Suppose you have to do the following: A company wants a lightning check from you on the status quo of your innovation culture. You have a room with many materials at your disposal, including a beamer, and a team of five employees from different departments.

The tough point: You only have one hour including a short visual summary.

Now there are several possibilities:

  1. You refuse with thanks, saying that it doesn’t work…
  2. They try to change the assignment to allow at least four to six hours for this workshop.
  3. You accept the challenge and start preparing

As an innovation driver, the motto should be: “There’s no such thing as the impossible”. This means that possibility number 1 is not available.

As a coach, variant 2 is more attractive from a business point of view, but there is certainly a reason for the short time span, so variant 2 should not be successful either.

If variant 3 remains – you should concentrate on the right method.

Think about what the goal of this micro-workshop should be = a graphical overview of the status quo. So it makes sense to work visually from the beginning, so that you don’t have to spend a lot of time converting speech into graphics. This means that in this case you should work with the participants in such a way that you already work out a design template for the conclusion.

This is where the Framework Visualization method comes in. Everyone receives a large sheet of paper, enough colored pencils and the task to sketch a picture of the state of the innovation culture in the company – based on the personal impression. These drawings are briefly presented to each other. The drawings are then bundled together and the individual ideas are put together again or drawn on a large poster. You will be amazed at how meaningful the status quo can be put on paper in such a short time. Finally, you will look at the picture as a conclusion and refer to the most important aspects of a functioning culture of innovation.

However, it is very important that you spend a few minutes at the beginning to develop a common understanding of what is meant by innovation culture in the group, what belongs to it and what hampers it. Read more in this blog post:

The trick is, you not only get a deep insight into the individual situation of each company, you also have a talking picture that you can use for further discussions and workshops. And you can also adhere to the time limits.

Just try it!