Design for Scale
Achieving scale is a goal that has been elusive for many digital development practitioners. The mHealth field, for example, has identified the problem of pilotitis, or the inability to move initiatives beyond pilot stage. Achieving scale can mean different things in different contexts, but it requires adoption beyond an initiatives pilot population and often necessitates securing funding or partners that take the initiative to new communities or regions. Different implementers may define scale as reaching a certain percentage of a population or a certain number of users. Designing for scale means thinking beyond the pilot and making choices that will enable widespread adoption later, as well as determining what will be affordable and usable by a whole country or region, rather than by a few pilot communities. You may need to evaluate the trade-offs among processes that would lead to rapid start-up and implementation of a short-term pilot versus those pilots that require more time and planning but lay the foundation for scaling by reducing future work and investment. By designing for scale from the beginning, your initiative can be expanded more easily to new users, markets, regions or countries if the initiative meets user needs and has local impact.
Core Tenets
- Plan and design for scale from the start.
- Develop a definition of scale for your initiative.
- Keep your design simple, flexible and modular to make it easy to change your content and adapt to other contexts.
- As you make technology choices, think about whether they will make it easier or harder to scale.
- Identify partners early who can help to scale your tool or approach.
- Consider your funding model, including revenue-generation options, social business models, the cost per user and financial paths to sustaining the initiative.
- Gather evidence and demonstrate impact before attempting to scale.
- Don't attempt to scale without fully validating that your initiative is appropriate in a new context and addresses a priority need.