Lead - The Big Bang Partnership

Creative Facilitation – An Introduction

Jo North — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 09:55:04 +0000

Creative Facilitation – An Introduction

Creative Facilitation is my most Favourite Thing – Ever!

I have a long history of creative facilitation! I first discovered the potential and creative opportunity that can be achieved from expert facilitation when I did my Masters in Business Administration (MBA) several years ago. I learned then that it is important and very possible to tap into the unique potential of people collaborating in group situations to achieve more together – and, once I started, I became absolutely hooked!

Photo: Dr. Jo North

Since then I have designed and delivered workshops, sprints, hackathons, strategy sessions, knowledge exchange events and more for literally thousands of people in all sorts of industries, all over the world, and I have honestly loved every single minute of working with them.

Even the most challenging topics and groups of people are wonderful, because they really stretch and develop the facilitator’s skills. Each and every event is a learning opportunity in its own right for every person involved, delegates and facilitator alike.

Photo: Delegates from different organisations collaborating on digital strategy at Northumbrian Water’s facilitated design sprint

Competence and Confidence

What’s important as a creative facilitator is to be able to walk into a room full of people, often who you don’t know, to be confident, make an immediate positive impact and get everyone engaged in connecting working with you and delivering fantastic outcomes as a team from the time available.

Excellent creative facilitators make it look really, really easy, but don’t be deceived!

Creative facilitation really is a skill and an art. With study and practice it can be learned, improved upon and developed, though, and everyone can improve their skills. Even the greatest and most experienced facilitators never stop learning!

So, here are just a few of my most important tips, tools, techniques and approaches all in one place to help you to become the most positively impactful facilitator that you can be, in a way that works best with your own authentic and unique personality and style. I will be going deeper into the skill and art of creative facilitation in my future blogs, so if this is something you want to learn more about, do sign up here for my free DIY Awayday Toolkit and to get free facilitation resources and news updates. Or, if you really want to develop your skills and practice, take a look at my Creative Facilitation Handbook.

If you have any specific questions about creative facilitation. I will be more than happy to help, and if your query is about something quite complex, I’m also always pleased to hop on a call.

Get Your Creative Facilitation Handbook Here

We can also facilitate your event for you, or you might like to join one of our Creative Facilitation Skills training programmes.

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please email me direct at jo@bigbangpartnership.co.uk

Right, let’s get started. We’ll begin with an introduction to the fundamentals of creative facilitation.

Photo: Delegates in action at one of my events

What is Creative Facilitation

What does ‘creative facilitation’ mean in practice?

Do you just ensure everyone’s introduced, and maybe kick off with a quick ice breaker exercise?
Is your main role simply to stand by the flip chart and note down all the ideas?
What preparation do you need to do?
How do you manage the event, and how exactly do you pull the whole thing together?

In many types of group situations, and particularly in complex discussions or those where people have different views and interests, good facilitation can make the difference between success and failure.

As a facilitator, you may need to call on a wide range of skills and tools, from problem solving and decision making, to team management and communications.

Definition of “Facilitate”

The definition of facilitate is “to make easy” or “ease a process.”

The definition of facilitate is 'to make easy' or 'ease a process'.
Share on X

Nerdy fact

Did you know…

…that the word ‘facilitate’ comes from the Latin facilitas, meaning ‘easiness’. So, as facilitators our role is to help ease the process of people thinking and working together in groups.

What a facilitator does is plan, guide and manage a group event to ensure that the group’s objectives are met effectively, with clear thinking, good participation and full buy-in from everyone who is involved.

Photo: Delegates in action at a PAPI event

Responsibilities of the Creative Facilitator

Some of the responsibilities involved in being a creative facilitator are:

Designing and running the session to achieve the agreed objectives.
Providing space and time for the team to discuss, explore, imagine, challenge themselves and each other, and make key decisions on the way.
Capturing and recording the outputs visually as the session develops, so that word and ideas don’t just disappear into the ether.
Keeping people on task when they wander off.
Supporting and encouraging.

Photo: Idea Time: The Live Experience!

Maintaining the energy of the people in the room where it needs to be for the task in hand. For example, playful and creative for idea generation, thoughtful and reflective for making important choices.
Providing the right activity, pace and perspective at the right time.
Managing time – so that what the team came together to do gets done.
Getting the group to work at an appropriate level of detail – neither too much nor too little.
Sometimes, the facilitator’s role may be to energise and almost entertain, to recharge the group. The facilitator is certainly the role model for the everyone else present when it comes to energy, attentiveness, active listening and engagement.

Start with the End in Mind

If you want to be a successful creative facilitator, before every event that you facilitate, ask yourself:

What words do I want the delegates to use to describe me as a facilitator at the end of the session?

Then think about how your behaviours and approaches will deliver that aspiration and use these words to ‘check in’ with yourself at points throughout your session to keep yourself on track.

Photos: some lovely comments from Michael and Atanu, delegates at recent #2050InnovationHub events I facilitated at Port of Tyne

Facilitating Group Sessions

To facilitate effectively, it helps to be as objective as possible. This doesn’t mean you have to come from outside the business or team, though. It simply means that, for the purposes of this group process, you will take a neutral stance. You will step back from contributing to the detailed content and from your own personal views, and focus purely on managing discussions, getting the best from everyone, and bringing the event through to a successful conclusion.

The secret of great facilitation is a group process that flows – and with it will flow the group’s ideas, solutions, and decisions too.

Your key responsibility as a facilitator is to create this group process and an environment in which it can flourish and achieve the its objectives from the session.

Facilitating groups presents unique benefits and opportunities. Some of these are shown here, and I am sure that you can think of others, too.

Some potential benefits

Diversity of thinking styles and approaches

Combined input from several different parties

Support networking and working beyond a single team

Sometimes greater political influence as a mixed than as single function team

Wider reach of initiatives

Some potential challenges

Decision-making processes can be slower

People have day-jobs and vested interests

Teams send a representative, this can change – levels of commitment / perceived importance may vary

Hierarchy outside the group may not apply within it – but expectations may differ

No direct authority – influencing and leadership require other strategies

Delegate Commitment and Motivation

Each delegate will bring different levels of motivation and commitment to participating in the workshop, which in turn can impact their behaviours and approaches, as you can see in the image below.

Image © Dr. Jo North: Delegates each bring different levels of motivation and commitment to facilitated events.

Supporters bring high levels of personal motivation and group commitment to the event. They want to contribute to the overall success of both the group and the task in hand and take pride and enjoyment in knowing that they have made a significant, positive difference as an individual.

Mavericks have low to medium group commitment, and high levels of personal motivation. They can appear unorthodox or independently-minded, sometimes original and nonconformist. Mavericks can play an important role in disrupting ‘group think’, and in challenging accepted norms.

Rebels have low to medium group commitment, and low to medium personal motivation. They are at worse unhappy about attending the event, and at best indifferent. Their aim is to get through the event, contributing as little as possible and avoiding having to take any actions as a result of the workshop.

Hostages have high group commitment and low to medium personal motivation. They want to be and be seen to be team players but are not really interested in the subject at hand. Hostages feel that they should attend to support their colleagues but would much rather be working on something else that is more of a personal priority for themselves.

Photo: Northumbrian Water Digital Design Sprint in action

Not everyone falls neatly into one of these boxes, of course, and the same delegate may move through different levels of group commitment and personal motivation at various points throughout the event, depending on factors such as how strongly they agree or disagree with their colleagues in the room, how interested they are in the topic under discussion at that moment, what else is going on outside the workshop, how tired, stressed, or otherwise they are feeling.

The reality that delegates have different levels of motivation and commitment is one that as creative facilitators we need to become accustomed to dealing with and finding our way through.

It is our job to work out how to get the best contribution we can from every individual, whilst giving them the best experience we can. We cannot influence what delegates have ‘brought into the room’ with them or change embedded views in just one workshop. What we can do is to do our best to listen, engage, enthuse and energise.

