What is this tool?

Barrier cards are a tool that clearly presents the results of a complex study conducted by the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Warsaw for Ashoka. As a result of the study, a list of barriers in scaling social innovations in our country was created.

The cards we created in order to:

• facilitate conversations about barriers in the activities of a company or organization,
• help to put them in order,
• find the indicators measuring them,
• facilitate discussions on how to deal with barriers.

Concept: Agata Urbanik
Design of cards: Marianna Wybieralska

How were the cards created?

The research by Institute for Social Studies for Ashoka had two stages: During the first stage, barriers to the development of innovation in the Polish context were determined based on expert interviews.

The second stage of the study was to verify the previously defined barriers and lead to the creation of an index of barrier indicators adequate for the whole of Central and Eastern Europe. During this stage, I was responsible for creating a scenario for expert interviews.

I wanted the research to be as practical as possible, to develop the results of the previous stage and not to be too time-consuming for the participants. That is why, after analyzing the research results, together with Marianna Wybieralska we designed special research cards. They served as a basis for further interviews with experts and were used in workshop meetings.

The cards systematize the barriers that organizations and institutions encounter. They can be successfully used by managers, for example:

• to diagnose the situation of the organization, or
• to support the process of reflective work with clients, the aim of which is to identify the greatest challenges arising in joint projects.

Agata Urbanik designed a research of barriers to the development of (social) innovation. I put “social” in parenthesis, because I believe the subject refers to innovation in general. I received almost 70 cards divided into 10 areas. I had to choose only 10 and then classify them from the greatest to the smallest barrier. But it is not the end – additionally, my task was to invent an indicator measuring this barrier and list the barriers that, in my opinion, were missing from the research. (…)A great initiative and a very interesting research! Forces you to think.

Bartosz Biluj-Stodulski, creator and managing director Laboratorium EE.