The way in which housing associations manage the rugged terrain of innovation will be explored in this chapter. The chapter is built around the experiences that our case-study associations have had on their innovation journey. These associations, from stage one of the research, provide our richest evidence of ‘going with the flow’ and their endeavours are drawn upon extensively and reported in the body of the text. The chapter also presents the stage-two case-study selected from the innovative associations discussed in Chapter 5. The sample for these associations was based upon a number of factors. The type of innovation (total, evolutionary, expansionary, developmental) was proportionately selected from within the database. A description of the innovation was examined to ensure that a variety of innovation examples were captured, including housing production as well as housing management ones. This resulted in the selection of fifteen stage-two cases, of which four did not proceed. The remaining eleven cases were undertaken through a mixture of telephone and face-to-face interviews and the analysis of documents. Illustrative examples of how six of these stage-two casestudy organisations experienced their journey of managing the innovation process are highlighted at appropriate junctures in boxes.

The structure of the chapter follows the process theory framework presented in Chapter 2 (Van de Ven et al, 1989, 1999). We elaborate on the framework to illustrate the detailed aspects of each temporal period of initiation, development and implementation. Lessons on the management of innovation are drawn out and notable issues include the role of teams and teamwork, projects, pilots and experiments, and various forms of project management.