We cannot influence what delegates have ‘brought into the room’ with them or change embedded views in just one workshop. What we can do is to do our best to listen, engage, enthuse and energise.
Share on X

Work with Adult Learning Theory to Engage Delegates

Applying Knowles’ 4 key principles of adult learning theory across to your facilitation strategy can help to achieve this:

Involve your delegates in the planning and evaluation of their experience wherever you can.
Encourage people to actively share their own experiences to help the wider group.
People are most interested in working on subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life. Work with your delegates to find meaningful links between the workshop focus and their own roles and interests.
Engage people in problem-solving and solution-finding, as some people really enjoy the challenge and satisfaction that this brings.

Emotional Intelligence and Creative Facilitation

Being able to get the best outcomes possible from all your delegates means having and deploying high levels of emotional intelligence.

Psychology Today defines emotional intelligence as follows:

“The ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include three skills: emotional awareness; the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions and cheering up or calming down other people.”

I have created an emotional intelligence self-management process for facilitation (it can be used for many, many other roles or situations too), that I have shown in the image here.

I will walk through it step-by-step, and if you’d like to go deeper into the theme of emotional intelligence, which is also known as ‘EI’ or ‘EQ’, I recommend that you read the book by Daniel Goleman, because it is such an important element in being successful more generally.

Firstly, be aware that we are all experiencing emotions all the time. Even “emotionless” is an emotion! Sometimes our emotions help us to facilitate well, at other times they get in the way. The emotionally intelligent facilitator is able to tune into how they are feeling and put anything negative to one side for the purposes of the event so that they can then communicate more effectively, tune into and positively influence the group dynamic.

Can you think of any recent examples where you have used emotional intelligence effectively?

Now think of a couple of examples that would have benefited from greater emotional intelligence on your part. What happened, how did you feel and behave? What will you do better and differently in the future as a result?

Get Your Creative Facilitation Handbook Here

The Seven Key Skills of the Emotionally Intelligent Facilitator

As you may have observed in your reflections, the emotionally intelligent creative facilitator is able to do seven key things:

1. Build and maintain rapport

Build and maintain rapport with all the delegates, tuning in to how they are feeling, and what is resonating with them, and tasks or questions they are finding challenging. This means that you will be able to intervene appropriately to build on the positive energy, re-energise the group, or change pace and / or direction.

Some tips on building rapport are to match, without “copycatting”:

-Body language

-Voice

-Spoken language

In a group situation it is likely that people will have a variety of preferences, so you will be able to build rapport more readily with more people if you include variety in your own voice and spoken language.

You can also use body language to match the pace and energy of your group – either to keep the good energy going or take your body language in a different direction to get the group to change tack and signal change.

As a facilitator, you are communicating all the time, whether your think you are or not! The people in the room are continuously ‘reading’ what you say, how you say it and how you are generally being. Your own energy needs to be top notch and switched on throughout your event. You are role-modelling the energy and commitment that you want from the group to get the results that you all want to achieve.

2. Listen and observe with skill and attentiveness.

You will see and hear small signals, verbal and non-verbal information from delegates that will enable you to make great facilitation decisions that will help the group. As you are probably aware, most communication is non-verbal, through body language and facial expressions, so observing in order to ‘read’ what people are saying as well as listening to their words is crucial.

It’s also essential that you demonstrate to the group that you are actively listening and observing. There’s an old piece of management advice that is to imagine that everyone has the words “I want to be heard and valued” on their foreheads. Demonstrating that you are engaging with what people are saying will really serve you well as a facilitator, because they will connect more with you and feel more encouraged to contribute.

Here are some top tips for demonstrating active listening and observation when you are facilitating:

Maintain great eye contact with the person who is speaking (without staring them out, of course!).
Reflect back and briefly summarise what you have heard from the person who has been speaking.
Listen to the message and intent behind what is being said, especially when the person speaking is not the most articulate or diplomatic in making their point. It’s important when facilitating to make sure that truly hear what people are wanting to express.

3. Ask great questions.

Your rapport-building, listening and observation skills will also help you with the third key skill, which is to ask insightful, pertinent, helpful, thought-provoking and discussion-stimulating questions as appropriate at the right moments throughout your event.

Great questions open up thinking, discussion. They help get to the bottom of messy or challenging topics by probing. They focus the different minds in the room on joint problem-solving and opportunity-finding.

Great questions are open ones, and often start with one of the 5Ws and H:

Who…?
What…?
When…?
Why…?
Where…?
How…?

Photo: Poster on influencing created by delegates as a mini systems map

4. Be flexible, agile and adaptable.

You can have the best laid plans ever, but sometimes delegates need to spend more time on something that you’d allowed for in your schedule, or unexpected topics and insights come up that need airing. Fantastic facilitators create jazz rather than follow a score. A good design and plan are very necessary but knowing when to flex and having the skills and confidence to do so are absolutely essential. If not, you and your delegates will more than likely experience a dissatisfying and possibly frustrating event.

5. Thinking on your feet

This is a critical skill for facilitators and is definitely something that gets better and easier with practice and experience.

My biggest tip for being flexible when the workshop is in flow is to slow down to think within the moment by pausing, and also slowing down your speech a little. This will be barely imperceptible to delegates. You will just look like you’re reflecting for a second – which is a good thing.

Pause from Time to Time

If discussions really do take an unexpected turn, and you are wondering how on earth you’re going to get things back on track, or even change them to follow a new one, you could create yourself a bit more thinking time by setting delegates on with a short activity, while you revisit and maybe rejig your plan or timings. You could also give delegates an extra break for 5 minutes.

You don’t have to, but it’s also perfectly acceptable to share what you will be doing with the delegates: “Wow, that was a great session, and we’ve arrived somewhere really interesting. Let’s have a 5 minute coffee break – I’m going to have a quick think about how we can build on those discussions in the next session.”

“That took a bit longer than planned, all time well spent as it was a really insightful discussion. Let’s grab a quick 5 minute break, while I rejig a few timings for later to keep us on track.”

This keeps everyone informed, as well as demonstrating your flexibility.

One thing NOT to do if timings are getting tight is to grind on without breaks. Short breaks, as long as everyone sticks to the agreed start time, make people more productive and engaged.

There is plenty of research that demonstrates that we can really only stay focused for an absolute maximum of 50 minutes. As well as breaks, you can re-energise and refocus the group through switching up activities, getting sub-groups to swap round and work with different people from time-to-time and so on.

Photos: Some great feedback and recommendations from delegates on the Innovation in Action programme I facilitate for small businesses on behalf of PAPI and the University of York

Additional Creative Facilitation Tips

Record and visualise outputs

Capturing the work of the group as the event progresses is really important because it turns the nebulous conversation into tangible items that can be referred to throughout the day. The recorded outputs also provide a good record of what happened, what was decided and why for the group once the event is over.

The recording can be on flipcharts, notes – and I often photograph and / or audio record some sessions to make sure that I catch the rich detail, ideas and expressions that are important in some situations to include in the notes that I circulate to the people attending after the event.

Guide the group to achieve the event objectives

Of course, creative facilitation events have a purpose. It’s the role of the facilitator to design an appropriate process and then guide the group through that process to successfully attain your intended outcomes.

Photo: Dr. Jo North

Next Steps

I will be going deeper into the skill and art of creative facilitation in my future blogs, so if this is something you want to learn more about, do sign up here for my free DIY Awayday Toolkit and to get free facilitation resources and news updates.

Creative Facilitation Handbook – Click Here

If you have any specific questions about creative facilitation. I will be more than happy to help, and if your query is about something quite complex, I’m also always pleased to hop on a call.

We can also facilitate your event for you, or you might like to join one of our Creative Facilitation Skills training programmes.

If you have any questions or would like to know more, please email me direct at jo@bigbangpartnership.co.uk.

The post Creative Facilitation – An Introduction appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

How to Build a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem

Jo North — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 18:21:00 +0000

What is an innovation ecosystem?

What is an innovation ecosystem? James F. Moore, is a researcher and author known for his work on business ecosystems. In his seminal 1996 work, Moore introduced the concept of business ecosystems as “an economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations — the organisms of the business world.”

