Join us at:

A FEAST OF INNOVATION WORKSHOPS – in association with NESTA
A rare collection of different skills provides this opportunity to experience different stages of innovation workshops, facilitated by different leaders, and each using a different approach.

    Our Workshop last November at the Royal College of Art on our research with the RCA about Innovation Workshops, what they do and how they do it, made it clear, as have the contacts we have made since then, that ‘pop up’ innovation workshops are becoming a tool in every manager’s armoury. Moreover people also wanted not just to learn about but to experience different workshop approaches. So this day is made up of a series of micro-workshops, round which you can process, one after the other – a day of mutual learning and experience.
    The aim is that each micro-workshop will:   
*  be on a different kind of issue;
*  make use of a different team composition;
*  be facilitated by a different expert; and
*  use a different approach.
    The overall question for the day will be: How can our work on Innovation Workshops achieve the greatest impact? Four topics have been chosen, on each of which there will be four sessions during the day; and each workshop session will then choose a sub-theme that relates to the overall theme. Each session will be of no more than about a dozen people, (each of 55 minutes, followed by 20 minutes for review and discussion), each facilitated by a different person, and each one aiming to show-case a different approach. And there will be several additional presentations during the lunch break.

AGENDA
9.30   Coffee and register

10.00 Introduction

10.10 We will start with a Speed-dating session – an approach adopted (and adapted) by a
         Cambridge Incubator for generating intensive feed-back. Alistair Fee, Queens Univ, Belfast.

10.45 Workshops

                 1. Identifying good questions:
        10.45  Understanding emerging issues/ethnographic research.
                    Robin Pharoah, Esro Ltd – Ethnographers
        12.05  Threading one’s way through knowledge to identify issues for new research.
                    Tom Inns, Dundee Univ/EPSRC
        14.15  Identifying areas of opportunity for innovation.
                    Steve Heron, formerly of SenseWorldWide
        15.35  Identifying issues for very large-scale projects.
                    Sara Jones, RCUK Research Fellow

                          2.  Composing good teams:
        10.45  Using character identifiers (Belbin, DeBono, Myers-Briggs etc).
                     Peter Childs, Imperial College
        12.05  Using team roles for creative tasks. John Whatmore
        14.15  Matching teams to innovation tasks
                     Andrew Harrison, Idea Connection Systems (US) – by Video link
        15.35  Team building. Jan Sargent, TV, film and theatre Director

                 3. Generating ideas:
        10.45  Using paper – Post-its, big and small, posters and brainwrites.
                     David Brown, lately BT Labs
        12.05  Using computer-based tools, such as ‘sharpcloud’. Jason Hier, Roelto Ltd
                     (if you opt for this workshop session, bring your own laptop.)
        14.15  Using story-telling. Michael Thomsen, WorkZ, Copenhagen/
                    Tony Gee, The Moveable Feast
        15.35  Co-creation. (Leader to be confirmed)

  4. Progressive development: from idea to concept to model to prototype to test:
        10.45  Iterative, intensive feed-back. Jon Bradford, ‘provocateur’, Cambridge Springboard. 

        12.05  Visualising: from idea to picture. Charles Waples, Graphic Facilitator

        14.15  Using components to build models – eg Lego/modelling clay etc.
                    Gareth Price, The Automatic (iLab), Liverpool
        15.35  Prototypes, 3D models and testing. (Leader to be confirmed).

            13.30 Additional (lunch-time) sessions:
    Aligning people round objectives – using Totem Cards, Bettina von Stamm
    Using the game of PRIZM (an up-to-date TRIZ), Anja Pahl
    Using a card game for selecting teams Prof James Powell, Salford Univ
    Using physical correlates of conversations as stimuli Peter Ziegler, Imperial
    Asking Wise Men and others Tony Gee, The Moveable Feast
    Changing frames, shapes, contexts, perspectives, etc, John Whatmore

17.00 We will finish with a plenary session to try to draw together the ideas which we have
         generated about how our work on Innovation Workshops can achieve the greatest impact.

17.30 Finish

This will take place on 6 December, 2011 at City University, Northampton Square, EC1.
Apply now – by e-mail: places limited (because of the number of workshop leaders!)
    a. Self-employed: £165 + £33 VAT;
    b. Public sector/academia etc: £245 + £49 VAT;
    c. Corporates: £325 + £65 VAT.
(Categories b and c: 20% discount for second participant from the same organisation.)
Please also indicate which workshops you wish to participate in (noting your timings).

  John Whatmore                                            The Centre for Leadership in Creativity
020 8748 2553                                                                                                      London