Create and facilitate workshops to experience agile methods and cosult innovative product and service development
INNOVATION CONSULTING
CHALLENGE
BACKGROUND
The innovation process, coupled with colorful workshops with interdisciplinary teams, is often supposed to change entire organizational cultures and at the same time produce profitable offers like on an assembly line. But what should honest and sustainable innovation consulting really contain?
TIME
May 2017 – today
AGENCY
Primarily Freelance
SELECTION OF CLIENTS
Voith, Volkswagen, Leica, BMW, Boehringer Ingelheim, Allianz, Berliner Sparkasse, Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts (ARD), Biotronik, Zentral-und Landesbibliothek Berlin, Stiftung Haus der kleinen Forscher, Ostfalia Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften, Umweltbundesamt
CONCEPT
In workshops corporates, start-ups or government institutions can either learn and train agile methods based on a fictitious challenge, or be guided and supported through various work phases in their internal product and service development.
My workshop didactics for trainings is application-oriented and based on experiential learning, combine practice, reflection and theory.
As innovation consultant I provide both know-how and methodological expertise and can also take over parts of the innovation process and carry it out independently.
DESIGN PROCESS
I conduct workshops in various settings reaching from one day fast forwards, to very extensive training programs as well as long-term project support as innovation consultant.
In the first step of order clarification it is important to find out which goal is to be achieved exactly. Should agile working and design methods be learned or deepened, or should there be support provided in internal product and service development, both content and method-wise. Only then will the workshop schedule be designed, the inputs thematically prepared and the required materials created.
This can mean that we already develop e.g. personas and user journeys in terms of content, which serve as a working basis in the workshop with the participants.
For example in a vision workshop for the development of a self-learning organization, we created personas and a comprehensive card set with different learning formats. The cards were used as an inspiration and working tool for developing learning journeys in prepared canvases.
But it can also mean, for example, design thinking method trainings, in which the entire innovation process is run through. Each step of the process can be experienced with exercises. The methods are then reflected upon and the working style and group dynamics are discussed.
In general it is important to me that no »one size fits all innovation theatre workshops« are held.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Workshop Facilitation in small and large groups | Workshop Design | Material Development | Design Process Consulting
SETTING
The projects are mostly freelance assignments in cooperation with the Hasso-Plattner-Institut Academy and the co:dify Group. But they also took place within the scope of my employments or were independently acquired.
LEARNINGS
The work steps in processes like design thinking are carried out in a narrow and prescribed time interval. This means that a work phase does not end when the result has been assessed as good and finished, but when the time has expired. In pure method training workshops, this fact is not problematic for me as long as it is reflected. As soon as the design process is used for the development of company-relevant content, the workshop agenda should be based on content quality, not time.
Besides the structure, methods also provide support in the first uncertainty when coaching groups. Nevertheless it is important for me to act flexibly. For me, with increasing experience, it is crucial to respond to what is, rather than responding to what I though would happen.