My definition of an innovation ecosystem today is an organic system in which businesses large and small, including start-ups, public sector organizations, academia and the not-for-profit, media and culture sectors work together to shape new, purposeful solutions to significant, shared challenges and opportunities.

These partners from across the private sector, the public sector, research institutions and civil society are known as the “quadruple or quintuple helix” – quintuple when the ecosystem includes stakeholders representing the natural environment.

Webinar: Build a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem

Every organization in an innovation ecosystem depends on the success of the other organizations, either directly or indirectly.

Innovation ecosystems can be large or small, co-located physically or virtually. The participating organizations have multiple direct and indirect links between them. Ideas, knowledge, connections, finance and people resources cycle between participants, as successful organizations reinvest back into the ecosystem.

All business is a series of connected ecosystems. However, innovation ecosystems often have their own identities, stated purpose and carry out activities that are targeted to achieve business innovation.

Innovation ecosystems can either have a formal structure, including governance regime, or be created and managed through more informal affiliation.

If you’d like a more in-depth look at innovation ecosystems, with a detailed guide to how to develop and get the most from them for all participants, my book, Leading Sustainable Innovation: a roadmap for technical environments, available from all good booksellers worldwide, has specific content that will help you.

Drivers of innovation ecosystems

At the heart of each thriving innovation ecosystem is a clear, relevant shared purpose.

Innovation ecosystems often exist to solve shared challenges – such as economic growth, eco-innovation and decarbonization, skills or materials shortages.

They also form to exploit shared innovation strategy and opportunities, such as the formation of a supply chain for a major manufacturer or sector. An example of this is the North East Automotive Alliance (NEAA), an industry-led automotive cluster, established to support the economic sustainable growth and competitiveness of the automotive sector in the North East of England.

Innovation ecosystem map

Because each innovation ecosystem is unique, comprising multiple participants with complex relationships, it is often useful to create an ‘innovation ecosystem map’.

The innovation ecosystem map is a visual representation of all the stakeholders directly and indirectly involved, showing their relative importance, connections and relationships with each other.

The map also contains the innovation ecosystem’s value proposition, how collaborative innovation is intended to add collective value to particants’ success, the activities that will take to achieve them, the resources needed and potential risks and associated management actions.

An example of an innovation ecosystem map is the Ecosystem Pie Model tool (Talmar et al, 2020), shown below.

Ecosystem Pie Model, Talmar et al, 2020.

For other examples, you can find a recent innovation ecosystem map for Australia here, and one for the Map of Start-ups for the Italian Rainforest here.

You might also want to take a look at my step-by-step guide to stakeholder mapping here.

What is an open innovation ecosystem?

Open innovation is an approach taken by a business, organisation or network to access the ideas, technology and knowledge that is available externally, beyond its employees and existing supply chain.

An open innovation ecosystem develops when participants in innovation ecosystems expand their organizational resources and seek new ideas, knowledge and solutions from external collaborators. This promotes the flow, clustering, and bringing together of resources within an innovation ecosystem for creative leadership.

Why are innovation ecosystems important?

Innovation ecosystems are important because, when they work well, they can bring multiple benefits:

The voice and influence of the participants acting together is greater than that of one or a few of them
Greater competitiveness, sector and / or place awareness, also leading to better economic, social and environmental outcomes (e.g through job creation and increased prosperity, green growth)
Improved effectiveness and efficiency, through combined activities and shared resources
More and stronger interpersonal networks
Greater shared and individual creativity, knowledge and skills development

The power of innovation ecosystems

Technological advancements, including artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, are key elements of sustained growth. They enable your innovative ideas to evolve into new business models and successful innovations. For instance, Arizona State University and Stanford University have been pivotal in nurturing innovation communities that prioritize higher education, research, and systematic approaches to problem-solving.

Government institutions often offer tax incentives and programs such as Innovate UK to help you drive growth. These initiatives bring together ecosystem players, external partners, and local leaders to support innovative solutions. Collaborative efforts between different actors ensure ongoing innovation and adaptation to market changes.

Your innovation ecosystem can thrive with a culture of continuous improvement and the sharing of best practices. By understanding the natural ecosystem’s interdependence, your local innovation ecosystem can address particular needs and create a competitive advantage for your entire community, developing social innovation ecosystems that tackle societal challenges through collective effort.

For example, in 2024, the Regenerative Community Tokyo initiative showed how developing a culture of continuous improvement and sharing best practices can enhance local innovation ecosystems. Launched in Tokyo’s Marunouchi neighborhood, this community brings together corporations focused on addressing complex urban challenges through collaborative efforts. By leveraging the interdependence of various stakeholders, the initiative tailors solutions to specific community needs, creating a competitive advantage and supporting social innovation to tackle societal challenges together.

Small business benefits

Y Combinator is a great example of how early-stage companies can benefit from innovation hubs and external collaboration for start ups, helping small businesses to turn their innovative ideas into larger corporations or impactful solutions. By leveraging various sources of funding and support, they are able to achieve bigger things.

Innovation ecosystem policy

Because innovation ecosystems can generate significant benefits, some government organizations around the world actively support and promote their development.

Examples of Innovation Ecosystem Policy from around the World

USA

Building a thriving innovation ecosystem requires the collective effort of various actors. Small businesses, government institutions, academic institutions, and private companies each play a crucial role. The U.S. Small Business Administration emphasizes the importance of small businesses in fostering innovation and driving economic impact. According to the SBA’s Office of Advocacy, small businesses generate 44% of U.S. economic activity and create two-thirds of net new jobs, demonstrating their vital contribution to the economy.

Additionally, the SBA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program stimulates technological innovation by investing federal research and development funds into innovative high-tech small businesses.

Israel

Israel is considered an exemplar by several other countries for its successful innovation ecosystem. An article on Forbes (2021) describes Israel’s accomplishments as follows:

“Israel has long been known as the “Startup Nation” with more than 6,000 active startups, making it the world leader for startups per capita. Recently, with the increase in unicorns (Israel has the highest number of unicorns per capita) as well as R&D centers of multinational corporations (530 R&D centers), Israel is transforming to become the “Scale-Up Nation.”
Forbes Business Council

A Deloitte report concurs:

“Israel’s unique society and culture, strong economy, government support, and “global-first” market approach are just a few of the factors that make Israel’s innovation ecosystem one of the most successful in the world.
The Israeli Technological Eco-system, Deloitte

European Union (EU)

The EU states that it “aims to create more connected and efficient innovation ecosystems to support the scaling of companies, encourage innovation and stimulate cooperation among national, regional and local innovation actors”.

United Kingdom

The UK Innovation Strategy states that the UK aims to learn “from the pandemic to create the world’s best innovation ecosystem”.

Australia

Australia’s National Innovation and Science Agenda includes innovation ecosystem principles as one of its top priorities: “Working together: increasing collaboration between industry and researchers to find solutions to real world problems and to create jobs and growth.”

New Zealand

New Zealand has a thriving innovation ecosystem that encourages world-leading research and development (R&D) activity and resourceful ways of making innovation happen, especially through its dedicated agency, Callaghan Innovation.

Callaghan Innovation New Zealand

Callaghan Innovation is New Zealand’s government agency dedicated to supporting innovation in New Zealand.

Callaghan Innovation’s team of more than 200 of New Zealand’s leading scientists and engineers – empower innovators by connecting people, opportunities and networks, and providing tailored technical solutions, skills and capability development programmes, and grants co-funding.

Their role is also enhance the operation of New Zealand’s innovation ecosystem, working closely with government partners, Crown Research Institutes, and other organisations that help increase business investment in R&D and innovation.

They have created Scale Up NZ, which they describe as “a free platform you can use to navigate New Zealand’s business and innovation ecosystem…to find and connect with collaborators and investors, track recent deals and investments, search for key players by sector or business stage, and explore up-to-date market data.”

