resources, many on the AgriLink website, and you may find many more have been added since this course was created.
Summary of Session 8
Session 8 has provided an overview of the collective strengths and weaknesses of the six AgriLink Living Labs, reviewed the value of design thinking and monitoring and evaluation for running Living Labs.
The session also looked at how well the Living Labs answered the key question of how and to what extent are Living Labs appropriate settings and means for development of improved innovation support services that contribute to learning and innovation for more sustainable agriculture?
It then looked at the four most important conditions for that enable success in a Living Lab, before suggesting how trying to teach some of what you have learned to others would be a first step on the journey of deciding whether you want to take your learning much further by planning a Living Lab alongside others.
Course conclusion
You have now completed all eight sessions of this free course, Creating innovative agricultural advisory services through a Living Lab.
The course is an outcome of the EU-funded AgriLink project which ran from 2017 to 2021.
Course outcomes
Having completed this course, you should now be able to:
explain how Living Labs can contribute to the provision of innovative agricultural advisory services
describe the AgriLink approach to Living Labs
apply and interpret design thinking and systems thinking methods and tools
assess and develop your facilitation practices, including running a blended course using the Living Lab Trainers’ Handbook
understand how to monitor and evaluate the operation and outcomes of a Living Lab
plan your own approach to establishing a Living Lab to provide an innovative agricultural advisory service.
I hope you have enjoyed the course and found it to be beneficial to you.
Now check what you have learned by taking the end-of-course knowledge test. Go to Test your knowledge.
Andy Lane
Test your knowledge
This is a great way to check your understanding of what you have learned.
While I have just noted in session 8 that three of the learning outcomes can only be fully tested out by doing something in practice, I also hope that you have been able to test out your own thinking about practice through the reflective activities. These provide a record that you can go back and add to or change as you see fit.
However, the remaining learning outcomes deal more with knowledge and understanding and so can be tested in part through a quiz. So, check what you have learned by taking the end-of-course knowledge test.
Go to Test your knowledge now.
Glossary
The Glossary gives definitions for all the commonly used terms throughout this course.
Acknowledgements
This free course was written by Andy Lane, The Open University, United Kingdom.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence.
The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this free course:
353760: Course Image: Photo by Jake Gard on Unsplash
324117: Session 1 Living Labs: People inspecting crop field trials: AgriLink Living Lab Trainers’ Handbook. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike Licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
327132: Summary of Session 1: Living Lab members in a workshop: Chris Blackmore
324121: Session 2 The nature of innovative agricultural advisory services: Group of farmers and advisors talking in a field: © Agrilink. https://www.agrilink2020.eu/
354136: Figure 2.1a Actors involved in a contemporary AKIS: EU SCAR (2012) Agricultural knowledge and innovation systems in transition – a reflection paper, Brussels. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/scar/pdf/akis_web.pdf
354138: Figure 2.1b Example of a national AKIS for Italy; Figure 2.1c Figure 2.1b Example of a national AKIS for Greece: PRO AKIS (2012-2015) ‘Prospects for Farmers’ Support: Advisory Services in European AKIS’, https://proakis.hutton.ac.uk/sites/proakis.hutton.ac.uk/files/PROAKIS_findings%20brochure_online.pdf
327135: Summary of Session 2: Group of people on a field visit in Spain: Chris Blackmore
324125: Session 3 The AgriLink approach to Living Labs: Group of people talking and recording conversation on large paper: Emils Kilis
327140: Summary of Session 3: Group of people on a field visit with agricultural advisors in Spain: Melanie von Raaij
324139: Session 4 The multi method approach: applying design thinking and systems thinking: AgriLink paper-based forms being filled in: © Agrilink. https://www.agrilink2020.eu/
327490: Figure 4.1 and 4.2 Example of design thinking stages: Adapted from Interaction Design Foundation. www.interaction-design.org
353888: Figure 4.3 The five steps of design thinking: Bootcamp Bootleg D.School. (2010) Modes of design thinking. D.School, University of Stanford. Available at: https://dschool.stanford.edu/ s/ METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf
327143: Figure 4.4 Two examples of systems maps : Andy Lane
327195: Summary of Session 4: Group at a table drawing and discussing a diagram they are producing on large paper : Chris Blackmore
324164: Session 5 The facilitation of Living Labs: Living Lab facilitators and monitors at an AgriLink workshop: Chris Blackmore
324176: Session 5 The facilitation of Living Labs: Living Lab members creating a conversation map: Chris Blackmore
327196: Summary of Session 5: Group of five people sat at a table sharing and discussing ideas: Chris Blackmore
324184: Session 6 The monitoring and evaluation of Living Labs: Discussion group at a preliminary stage of an AgriLink Living Lab: Egil Petter Stræte
324202: Figure 6.2: © The Open University
327201: Figure 6.3: Chris Blackmore
324204: Session 7 Living with a Living Lab: some dos and don’ts: Meeting being held in a barn with farmers: © Agrilink. https://www.agrilink2020.eu/
327203: Summary of Session 7: Presentation being given to Living Lab stakeholders in a room in Norway: Egil Petter Stræte
324208: Session 8 Next steps in planning for a Living Lab: People sitting at table with one writing on large piece of paper: Egil Petter Stræte
327205: Summary of Session 8: Large group sat in a circle sharing experiences about agricultural advisory services: Alina Alexa
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