What is a Solutions Lab?

 A “Solutions Lab” is a space that enables diverse groups of people to come together to develop solutions to a problem that no one person or group could solve alone.  These challenges are typically complex and systemic – and are not easy to deal with. 

The ‘space’ of a solutions lab is not typically a physical space.  A solutions lab is really a set of steps (a process) we go through to work together in collaborative ways that don’t start with answers, but start by deeply understanding a problem.

A Solutions Lab:

  • explores a challenge from the beginning to the end,

  • ·proposes ideas or solutions

  • experiments with those ideas or solutions to see what works

  • works on a people-centred problem over time.

Solutions Labs are a response to everyone’s realization that our typical and older ways of tackling big problems have not been working.

About Solutions Labs

 

Design principles

  • Whole-System Representation: to find solutions that work in a system, that entire system needs to be somehow represented in the room.

  • Evidence-Based: Solutions must be informed by multiple form of current evidence

  • User-Centred Design: Solutions must centre around the experience of person who is going to be using it / impacted by it.

  • Solutions Ownership: When we come up with solutions, the people or organizations that would play a key role in actually making it happen – must be in the room, as their buy-in is key to successful implementation.

Active sensemaking

The Housing through an Autism Lens Solutions Lab project is using as part of its process Active Sensemaking or Sensemaking.

Sensemaking helps us understand a current system by looking at the real-life experiences of individuals, while we also pay attention to the context around those experiences.  

Read more on Sensemaking.