Singapore

The Singapore government takes what it describes as a “sandbox approach” to innovation ecosystem development. This enables innovators, universities and companies to work together to innovate and test new products and ideas for the region and beyond.

Local and regional innovation ecosystems

Many of the national government policies for innovation are delivered in practise by local and regional innovation ecosytems, centered on a specific industry sector, business stage (usually start-up or scale-up) and / or location.

Local government, universities and businesses participate in these innovation ecosystems.

For example, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario is using national government funding for regional innovation ecosystems to achieve these advantages, listed on its website here:

Grow and sustain strategic clusters and consortia that support businesses to scale up and commercialize innovative products, technologies and services.
Enhance the development and reach of business incubators, accelerators, and other organizations, which support entrepreneurs, start-ups and innovative companies with high-growth potential.
Support projects led by innovation-oriented organizations to increase and promote business productivity and global competiveness, and investment and talent attraction.
Leverage local advantages, institutions and infrastructure in rural areas.

What sort of participants should an innovation ecosystem include?

A thriving, inclusive innovation ecosystem needs to include a wide diversity of participants, from businesses at all stages, and all sizes, academia, government, not-for-profits, research organizations, funders and skills providers.

Diversity matters because it creates greater richness of expertise, ideas, network connections and perspectives.

It is also important to include keystone organizations (Iansiti and Levien, 2004), also known as platform leaders (Cusumano and Gawer, 2002; 2014) or ecosystem leaders (Moore, 1993), in the ecosystem. These are the most significant members, acting as the anchor that ensures growth and stability in the ecosystem.

What are some of the challenges of operating in an innovation ecosystem?

Whilst there are substantial benefits of operating in an innovation ecosystem, there are also challenges:

Participating businesses need to recognize when it is best to collaborate, and when they will need to compete.
How much time, resource and money should be invested, by whom and for whose benefit.
How to satisfy the trade-off organizations will need to make at times between doing what’s best for their own position versus what is in the interests of the greater good.
Considerations around knowledge exchange and intellectual property protection.
Governance and gaining consensus amongst participants on strategic and tactical decision-making.
Practical considerations, such as finding times and locations when participants can be available to meet.
Management of historic and ongoing rivalries and local organizational politics.

What makes a strong innovation ecosystem?

Thriving innovation ecosystems in locations such as New York, London, Tel Aviv, Singapore and Tokyo, indicate that the success factors are:

Strong accessible funding to accelerate high-potential innovations getting off the ground, such as the one in Israel. Both government and investor funding are available, especially for digital innovation.
The right mix of diverse ecosystem partners.
Culture of collaboration, such as that cultivated by Level 39 in London, to optimize ecosystem-wide ideation, knowledge exchange, co-operation and decision-making.
Collective knowledge exchange platform, for example Silicon Valley, an established innovation ecosystem that has prioritized protecting the intellectual property assets of its innovators.
Innovation talent
Research and development (R&D) capability
Agility and responsiveness to external events, to pivot and innovate at speed in a fast-changing world.

Governance and management

The role of the keystone organization is critical to the successful management of the innovation ecosystem. It needs to:

Facilitate the creation of a vision and value proposition.
Influence other potentially key players.
Make space and shape processes to cultivate innovation across the entire ecosystem.
Nurture mutually beneficial relationships between all types of participants.
Ensure that the innovation ecosystem adapts and evolves in line with external changes, to best support its members.

Examples of innovation ecosystems

1. Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub at Port of Tyne, UK

The UK’s first 2050 Maritime Innovation Hub is a partnership with Port of Tyne, Drax, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (OREC), Nissan, Connected Places Catapult, Accenture, Royal HaskoningDHV, Ubisoft and the Department for Transport.

The 2050 Maritime Innovation Hub inspires partners to collaborate to develop solutions to technological challenges facing the maritime sector and the wider logistics industry both nationally and globally. It acts as a catalyst for sharing ideas, harnessing research and development, advancing technology and tackling shared challenges.

Fully aligned with the Government’s Maritime 2050 Strategy, the Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub works closely with the Department for Transport and MarRI-UK to ensure that it delivers for the benefit of the maritime sector as a whole.

2. Catapults

The Catapult Network comprises independent, not-for-profit private organisations transforming the UK’s capability for innovation in sectors of strength. Established by Innovate UK, the Catapult Network brings together nine leading technology and innovation centres – called Catapults – spanning over 40 locations across the UK. A Catapult is where the application of research is accelerated, where new technologies are further developed, scaled up and realized.

3. Level 39 London, UK

Level 39 is an innovation ecosystem of 1,250 leaders in cybersecurity, fintech, retail tech and smart cities. It is based in Canary Wharf, London. Members are based on site, or join virtually as ecosystem partners.

How to build an innovation ecosystem

To build an innovation ecosystem, start with these steps:

Create a clear purpose, vision and value proposition, being mindful that it is likely to evolve as more partners come on board. You’ll need to have some early ideas to hand, though, before you speak to potential partners.
Map out the first stage visually, including everyone you need on board in the early stages. Don’t include too many or too few people too soon, though. Make it manageable, with enough people to gain early traction.
Speak to the members you think you must have on board from the outset to gain their buy-in and commitment.
Arrange your first session. This can be an innovation sprint or workshop to collaborate on how you’re going to proceed to create a successful, thriving innovation ecosystem.

Set-up and facilitation expertise

By focusing on clear goals, systematic approaches, and a strong innovation mindset, you can help your community adapt to industry trends and societal needs. Innovation ecosystems are crucial for turning your ideas into reality and ensuring sustained growth for all ecosystem players.

Here at the Big Bang Partnership, we are highly skilled and very experienced when it comes to starting, growing and facilitating innovation ecosystems.

Whether your innovation ecosystem is an early idea, or whether it’s well established and could benefit from some fresh thinking and new energy, we are ready, excited and very able to help you. Do get in touch with us here for a complimentary chat. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

About the Author

Founder and CEO of The Big Bang Partnership Ltd & Idea Time. Innovator. Author. Business Coach. International Keynote Speaker & Facilitator. Director Technology & Transformation at Port of Tyne. Leader of the UK’s Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub. Non-Executive Director. Associate in Business Innovation and Creativity at University of York.

The post How to Build a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

Be a Great Meeting Facilitator: Skills and Tips

Jo North — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 07:09:00 +0000

How can you spot a great meeting facilitator?

A great meeting facilitator has a fantastic ability to harness the collective creativity and wisdom from everyone in the virtual or physical room. They facilitate with confidence, have exceptional leadership skills and an intuitive connection with people, whilst also creating structure and process to achieve target outcomes from the workshop, design or innovation sprint, event or meeting.

A great meeting facilitator makes the whole art and process of facilitation look natural and easy. A not-so-great facilitator makes for a painful experience, not just for the delegates but also for themselves too.

Live video recording: How to be a Great Facilitator

Improve your meeting facilitation skills

When you think that one of the most common human fears is giving a presentation (called glossophobia, by the way), apparently affecting 75% of the population, imagine being in the position of leading a group of people for the duration of a whole event when it’s not going so well!

Being a great meeting facilitator takes skill, practise and self-awareness, as well as preparation. And even if you’re a highly experienced facilitator, you can always grow and develop further. Great facilitators never stop learning, experimenting and sharpening their craft.

In this article, I share some of the things that I’ve learned from facilitating thousands of people, both online and in person, in innovation, strategy, training, team building and community co-creation events.

I’ll cover some of the key questions that I get asked most often when I’m coaching and training people rookie and more experienced facilitators.

What makes a great meeting facilitator?

Understanding the facilitator role is the first step toward effective meetings. You’re not just a meeting leader but also a neutral party that guides the meeting process. Your primary role is to achieve the common goal by ensuring that the right people engage in productive discussion.

