Arcus Innovation Institute- Consulting and Facilitation

What should an innovation workshop help leaders decide?

A workshop can produce an energetic discussion and a large collection of ideas without improving the next management decision. The organization still needs to determine which opportunity matters, what makes a concept credible and what evidence would justify spending time or money on it.

Arcus’s central thesis is to design generation, evaluation and testing as different activities with an explicit handover between them. Independent work can broaden the options considered; discussion can clarify assumptions and dependencies; an evidence plan can turn a selected concept into a proposition that can be examined. Popularity in the room is not a substitute for customer need or delivery feasibility.

This does not make every workshop a product experiment. Some sessions resolve strategic choices, operating problems or cross-functional disagreements. If the relevant facts are already known and only an accountable decision is missing, another brainstorm may add little. Match facilitation to the actual constraint rather than use one format for every problem.

What does research say about generation and selection?

Girotra, Terwiesch and Ulrich’s 2010 study, Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea compared collaborative teams with a hybrid structure in which individuals worked independently before working together. Their experiment found advantages for the hybrid structure in generating and identifying good ideas. The available 2009 manuscript describes a structured product-idea exercise and evaluation setting. This is evidence about a particular process and task, not proof that a workshop generates profitable launches or that independent work is always preferable.

Rietzschel, Nijstad and Stroebe’s 2006 study, Productivity is not enough found that nominal groups generated more ideas, but did not find better selected-idea quality across its conditions; selection was not significantly better than chance in that task. The finding cautions against treating idea volume as the outcome. It does not mean all organizations select randomly, nor does it invalidate the different findings of the later study. Tasks, structures and evaluation conditions matter.

Taken together, these studies support examining generation and selection separately rather than guaranteeing a universal brainstorming method. Arcus’s framework below is an original management synthesis, not an empirically validated scoring tool. Customer, technical and operating evidence still needs to be gathered for the actual opportunity.

Worked example: selecting a test instead of declaring a winner

Consider a fictional service organization debating a new customer portal. One group argues that customers need faster status updates; another believes that incorrect underlying records cause the calls. A popular portal concept could address the first explanation while making the second problem more visible without resolving it.

Before selecting a platform, review a suitable sample of inquiries and trace the relevant records and workflow. If customers mainly cannot find accurate information that already exists, test an accessible way to present it. If information is unreliable or late, examine responsibility, data capture and process handovers. Both mechanisms may be present.

The decision record should identify the uncertainty, the evidence required and the owner of the next step. A prototype might help assess usability; it cannot by itself establish record accuracy, integration feasibility or the economics of a full rollout. Compare a simpler communication change or process repair with the portal option.

This illustration is not an Arcus client case. Its practical lesson is to test the explanation that could overturn the preferred solution before making a larger commitment, while keeping an alternative available.

Plan the economics and implementation of follow-through

Budget for staff preparation, facilitation, evidence gathering, analysis, prototyping and specialist review. The opportunity cost of scarce staff time matters even when no new position is created. Compare the cost of further investigation with the size and reversibility of the next commitment, without inventing probabilities or promised returns.

Before convening participants, agree the decision owner, intended outcome, boundaries and prework. Include the functions needed to assess demand, delivery, finance and implementation. Give participants a way to contribute independently, and separate observations, assumptions and preferences in the discussion.

Use criteria appropriate to the decision: relevance to the problem, prospective value, feasibility, resource demands and major risks. Discuss disagreements rather than conceal them in a weighted score. An unfamiliar concept may require different evidence from an incremental process change; do not treat a lack of current detail as proof it has no potential.

After the session, issue the concept records and action decisions, including concepts deferred or rejected and the reason. Assign the evidence tasks and review dates. Evaluate the work by the quality of the resulting decisions and completed investigations, not solely attendance, satisfaction or idea count.

Escalate findings that change the case. Leadership should be able to stop an attractive but unsupported proposition and redirect resources. Implementation needs an operating owner, resources and suitable review measures; a workshop report is not an implemented innovation.

Discuss the innovation question your team needs to resolve

Tell Arcus the problem or opportunity, the decision date, who needs to participate and what has already been tried. We can discuss an appropriate combination of research, facilitation and strategy support. Begin with a general description rather than confidential concepts or personal records.

Related support includes innovation strategy, market research, strategy planning and transformational change.

Historical Arcus Innovation Series interviews

The following retained interview summaries reflect the speakers’ views and affiliations at the time of the original interviews. They are historical perspectives, not current appointments, independent validation of the framework above or evidence of Arcus client outcomes. Some links lead to the original collection routes.

Innovation in healthcare and the “bottom-up Reformation”: An interview with Mr. Neil Seeman, Director and Primary Investigator, Health Strategy Innovation Cell at Massey College, University of Toronto. Mr. Seeman says we need new out-of-the-box measurement tools that recognize “successful failures”. In healthcare, in particular, we talk a lot about our “success stories”. We don’t like talking about our failures. The challenge to admitting to failure has to do with our organizational culture in healthcare. There is a lack of understanding in healthcare that patients are leading what Steve Case calls a “bottom-up Reformation”.  Read the interview.

Corporate performance and governance: An interview with Mr. Jim Leech, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP). A message to CEOs on performance benchmarks, governance, risk consciousness and performance systems. First, risk consciousness needs to be built into all processes of the business. It needs to be integral to the compensation and investment process. At times, management has taken on significant levels of risk to produce superior results so that they could increase their compensation. Risk needs to be brought into the equation. Senior executives are starting to understand that. Read the interview.

Globalive’s view on the Innovation Imperative: An interview with Mr. Anthony Lacavera, CEO, Globalive Communications Corp. Mr. Lacavera says its critical for companies to be prepared to grow in a profitable and sustainable way. Globalive’s strength has been low management turnover and a strong, cohesive and consistent strategy. The company’s drivers of success have been the right team and a consistent and disciplined approach. Read the interview.

Brand leadership and vision for innovation: An interview with Mr. Geoff Craig, VP & GM, Brand Building. Mr. Craig argues that leadership is about having a vision for innovation and creating a framework for action around the vision to allow partners and employees to pioneer new ways of working. Read the interview.

Innovation in Manufacturing and return on capital : An interview with Mr. Andrew Tremblay, Business Development Manager, Domtar EarthChoice, Corporate Markets Canada, Domtar Corp. Mr. Tremblay says that in capital intensive businesses, innovation needs to be seen as a way to get better return on the capital employed. Read the interview.

A shared vision for innovation and change: An interview with Ms. Kathryn Fitzwilliam, Corporate Vice President, Marketing Resources. Ms. Fitzwilliam says first and foremost you need to make sure that people understand and support a shared objective. Read the interview.