How the Amazon Innovation Accelerator helped Fire Station Creative find a new approach to innovation

When something in your business has worked for years, it can be hard to know where genuine innovation should come from next. Improvement can become a case of doing more of what’s working, rather than questioning whether there is a better way. 

That was the challenge facing Fire Station Creative. After eleven years supporting Dunfermline’s creative community, Managing Director Ian Moir joined the Amazon Innovation Accelerator looking for new ways to think about what to do next. 

Looking beyond what already works 

Fire Station Creative is an independent arts charity based in a converted art deco fire station in Dunfermline. Since opening in 2015, it has hosted around 130 exhibitions and more than 1,000 live music events, with studio space for people in creative industries. 

The organisation was fulfilling the purpose it had been created for. But Ian had started to question whether its approach to innovation had become too narrow. 

Before Amazon’s programme, the level of innovation we did was limited. It was mainly focused on finding interesting artists, performers or musicians. It dawned on me that we were thinking inside the box and had done so since we started the business. 

Instead of continuing to make small improvements, Ian wanted to think more broadly about how Fire Station Creative could develop.  

Working backwards from the people you serve 

For Ian, the biggest shift came from Amazon’s Working Backwards philosophy. Starting with the needs of the people Fire Station Creative serves, then using PRFAQ to test potential solutions, gave him a more structured way to develop ideas before committing time and resources to them. 

Amazon’s Working Backwards philosophy and PRFAQ process helped give me clarity. It helped refine my own perspective on how to make our organisation better, without wasting time, money and resources on things that don’t achieve real results.

Ian has already started introducing the approach to colleagues at Fire Station Creative. Instead of simply pursuing an idea because it sounds promising, the team can use PRFAQ to pull it apart, simplify it and decide whether it is worth taking forward. 

Amazon’s PRFAQ process has been brilliantly conceived. It’s something I have already introduced to my colleagues. It’s given us a tried and tested approach to implement new ideas and changes in the organisation. 

Ian is also starting to apply the approach beyond Fire Station Creative. He is working with a local community group to help them connect what they are trying to achieve with the needs of the local authority, using elements of the PRFAQ process. 

A clearer vision for what comes next 

The programme has not changed Fire Station Creative’s purpose. But it has changed the way Ian thinks about how the organisation can continue evolving. 

Rather than relying on instinct or making incremental changes, he now has a clearer framework for deciding which ideas are worth pursuing and how to develop them. 

Since Amazon’s programme, the change I am most proud of is my mindset. I have a different outlook now. A more refined, clearer vision of how to move forward. And that is more valuable to me than gold.