A great meeting facilitator is someone who:

Is a great leader
Creates a process that delivers results and that is structured, yet flexible
Brings people together
Harnesses the collective creativity, wisdom, experience and energy of everybody in the room to deliver the objectives
Is mindful, present and intentional
Makes the meeting/workshop a positively memorable experience
Helps attendees to work through challenges
Has the ‘smarts’ and has done the research to be able to hold their own and stay apace with the contents of delegates’ discussions

1. Emotional intelligence is at the core of great facilitation

Reading the room

An effective meeting facilitator understands body language and adjusts strategies accordingly.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence means being able to access, interpret, manage and express emotions, relate to others and understand their perspectives. It’s about how we pick up on and empathize with the emotions that other people are feeling and influencing others positively and with integrity.

It also means being ‘un self-consciously self-aware’. In the moment, mindful, focused, intentional and in flow.

This is important because we can then listen better, connect better, and influence not just individuals, but also the group. This helps to get the most from the process and experience and achieve the task at hand.

Emotional intelligence is a key ingredient of great facilitation

Empathy is essential for great facilitation

One of the key ingredients of emotional intelligence is empathy.

Empathy is the ability to:

Appreciate other people’s points of view
Value all contributions
Be non-judgmental
Put ourselves in other people’s shoes

Great meeting facilitators are not judgmental and they appreciate others’ points of view. There is no view that they think is right or wrong. They provide space for all views, hence, they create psychological safety.

My video explaining Psychological Safety

Psychological safety means that people feel they’re in an environment where they can share their ideas, they can challenge, they can say what they think and speak out, and they feel their opinions, and point of view will be valued.

Sometimes there are difficult or sensitive issues and being emotionally intelligent helps us to make sure that we tread the right path and that we lead attendees through that in a way that is psychologically safe.

Emotional intelligence is also needed when we’re bringing together a new team, or people who haven’t worked with each other for a while and the group is just starting to build or rebuild that connection.

We need emotional intelligence to read a room, whether it’s a virtual or a physical room.

And, we need emotional intelligence to assess ourselves in the process, to ensure we are both self aware AND working through our creative subconscious.

At the end of the day, an excellent meeting facilitator is more than just a skilled leader or a scrum master. It’s someone who blends different roles to guide team members toward a common goal while managing different personalities and roles. Effective facilitation leads to productive meetings where each single person feels heard and engaged.

2. A great meeting facilitator is ready for anything

The second key ingredient for how to be a great facilitator is to be ready for anything.

It may seem like a series of paradoxes here.

With emotional intelligence, I talked about using creative subconscious and also being considered and focused.

And here you need to have a plan, yet, be ready for anything.

But they’re not paradoxes. These are actually complementary things.

It’s super important to go into any session you’re facilitating prepared and with a plan.

Think through contingencies and options for things you think might go different than planned.

And while planning is important, so is being flexible. Sometimes it’s important to just put the plan aside, because your participants need to go in another direction to get the desired results. This could just be for part of a session, or the remainder of it. So be ready for anything. Be prepared to think on your feet. Stick to your plan, but don’t be wedded to it.

3. Design and lead an effective process to achieve your workshop objectives

It’s the job of a great meeting facilitator to design a process that will achieve the desired outcomes.

This process should be well thought out. Processes that are structured step-by-step work really well.

Setting the Stage

The Meeting Agenda

Craft a detailed agenda to outline agenda items, time limits, and the purpose of the meeting. This should be sent out ahead of time. At the beginning of the meeting, a quick check-in can help set energy levels right.

Ground Rules and Safe Space

Establish ground rules to maintain a safe space where different perspectives can be aired without judgment.

Meeting Participants and Group Dynamics

Right People and Team Members

Include the right people in the meeting. This usually means team members, team leaders, and sometimes, a meeting sponsor to validate the goals of the meeting.

Small Groups and Different Personalities

For larger teams, break into small groups to explore different roles and new ideas. Be mindful that different people bring different personalities and strong opinions into the room.

Facilitation Techniques

Open Discussion and Open-Ended Questions

Foster open discussion by asking open-ended questions. This encourages meeting participants to explore common ground.

Time Management and Next Session

Keep an eye on the clock to ensure that you stick to time limits for each agenda topic. If you run out of time, use a “parking lot” to save ideas for the next session or meeting.

Plan for all sorts of different activities, textures and levels of energy all the way through so that the process feels good for the attendees. You’ll find my articles on How to Design a Virtual Innovation Sprint and How to Get Ideas Flowing helpful.

One of the things I see with newer or less confident facilitators, or facilitators who haven’t planned too well, is if they lack confidence about what they’re doing or they’re not clear about where they’re going with something, the attendees will try and take over the facilitation.

So be strong and confident. Be prepared to lead through the process. You’re not giving the answers or coming up with the outputs, but you are making sure that everyone is working with the process to get them to the end result.

After the meeting

Action items and meeting notes

At the end of the meeting, summarize action items and key takeaways. Make sure to send out meeting notes promptly.

Good News and Next Time

End on a positive note by sharing any good news and setting expectations for the next meeting or session.

IMPORTANT: If the group is working on something and doing what they need to be doing, it’s okay for you to step back for a while and let them do their thing. You don’t want to get in the way of great progress.

4. Generate collective energy

A great meeting facilitator is magnificent at generating collective energy.

Energy is infectious! So If you are energetic, positive, and enthusiastic, people pick up on that and they will enjoy being led by you.

Sometimes you might need to be a bit calmer, maybe you need to be a bit more thoughtful, because you need your attendees to be calmer and thoughtful at those points for different types of activity.

You lead the energy of the room through what you do. You set the tone, style and the pace of where you need people to be.

Think of it as leading your participants on a journey. There are times where people need to be really highly energized, working quickly and moving around quite rapidly. Then, at another time, something may need some thoughtful reflection.

5. Combine strength and warmth

Great facilitators combine strength and warmth.

A great facilitator needs strength to lead. As a facilitator, you need to keep people on task, intervening if a conversation goes off on a tangent, or if somebody is dominating the conversation. So an appropriate level of assertiveness is important.

However, warmth is important too.

Research shows that attendees do better and enjoy sessions more when they have a good rapport with a facilitator, when there’s a likability, connection and mutual respect.

Showing that you care about the delegates, their experience, and that you value everybody’s contribution, goes a long way to bring warmth into the meeting.

So what we need to do is dial up strength AND dial up warmth, to get the right balance for any situation.

Here’s an example. There are instances when I’m facilitating that I really need people to be on time, and I’ll be very clear about that. I may say “Please be back at this time with this task completed.” I give a clear instruction, say it nicely whilst making it very clear by my tone that this is important and that I need everyone to be back on time.

Warmth is about engaging, appreciating, recognizing everybody’s contribution, and being non-judgmental.

And that combination, strength and warmth, are the two ingredients that when you put them together, create what we call CHARISMA! It’s a great way to dial up your facilitation X-factor!

8. Professional considerations

The best way and best practices

Good meeting facilitation isn’t one-size-fits-all. The best meeting facilitators adapt best practices to fit the meeting goal and type of meeting, whether it’s an agile team or a project meeting.

Career path and key meeting facilitation skills

Being a skilled meeting facilitator can be a valuable career path. Important skills include active listening skills, the ability to handle strong personalities, and making a personal connection with group members. Keep working on continuous professional development.

7. Just add YOU

And finally, just add you! You are the magic ingredient in great facilitation.

Be yourself. Don’t try and be anybody else. Don’t try and do things the way another facilitator does them.

Use your style and lean into the authentic you, because people will enjoy that.

And it’s better to be an authentic you than a poor copy of somebody else.

So find your style.

I’ve got a free masterclass for you on how to find and develop your authentic signature facilitation style. There’s also a blog with all the videos and a playbook as well.

So just add YOU. Be distinctive. Be memorable, for the right reasons.

Every great facilitator is known for who they are, what they do, and how they do things. Create your facilitator brand; that is, your personal presence. And bring that to the room every single time.

How to be a great meeting facilitator – putting it all together

When we put this all together, at the heart of it is YOU! Your authentic self, your personal brand, your facilitation style, which is powered by your emotional intelligence.

How to be a Great Meeting Facilitator graphic. Copyright The Big Bang Partnership Limited 2023.

