TIPS and HINTS 1

GETTING STARTED

When your great idea gets hold of you, resist the temptation to tell everyone about it. Publicity triggers organisational immune systems. Hard selling excites fears and anxieties.

The key to getting quick approval is not to terrify people. The message to communicate is ‘The decision to proceed isn’t dangerous. All we are deciding now is to authorise a test and intelligence gathering. When we have more information, then we can make the big decision.’

Explain your idea modestly. Begin by talking to trusted friends and colleagues and ask for advice on flaws, concerns, issues before exposing the idea to probable enemies.

Map out internal and external individuals, groups, organisations who may have a stake in the idea and find formal and informal opportunities to seek advice, views and opinions. Some of these views will be negative and this is where resilience and persistence pay off.

Never try to sell an idea, look for ways to improve it. Accept all suggestions graciously. Try to identify other people who will help you. Listen, don’t expound. In creating an ‘idea virus’, identify and infect the powerful ‘sneezers’ who can help pave the way

for you. Keep checking the idea is feasible throughout the development process. Remember the point of this is not what you can offer, no matter how wonderful, but what the

benefits are to patients. Remember that decisions are rarely made on a rational basis but are made by human beings

subjectively and emotionally. You are operating in the theatre of the heart and not the library of the mind.

Throughout the development process, ‘scan the environment’ (politics, policies, priorities, people) and be prepared to alter your plans at a stroke depending on intelligence. Plans are out of date as soon as you produce them.

People love a good story. Build a financial model at the conceptual stage, right at the very beginning. If you can add and

subtract, then you can do this. At first, this will be guesswork but as you act and learn, financial estimates can be revised on a daily basis if necessary.

Be aware that your financial analysis also needs to tell a compelling story and will excite an emotional reaction.

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Do not be taken in and bamboozled by financial accounting and management systems you may have encountered in the NHS. Simply, a financial model should identify costs and income. In the early stages of a project, you will have to make lots of assumptions and, quite frankly, make stuff up.

Costs will be made up of fixed costs (the givens); variable costs (costs which may fluctuate like salaries); development costs (always good to signal that this is important from the outset) and capital costs (things like buildings, equipment etc)

Income may be secured from a variety of sources, not just NHS coffers. Researching this is very important as, realistically, opportunities here will influence the development of the project. However, do not let funding drive the project because this does not work.

Ann Macfadyenann@sodainnovation.com07900903700

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