Innovation training that meets real customers

A hands-on programme where each team works on its own product, not a textbook case. Day one shows why iterations and customer input decide the outcome. Day two turns that feedback into an offer the team tests with real customers. A coach stays with each team and gives feedback on every activity.

Participants leave able to

• Unbundle an idea into the customer needs behind it
• Run discovery and solution interviews
• Find the riskiest assumptions behind a new initiative
• Define a value proposition and test it with customers
• Decide to pivot, persevere or stop

Tools used: Lean Innovation Canvas, discovery and solution interview guides, value proposition template, assumption mapping, experiment design template.

In practice: Schneider Electric: 500 participants, 100 offers tested with customers, 15 countries

Innovation projects fail less from bad ideas than from untested assumptions. Over three sessions, one to two weeks apart, participants interview customers, map the assumptions behind their own project, and design small experiments with a clear threshold for success.

Participants leave able to

• Interview customers to learn, not to sell or validate
• Map desirability, feasibility and viability assumptions
• Rank assumptions by impact and evidence
• Design fast experiments with pass and fail thresholds
• Run the build-measure-learn loop on live work

Tools used: Assumption mapping, experiment cards, the build-measure-learn loop, desirability, feasibility and viability.

Exploration teams fail when they are managed like execution teams. Managers learn to read which phase their team is in and switch between four postures: Architect, Coach, Shield and Enabler, Navigator. They practise effectuation alongside planning, and learn when to protect the team, when to challenge it and when to stop a direction.

Participants leave able to

• Set up the conditions before the work starts
• Push the team back to customer evidence
• Give feedback that keeps exploration alive
• Decide when to kill a direction without demoralising the team

Tools used: Four manager postures, effectuation principles, exploration metrics.

Videos cover the basics first: working together, the theory, the techniques, the tools. On the practice day the group goes through a whole workshop as participants, then takes apart why each exercise worked. The skill stays with the team, backed by one shared method and a course guide.

Participants leave able to

• Run workshops in the room and online with one method
• Choose the right exercise for each step of a workshop
• Keep the skill in the team, not in one trained person

Tools used: Workshop formats, voting and polling techniques, a shared course guide.

In practice: Mobilize Financial Services: 8 workshop leaders trained on the same budget