You’re tuned into what is going on, honing in on what you’re doing, ready for anything.

You’re generating the energy that you need in each moment, utilizing different energy throughout the session, leading with the just the right blend of strength and warmth. And, you’re effectively taking people through the engaging, highly effective process and series of activities that you’ve designed.

You’ve designed an excellent process to achieve the objectives of the event, and everyone wins.

Next steps

If you’d like to develop your facilitation skills further, and be part of a wonderful, supportive and like-minded community of facilitators, come and join my FREE private Facebook group, Idea Time for Facilitators. You’ll be the first to find out about new articles and videos, too, when you join. Can’t wait to see you in there!

About the Author

The post Be a Great Meeting Facilitator: Skills and Tips appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

The elephant and the rider – how humans make decisions

Jo North — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 08:06:00 +0000

The elephant and the rider – how humans make decisions

The elephant and the rider is a great metaphor for facilitators to take on board.

There comes a point in every innovation sprint, meeting or workshop when the group needs to choose between a number of potential options.

If you lead meetings or facilitate workshops, it’s really helpful to understand how people make decisions. There will always be a degree of subjectivity in decision-making. However, using facilitation techniques and activities designed to enhance objectivity will support your workshop delegates in making more effective choices as a group.

This is because, as science shows, we make decisions based on our emotions and intuition 95% of the time. We justify those decisions afterwards to ourselves and others with logic.

Think about a recent purchase you made. The chances are that how you wanted to feel played a key part in your decision. For example, you might have told yourself that you needed a new outfit – and maybe you did need one. But it’s also likely that you wanted to buy something new to help you feel good. More confident, perhaps, for a night out? More safe for an adventure sport activity? (Depending on what you bought, of course). The wanting it is emotions at work. Telling ourselves we need it is our rational brain justifying our decision.

The elephant and rider metaphor illustrates this brilliantly.

The elephant and the rider metaphor

The metaphor of the elephant and the rider is used by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his books The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind to represent how humans think.

The elephant portrays uncontrolled, intuitive and emotional thought processes. The rider represents more logical, controlled and analytical thinking. You might have come across similar distinctions between different ways of thinking if you’ve read or heard of The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind by Guy Claxton, or Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman.

To continue with the elephant and rider analogy, the elephant – or emotional brain – is much bigger and more powerful than the rider – or rational brain.

The rider cannot control the elephant. When it’s feeling calm and centred, the elephant knows what’s good for us, and takes us in the right direction. The rider simply needs to gently guide the elephant, with a light touch.

But when the elephant is feeling emotional – upset, frightened, stressed or annoyed – it charges, or stubbornly refuses to budge. The rider has a much more difficult job of getting the elephant to go where it needs to.

Ideally, the elephant stays calm and focused on what’s important, and the rider works out the best route to take to arrive at the destination.

Decision-making in innovation sprints and workshops

The elephant and the rider metaphor can help facilitators in a number of ways.

Ideally, the rider assesses and plans the best route for where the elephant intuitively knows it needs and wants to go. The facilitation tools and activities that you choose ideally will support both the elephant and the driver in doing their best work – combining insightful intuition with logical, rational choices.

The metaphor’s a good reminder that the facilitation techniques and activities we choose for the decision-making phases of a meeting or event need to allow space and opportunity for people in the group to let their intuition do its best work.

Make sure intuition isn’t crowded out by too many rigid, analytical tools. Ensure too that the environment you create is conducive to allowing people to be calm, focused and balanced. Be mindful of group dynamics. Build psychological safety in your sessions. We don’t want the elephant to charge, or refuse to budge!

On the other hand, intuition and emotion on their own are not enough. Some logic and rational thinking are needed for more objective assessment of options, and for planning.

The elephant and rider need to be in balance, and work together as a great team.

The emotional brain and resistance to change

It is the emotional brain that resists change. We explain our resistance by giving logical reasons for it.

If you observe that the group you’re facilitating is reluctant to change something, or try new things, it could well be worth exploring what feelings are driving their resistance.

Opening up ways to help your group find and tap into motivational, positive aspects of change will support them in moving forward.

Map the shortest route possible

To keep the elephant on course and help the rider do its job, design a workshop process that takes your delegates on the shortest route possible – without skimping though! – to achieve your session objectives. Make it as easy, enjoyable and productive an experience as you can.

Check in with your own elephant and rider

Perhaps most important of all, to be a great facilitator, keep checking in with yourself as you’re facilitating. Look after your own elephant and rider. You’ll enjoy your facilitation practice so much more, your balanced energy will transfer to your delegates and the whole workshop experience will benefit as a result.

Additional Insights: Using the Elephant and Rider for Better Decision Making in Workshops

The elephant and the rider – it’s more than just an interesting mental image. It’s a metaphor of the elephant and rider that offers powerful tools for understanding human behavior and guiding groups towards effective change.

The Elephant, The Rider, and Human Behavior

Derived from the insights of NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the elephant analogy reflects the duality in our human mind. Imagine a six-ton elephant and its rider. The elephant represents our emotional side – vast, powerful, and often driven by instinct. In comparison, the rider, perched on the back of the elephant, symbolizes our rational mind – analytical, planning, but small relative to the enormous elephant.

Chip Heath and his brother Dan Heath, who are associated with Stanford University and Duke University’s Centre, respectively, expanded on this concept in their book “Switch“. The Heath brothers detail the challenges of making behavior change stick. They stress the rider’s control isn’t absolute. When the elephant’s emotional side gets stirred, it can overpower the rational rider. The key point here? For meaningful change, both the elephant and the rider must align.

Bright Spots and the Path Forward

Instead of focusing on problems, the Heath brothers emphasize identifying “bright spots”, those successful efforts worth emulating. For example, imagine a workshop where team members highlight the last time they felt most productive. Such positive instances can illuminate the path of least resistance and establish a clear goal for the team.

Overcoming the Challenges

The rider-elephant framework is not just ancient wisdom; it’s a modern truth backed by behavioral economics and neuroscience. The rational rider may set the destination, but without the elephant’s buy-in, the journey becomes arduous. A significant role in this buy-in process is played by the surrounding environment. Often, people’s rational side is thwarted by a lack of clarity.

Change efforts often fail due to this lack of clarity. “Critical moves” are important– clear, actionable steps, not vague ambitions. Awareness of the “fundamental attribution error” in human nature shows we often blame people, but not the situation. Therefore, adjusting the surrounding environment can create a more conducive path for the elephant.

Insights from the Field

A great example comes from the world of customer satisfaction. Instead of just relying on managers to improve customer relations, some businesses survey customers directly, allowing the feedback to shape the bigger picture. By doing this, staff feel empowered and are more inclined to align with positive changes, as they have a tangible sense of the desired outcome.

Moreover, insights into the sides of our brain – the conscious processing parts, like the limbic system governing stress response, and the emotional level – suggest that both rational and emotional minds need support for behavior change. Peer support groups, exercise programs, and even the advancement of social entrepreneurship serve as testaments to this concept.

Guiding the Elephant and Rider in Workshops

To effectively guide groups in a workshop, facilitators must address both sides of their participants’ brains. The hardest part often isn’t setting the end goal but guiding the journey towards the finish line. With the right tools, a sense of identity, great leadership and a growth mindset, there’s a very good chance of achieving that.

The Power of Unity

The metaphor of the elephant and the rider teaches us an important lesson: addressing both the emotional mind and the rational mind is the best way to effect change. By understanding this dynamic, as a facilitator you can better prepare for workshops, ensuring your team not only understands the end goal but is emotionally invested in reaching it. As a result, the chances of long-term, meaningful change increase manifold.

About the Author

The post The elephant and the rider – how humans make decisions appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

Avoid Whac-a-Mole Management To Win at Innovation

Jo North — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 06:16:00 +0000

Why Whac-a-Mole Management Prevents Innovation, and What To Do About It

As a teenager in the 1980s, I spent a lot of time playing Whac-A-Mole in the arcades of Skegness, the seaside holiday town where I grew up.

