It’s time to do something different and an innovation workshop just may be the ticket. The old way isn’t working and we know we can do better. If you are looking to solve problems in a new way, innovation will help get you there.
But creating something new can feel challenging for a variety of reasons. The problem feels too big, we don’t have enough time, we don’t have enough resources, the team isn’t on the same page.
When we work to create something new there is a lot of fear. Fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of not knowing where to start.
But innovation doesn't have to be a scary, pie in the sky concept.
We’ve been working with teams for over ten years. Helping them innovate and come together in a way that is safe, collaborative, and productive.
In this post, we will go over our six stages of innovation along with a variety of innovation workshop exercises. To help bring clarity to the innovation process so you can lead a clear and productive workshop on innovation.
Stages of Innovation
Our process of innovation has six steps. Some people say there are five, others may have seven. We have found these six to be the most important steps. Each step building off of the previous one.
Step 1 - Identify the general challenge
This is where you take time to identify what is the general challenge you are looking to solve and who does it affect? This gives you and your team a place to start. It’s okay if this feels a little broad at first, you will be refining as you move forward.
Here are some simple steps you can take to get a strong start to your general challenge.
First drafts
You and your team can write down several ideas of what the challenge may be. Don’t worry about getting it perfect right away. It’s about getting as many possibilities from your team. Oftentimes what we think is the main issue is often a symptom.
Vote
Now it’s time for your team to decide what direction they want to take. Have your team vote on the issue they think is the most important. Again it’s okay if it’s not perfect, you will be refining along the way.
Refine
Have your team turn the challenge into a question. This sets your team up to be solution-focused. People often limit themselves in this step. They provide the challenge statement with a solution already built-in. You want the question to be as open as possible.
A good way to know if it’s a strong challenge question is to see if you can have multiple solutions within a few minutes. If you only have one solution, then the question may be too narrow. If you don’t know where to start then the question may be too broad.
Don’t worry about getting it perfect. In the next phase, you are going to get closer to the root of the issue.
Step 2 - Discover
This stage is about learning. Learning as much as you can about the people you are looking to support and the challenge you want to solve. It’s limiting to just focus on the problem. We have found that it’s helpful to understand the context in which the problem exists.
That means learning about the people you are looking to serve. What are their motivations? How do they currently do things? What other problems do they have? Who do they spend time with?
You may be looking to serve your employees, customers, or members of a community. The more you understand their world, the better you will be able to show them a solution meant for them.
Discover Exercises
There are so many different ways you can learn about people and their problems. We are going to give you three discovery exercises. Use these innovation workshop exercises to learn about the people and challenges you are trying to innovate for.
Expert Interviews
Learn from the experts who have a vast amount of knowledge of the people and problems you are trying to solve. Try to find different experts. Perhaps someone who has the technical knowledge and someone who understands the culture.
For example - If you are looking to learn about homelessness, talk to those who run homeless shelters.
Secondary Research
This is where you can dive into books, research articles, crunching numbers, and more. Get as much information as you can from other resources. You can learn a lot from what other people have done.
For example - If you are trying to understand how to reduce homelessness. Look at rates on homelessness, unemployment, health issues, graduation rates, and so on.
Look into places that have high rates and low rates of homelessness. Then see if you can find some major differences.
Individual Interviews
Talk to the people you are designing for. Learn about their daily lives, dreams, fears, and motivations. Ask them some broad questions to start off with and then dive in deeper.
For example - Broad questions - What does a typical day look like? Who do you spend time with? Deeper questions - How did you become homeless? What frustrates you about being homeless, and why? What stops you from having a shelter and why?
Looking for more ways to better understand your people, download our free Innovation guide
Step 3 - Define
“A problem fully understood is a problem half solved” - Fortune cookie.
Using your insights, you can refine the challenge statement even further. You can do similar exercises as you did for the general challenge.
So first people share challenges and vote on the one that will have the biggest impact. Afterward, see if you can refine it to make sure it’s not too broad or too narrow.
Also, we suggest changing the question into a “How Might We”(HMW) statement. This is a simple and powerful reframe of the challenge that helps the team focus on creating a solution.
The purpose of the HMW
The "how" allows it to be solution-focused and work towards solving the challenge.
The "might" creates space for many ideas and possibilities.
The "we" indicates that all of us are working together on the challenge.
What a strong HMW contains
A strong HWM statement has an action, a subject, and an outcome.
Action - describes an activity that you would like to do.
Subject - who is the target group that you want to provide a solution for.
Outcomes - what do you want to have happened at the end.
An example of a HMW statement
Here is an example of a how might we statement from a school we worked with. “How might we create psychological safety for teachers to share classroom practices?”
This HMW is not too narrow because there could be multiple solutions. It’s not too broad because we know where to start.
The action is creating psychological safety. The subject is teachers. The outcome is to share classroom practices.
You may find that your HMW statement does not inspire your team to come up with solutions. At that point try to create another HMW statement.
Step 4 - Ideation
This is most people’s favorite part, and where they usually start.
This is a great place to start for simple, straightforward challenges. But if you have complex, complicated issues, we recommend starting from the beginning.
Now it’s time to come up with a variety of ideas of potential solutions using innovation workshop exercises. There are many ways you can brainstorm which you can learn here in our free guide on innovation.
These guidelines will help you and your team to get the most out of your brainstorming sessions during the workshop on innovation.
Guidelines for brainstorming
Defer judgment
This is one of the most common issues we see when working with a variety of organizations. When people start brainstorming, others will talk about why it’s a bad idea, why it won’t work, how it’s been done before, and so on.
When brainstorming, do not allow you or your team to judge any ideas. These are simply ideas, nothing more. There is no final solution chosen, just the sharing of thoughts and perspectives. Choosing ideas will come later.
Judgment kills creativity. Creativity is extremely important in creating new, innovative ideas. So don’t judge any idea, just come up with as many as you can.
Encourage wild ideas
The wilder the better. Wild ideas are very seldom chosen, but they are a great inspiration for the more practical ideas. This also gives people permission to be creative.
So don’t be afraid to throw in a pony in the mix, you’ll never know what it could lead to.
Yes and
One of the foundational rules of improv. “Yes and”, is a great way to look at each other’s ideas and take them to a new place. The "yes" means you acknowledge the idea. The "and" is where you add to the idea.
It’s also a great tool to build comradery because it validates what someone said. Hearing someone build off of your idea helps you feel seen and understood. It also allows creativity to flourish.
Brainstorming Exercises
Mind map
First write down your main idea or challenge in the middle of a whiteboard, paper, or online tool. Then. start writing some of the secondary ideas associated with the topic. Place these ideas around the main topic that is in the middle. Then around the secondary ideas, write the other ideas that are associated with it.
We recommend writing with something that has as few constraints as possible. Giving a sense of free space. Then add them to a virtual tool if you’d like.
You get a creativity boost when you have the ability to write freely. When you start with a virtual whiteboard, it can feel constraining.
This is a great exercise to do when you are starting from scratch. It’s helpful when you have a lot of random ideas but are unsure how they fit together.
Innovation Workshop Mindmap - A clean online version
Innovation workshop Mindmap - a messy handwritten version
Visit alternative world
Visit a different environment to get the creative juices flowing. A space that has similar challenges or people you are looking to innovate for. When you are checking out this new environment, observe as clearly as you can. Takedown notes of what you noticed.
Afterward, you can explore more ideas inspired by this other world.
Innovation workshop - Toolbox
Innovation workshop - alternative organization of medical tools
Step 5 - Prototyping
A prototype is turning an idea into an experiment. Get the idea into the hands of the people you are designing for. Then learn, adjust and shape your idea into the final solution.
It is EXTREMELY rare that the first idea for a complex problem will be the perfect solution.
If you only build the prototype, then you will learn nothing. Prototyping is an active process of creating, testing, learning, and refining.
Like we talked about in the brainstorming section, don’t get too attached to any idea. Get attached to learning and making things better.
Creating
There are so many different innovation workshop exercises to create prototypes. We will share two in this guide for your workshop on innovation:
Physical Prototype
This is where you start creating something physical. You get to see and touch your idea, which brings it to life. Allow your imagination to run wild, don’t worry about it being perfect.
As you build it, you will naturally learn how to make it more functional. Some tools you can use are paper, legos, clay, cardboard, tape, and so on.
Innovation workshop - physical prototyping
Innovation workshop - physical prototyping 1
Service Prototypes
This is where you start to prototype out a service or experience. A common way to do this is role-playing. As you role-play, make sure you have people taking notes. Focus on the hiccups, things that are unclear, things that work well, and any ideas of how to improve the experience.
Innovation workshop - service prototypes
Testing
After creating your prototype it’s time to test it out. Your goal is to get as much information as you can to refine it. You can start by testing it with the people who created it. To make sure the basics make sense. But the richness comes from getting the prototype into the hands of the people who will be using it.
As you get people to test it, ask as many open-ended questions as possible. Ask them what they are thinking at different moments. You can even have people talk about what they are thinking the entire time they are using it.
You can video record them (with permission) to review later. Or have someone write down as many notes as possible.
The goal is to learn what they think about the prototype. How might it solve their issues, what is missing, what they like about it, and what they don’t like about it.
Learning
After you tested it all out, now it's time to gain insights from what you’ve learned. Look into the themes that popped up when testing the prototype.
What were common challenges, wishes, frustrations, and so on? Look into the data with your team. How you can take what you learned and refine the prototype.
Want to learn more about the culture of innovation, check out our blog post that dives deep into that topic
Refine
After you have gone through what you’ve learned, it's time to think about what it is you still don’t know. You can ask yourself, what would be extremely valuable to learn? Then, how can you adjust your prototype so that it answers your biggest questions or assumptions?
As you learn, you will also develop a deeper understanding of what you don’t know. That is the richness you and your team have been looking for. You gain insights into things you didn't even know you didn't know!
You can continually refine your prototype to gain even bigger insights. Bringing you closer and closer to the final product or service.
Step 6 - Continued Innovation
That is our process of innovation. We laid out a linear step-by-step process, but oftentimes it’s not as linear as in this guide.
For example, after your first prototype, you realized you are working on the wrong problem. You found a deeper issue. At that point, you may want to go back to the discovery phase and learn more about the issue and the people.
Or you realized that the solution you are testing isn’t close to solving the actual issue. Then you might go back to brainstorming. Take a fresh look at old ideas, or come up with new ones based on what you’ve learned.
You can continually use the different steps in the process to find the right solution you are looking for.
Conclusion
This is our process for innovation, helping you and your team have a clear map for how to run a workshop on innovation. No more wondering where to start, what innovation workshop exercises to use, or where to go next. With this clarity, your team will feel safe, secure, and excited about creating new and innovative ideas.
If you are looking for more help in leading an innovation workshop, we are here to be your guide. Go ahead and click the button below to find out how we can support you and your team’s innovation.