I am working with an internal R&D team who are perceived to be underperforming in terms of needing to be more innovative.
Does anyone have experience of working on innovation programmes for teams or functions within an organisation? If so what was your approach? Did you use any external providers?
Richard Rogers
4 Responses
Six Thinking Hats
Personally I would recommend using Edward de Bonos “Six Thinking Hats”. I would also recommend the person who presented the course to me, Paul Ferguson of trainingwarehouse.co.uk
“innovation” may mean “problem solving”
I was involved with a technical function of a utility company where we introduced a “problem solving” process complete with a toolkit. they practiced using it on a classroom problem and then utilised the same methodology on some of their own ages-old issues. They had massive success with problems that ranged from technical to behavioural to managerial. The solutions they came up with were, for the most part, pretty innovative.
I have also done similar things with some rocket scientists in the aerospace industry….problem solving works for generating innovation because “necessity is the mother of invention”.
Innovation
I have developed and run practical ‘in-house’ courses in innovation and creativity for the past six years and would be happy to chat through my approach (01270 626447). You might also like to approach Oxford Creativity, http://www.oxfordcreativity.co.uk who specialise in running TRIZ courses (a methodology suited for technical innovation).
Kind regards, Tim Rusling.
TRIZ
Sorry for the slow response. I too would recommend TRIZ. Have a look at http://www.creax.com and/or contact me.
Brian