You may have seen or heard about the classic arcade game Whac-A-Mole, too. If not, have a look at the video here.

Quick Video – the game of whac-a-mole in action

The point of the game? Strike down plastic moles with a rubber mallet as they pop up.

Whac-a-mole Management in Business

What’s fun in a game of whack becomes counterproductive in the business context. Much like managing our never-ending to-do list or juggling incessant Teams or Zoom calls, we often find ourselves in a mole situation, attempting to address emergent events without tackling their root causes. Just as one project finishes or one crisis is managed, the next mole pops up demanding a sense of urgency.

A Downward Spiral of Ineffectiveness

This “Whac-A-Mole management” method leads to a downward spiral of ineffectiveness.

Company leaders, including project managers, need to steer clear of this mole process if they want to achieve successful business innovation.

Being perpetually “busy” is different from doing the right things. A project manager might tick off tasks from their list, but are they the most important thing on that list? It’s crucial to prioritize.

Taking cues from life’s experiences, the best solution lies in leveraging new tools and strategies that evolve from project management. How many board members have sat in meetings discussing new initiatives, only to be sidetracked by impossible things that suddenly become urgent? Such distractions pull focus away from strategic thinking, essential for innovation.

Not Everyone in the Business Needs to Chase the Ball

Think of the team sports analogy. Just as in sports, where every player doesn’t chase the ball but rather plays a strategic role, in business, not every team member should chase the newest or loudest issue. Teams need to learn how to discern the difference between genuine crises and distractions. To do this, it’s important to analyze the mole’s root causes. Ensure that issues are addressed at their source, rather than superficially.

Whac-a-Mole Management is Reactive Leadership

Whac-A-Mole is a great metaphor for reactive leadership. We give high energy and focus to whatever priority pops up there and then, but another priority, problem or even crisis pops up somewhere else when we aren’t looking. Sometimes great opportunities slip past us because we simply haven’t noticed them, or don’t have the physical or mental bandwidth to pursue them.

The unexpected happens to us all. There are times when we really do need to drop almost everything and get something sorted. It’s part of life.

Whac-a-Mole Management is a Habit

What I see all too often in business, though, is that Whac-A-Mole management has become a habit. It’s an engrained part of the culture.

The challenge is that it can feel really good. Some people who enjoy reactive management can find it exciting and rewarding, and once we have whacked some moles successfully, we temporarily feel like superheroes! Businesses often reinforce this by rewarding such superhero-ness, even it’s just through admiration and thanks.

Time Management

Don’t Confuse Productivity with Whac-A-Mole Management

Whac-A-Mole management might also help some of us feel like we are being busy and productive. We can get pleasure from being busy. By being busy, I mean being on a constant treadmill of activity from one end of the day to the other, always on the phone and email, taking action and making decisions without stopping to think about what all the activity is for, and how effectively it is assisting us in reaching our most important goals.

We might like being busy for its own sake, or because we find sitting still is boring. It can bring a range of rewards, depending on the individual. For example, if we are very busy, it means that:

Our jobs (and therefore, we) must be very important.
We are doing a great job because we are showing how committed we are.
We don’t have time to do those things we don’t want to do, even if we say we want to do them and think that we really do!
Others will marvel at just how well we manage our busy-ness.

Some of these may not apply directly to you, but they might be relevant to the people you work with.

Being Busy is Not the Same as Being Efficient and Effective

The problem with busy-ness is that it does not allow us to access the full potential of our brainpower. It’s like driving without changing gear, even when another gear is more appropriate, comfortable and efficient. Busy-ness gets in the way of reflections from big, strategic thinking to smaller, mini-genius style insights that can make a difference to you, your team or business.

The Firefighting Loop

Some people (and organisations) consequently get stuck in a firefighting loop, like the one shown here, which I have adapted from an article in the Harvard Business Review:

Firefighting Loop

When I share my version of the firefighting loop with executive coaching clients and workshop delegates, the principles always resonate. Here’s a walk-through of the process it describes:

New problems and opportunities are constantly presenting themselves, creating a growing backlog of problems and challenges.
Managers are under pressure to perform. They set priorities and may focus on achieving quick results.
Where a new problem is urgent, or a crisis, it becomes a priority. It gets solved. Sometimes a permanent solution that prevents the same thing happening again is found through proper investigation, exploration and effort. Alternatively, a makeshift or only partially considered solution is developed, meaning that the problem joins a queue of other problems that are likely to recur because they’ve not been fully addressed.
The repeat problems then join the new problems and opportunities that are constantly streaming into the beginning of the loop, and the process is repeated.

The Problem with Firefighting

I must admit that I secretly enjoy a bit of mole-whacking from time-to-time myself. It can feel good once the challenge has passed. And there’s a huge BUT:

Working like this can become a habit. For those who enjoy it, it’s quite addictive.
When overdone it’s exhausting, even if we don’t realize it at the time. It becomes our new normal, and it’s easy to forget that there is another way.
Too much mole-whacking will stunt personal and business growth, as the balance between day-to-day delivery and taking longer-term development action is ‘off’.
It really does reduce creativity and innovation. Granted, to whack some of the moles, you need some creativity. But it’s not the sort of deep creativity that could have prevented the problem or issue in the first place.

It all reminds me of the opening paragraph of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh:

“Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way… if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it!”

Be a Real Business Superhero

The real superheroes in business are those who see that a mole could pop up, and have the foresight and creativity to take action in good time to stop it happening.

They also put in place preventative strategies to reduce risk, as well as create and optimize opportunities. This feels very different from mole-whacking. The shift is more mentally and personally challenging than practically so.

Some of my coaching clients who have moved from operational to strategic roles as part of their career progression say they really notice a difference. They almost feel guilty because they feel like they are doing less, even though they are not. The work they are doing is just a different kind.

Focus on What You Can Control and Influence

I appreciate that this may be extra-challenging if you work in a wider culture that is teeming with mole-whacking activity and expectations. My advice for you is to focus on what you can control and influence within how you organise yourself and the work that you are responsible for.

How to Break Your Whac-a-Mole Management Cycle

Here are some simple and effective steps that you can take to break your reactive leadership cycle. Each of these steps is supported by experience-based evidence:

Self-awareness is key. Once you’ve recognised that you’re doing Whac-A-Mole management, you can change it if you choose, but you’ve got to spot it and then acknowledge it first.
If you are doing a lot of mole-whacking, instead of trying to change this all at once, focus on your next new big project or goal, and resolve to take a different, more pre-emptive, structured and creative approach to it. Then do the same with your next project, the one after that and so on. Over time you will gradually shift from a reactive to a proactive leadership approach.
This one is an oldie but a goodie! Be ruthless about creating some time each week – even if it’s half an hour, for the important and non-urgent things you want to achieve. My definition of ‘important things’ are those tasks or initiatives that you don’t need complete right away, often take a long period of time to do, and will add significant value or give real benefits. Examples include many learning and development activities, working to improve systems and processes, R&D, ongoing stakeholder engagement.

Benefits of Becoming Less Reactive

The benefits of becoming less reactive in your approach will pay big dividends when it comes to your creative thinking and innovation projects.

You’ll also become more in the habit of finding permanent solutions to many of your recurring challenges. This encourages deeper creative problem-solving capability. Our brains have the fabulous feature of plasticity. The more we practise our creative thinking skills, the better, more natural and more efficient creative thinkers we become.

And of course, by not spending so much time dealing with recurring issues, you will benefit from the opportunity of freeing your mind to develop creative ideas and plans that will take your business forward.

I hope you join me on my quest to minimize Whac-A-Mole management and to release more time and space for creativity and innovation! I’d love to hear about the challenges you have with this, and any strategies you use to reduce reactive management. Do get in touch with me here.

About the Author

The post Avoid Whac-a-Mole Management To Win at Innovation appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

Brilliant one-to-one meetings with your team or line manager

Jo North — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 06:46:00 +0000

One-to-one meetings from both perspectives

This week, my blog about how to get the most out of your one-to-one meetings is inspired by two people I am coaching, each from a different business.

I have been working with the first client to develop their leadership skills, informed by feedback from the 360 activity that we had completed. There was a clear theme in the feedback that the one-to-one meetings they’ve been having with direct reports are not working as well as they could.

The second coaching client feels that she’s not getting the outcomes that she wants or needs from her one-to-one meetings with her line manager, and really doesn’t look forward to her fortnightly sessions.

In this article, I will give you my top tips for making the most of your one-to-one meetings, whether you are the direct report or the line manager. You can also click on this link to download your free one-to-one meeting plan.

What is a one-to-one meeting?

A one-to-one meeting is a regular opportunity for a line manager and direct report to discuss progress, key projects, development needs and opportunities and how the employee is feeling at work. It’s an important opportunity for the line manager and direct report to connect. The line manager can provide feedback, coaching, mentoring and support. The direct report can share successes, concerns and gain insights and fresh perspectives on their work.

In a one-to-one meeting, the focus should be on the employee rather than on a specific project or set of tasks.

One-to-one meetings and successful employees

In the classic management book, First, Break All the Rules, by Buckingham and Coffman, research by the Gallup Organization shows that the most successful and productive employees can answer ‘yes’ to these questions:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?
Do I have the equipment and material I need to do my work right?
At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
At work, do my opinions seem to count?
Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my work is important?
Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
In the last six months, have I talked to someone about my progress?
This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

One-to-one meetings are a great opportunity to help generate a resounding “yes” to these questions and build a strong workplace capable of attracting and keeping top performers at every level.

How effective are your one-to-one meetings?

One-to-one meetings can be really valuable, for both the line manager and the direct report. Yet, in so many cases, I hear from both sides that the experience is less than ideal. There is too much focus on the immediate workload, and neither party does much preparation or planning for the meeting in advance. Plus, there is often very little guidance or training given by organizations on how to make the most from the potentially precious one-to-one meeting time.

But before we dive in, take a few moments now to think about your own one-to-one meetings. Give each statement below a score between 1 to 5, with 1 being strongly disagree, and 5 strongly agree.

My one-to-one meetings are usually collaborative and productive.
We actively listen to each other and take each other’s perspectives into account.
Both of us seem to enjoy our one-to-one meetings, most of the time.
Both of us are always well-prepared for our one-to-one meeting.
We usually agree clear, specific actions and next steps in the meeting.
We’ll often discuss development needs and opportunities, as well as the day job.
We show appropriate concern and interest in each other’s wellbeing.

Why one-to-one meetings are important

When one-to-ones are done well, they bring mutual benefits.

From the line manager’s perspective, they offer a great opportunity to motivate, coach, develop, enhance productivity and loyalty, and gain feedback and insight into how things are going. The goal for the line manager is to connect the direct report’s work to the wider business and team strategy, provide appropriate situational leadership, develop a highly effective working relationship, help their colleague develop and make sure that their ideas are heard and considered.

From the direct report’s point of view, one-to-ones provide precious, valuable time with their manager, create the chance to discuss challenges, opportunities and options, get guidance and clarity where it is required, and receive feedback on their work on an ongoing basis. The goal for the direct report is to showcase their work appropriately, develop a great rapport with their boss, provide ideas and potential solutions for problems and risks, and align their activities to what the business, and their boss, need.

One to one meetings and organizational culture

One-to-one meetings can be a really effective part of how you create and nurture a culture of innovation in your business. My own doctoral research shows that a dynamic environment in which people feel their ideas are welcomed and heard, even if they are not ultimately acted upon, can contribute to a more entrepreneurial approach from employees.

One-to-ones are essential for high-performance.

Hybrid working and one-to-ones

If your organizations is either going completely virtual, or introducing hybrid working following the pandemic, it’s important that you continue to invest time in one-to-one meetings. I’ve created a Guide to Hybrid Working for Teams here and an article on Leading Collaboration in Remote Teams which you’ll also find useful.

With back-to-back meetings on line, it’s all to easy to let one-to-one meetings slide, but they should be one of the most important activities that you do.

8 top tips for getting the most from your one-to-one meetings

Here are my 8 top tips for getting the most out of your one-to-one meetings, whether you are in the seat of the line manager or the direct report.

Schedule your meetings as a regular event – and stick to the schedule, unless there’s a real emergency

You can review the frequency of your sessions together, and adjust to more or less often as needed. But, only on rare, exceptional occasions should you cancel the one-to-one, especially at the last minute. Nor should it be rushed.

Prepare the things you want to discuss in advance

Jot things down in the days or week before your one-to-one as they occur to you, so that you don’t forget anything.

When you’re in the meeting, start with the most important things first, so that if the discussions take longer than you think they will, you will have at least covered the priorities.

Make sure the discussions go beyond the immediate day-job issues

Simple status updates are a waste of face-to-face time, and can be done outside the meeting. Use the one-to-one for higher value discussion that will enhance performance and contribution, as well as building your working relationship.

Consider using a simple actions list

Committing to take action as a result of your conversation is really important to generate momentum. It turns your discussions into meaningful progress. Making sure that you visibly write these actions down, do what you promise and then update each other once you’ve completed your actions, by email, for example. This supports mutual support, collaboration and respect.

Be fully engaged

Really listen to each other, rather than just waiting for the other person to finish talking so that you can say your piece.

Be aware of your body language, and use an open and interested posture.

Put your phone or laptop away and eliminate or at least minimise the potential for interruptions, such as other people coming and going, or the phone ringing.

Say thank you and recognize achievement and great work

Bosses appreciate well-deserved positive feedback and thanks too, so this one if definitely for both of you.

Look for opportunities to say a sincere thank you or well done in the meeting. Don’t overdo it, though, or be insincere, or the words lose their significance and impact.

Appreciating each other and recognising each other’s achievements appropriately will help you strengthen your rapport.

Seek to understand and be curious

This tip is especially useful if you find that you are not agreeing with each other on something. Aiming to understand and empathise with your colleague’s point of view will empower you with insight that can help to influence a better outcome for both of you.

Curiosity is a state of active interest or genuinely wanting to know more about something. It allows you to embrace unfamiliar circumstances or perspectives. Studies such as the one here by the University at Buffalo finds that the degree to which people are curious directly relates to personal growth opportunities. It also determines how deeply people become connected.

Make sure your one-to-one meeting ends well

At the end of your meeting, make sure that you end well by doing these 2 things:

Review the decisions and actions you’ve made to make sure you’re both on the same page.
Reflect on the experience and on whether the time was well spent. Identify anything you think would help you make it better next time, if that’s relevant.

More challenging relationships and situations

These 8 top tips will help take an ok or positive relationship to the next level, and enhance the productivity of both the line manager and the direct report. Sometimes, though, relationships, discussion topics or performance issues mean that robust and challenging conversations are necessary. I will give you some approaches for dealing effectively with these more challenging relationships and situations in an upcoming article.

How to prepare for your one-to-one meeting

I’ve created a free, downloadable one-to-one single page planner for you to use. Just click here for your one-to-one meeting template.

• Use the discussion theme prompts in the one-to-one meeting template to prepare in advance:

General update on how things are going, how the direct report is feeling
Key priorities for discussion
Feedback on important projects
Team and company goals – check in
Identifying and resolving any roadblocks
Successes and milestones
Questions / items needing clarification

You don’t have to include every theme at every meeting, of course, just the ones that are most useful
to you at the time.

Use the one-to-one meeting template both as a prompt to make sure you cover everything you want to, and
also to capture your notes, actions and the key decisions that are taken in the right hand column.

Summary of the Benefits of One-on-One Meetings

One-on-one meetings are a great way to connect with your team members on a personal level, provide constructive feedback, and track their progress. They are also a great way to identify and resolve any problems early on.

Round-up: How to Run Effective One-on-One Meetings

Here is a round-up of tips for running effective one-on-one meetings:

Set clear expectations. Before the meeting, let your team member know what you hope to achieve. This could include discussing their goals, providing feedback, or simply catching up.
Be an active listener. