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:
- You refuse with thanks, saying that it doesn’t work…
- They try to change the assignment to allow at least four to six hours for this workshop.
- 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!