How the Amazon Innovation Accelerator is helping Chatterbug turn good ideas into scalable processes

For growing businesses, having good ideas is only part of the challenge. As teams get bigger, the processes and ways of working that once came naturally need to become easier to repeat, share and scale.  

That was the challenge facing Chatterbug. The speech and language therapy provider has always embraced innovation, but CEO Asma Khanum was keen to turn the team's instinctive approach into something that could support its continued growth. 

Capturing the Chatterbug way 

Chatterbug is a social enterprise that provides speech and language therapy to children and young people across the UK. Based in Leeds, the organisation works predominantly with schools as well as local authorities, the NHS and private clients. 

For Chatterbug, innovation is not about doing something new for the sake of it. It is about finding better, faster and more sustainable ways of getting effective support to children. 

Before joining the Amazon Innovation Accelerator, the team had plenty of ideas. The hard part was capturing how those ideas became successful changes, so the same approach could be replicated across the organisation. 

Innovation has always been part of how we work. We naturally question why things are done a certain way and if there is a better approach. The challenge was turning this instinctive thinking into a structured, repeatable process that could be scaled across the organisation.

The accelerator gave Asma an opportunity to see how Amazon turns innovation into a structured, repeatable process. 

I’m comfortable with failure because it’s part of innovation. But it needs to teach us something. Amazon's programme has helped us think more deliberately about how we test, learn and move forward quickly. 

Moving faster with the customer in mind 

Amazon’s Working Backwards approach reinforced the importance of starting with the problem being solved, rather than jumping straight to a solution. 

For Asma, that meant returning to the purpose behind her business – helping children to get the speech and language support they need. 

One thing Amazon’s programme reinforced for me was starting with the customer’s problem rather than the technology you have. It has helped us go back to our roots of why we started the company and how everything we build must work for the child we exist to serve.

The combination of structure and speed is already influencing how Chatterbug operates. One example is the automation of its private client booking process, which used to involve multiple manual steps and now happens at the click of a button. The change has removed the need to recruit an additional administrator, while freeing up existing staff time for other work. 

Some of the automation work we’re doing now is a by-product of becoming more aware of how fast innovation can be done. As we’ve freed up time, our team can focus on other tasks that help them develop professionally and focus more on building customer relationships.

Scaling without losing quality 

For Asma, the programme has provided validation and a clearer roadmap for taking Chatterbug’s strengths further. Instead of depending on instinct, the team are thinking about how successful approaches can be captured, communicated and repeated. 

Scalability does not mean losing quality. Amazon’s Innovation Accelerator has helped us see that the strongest ideas we have are in the business – it's about making them clear and sustainable.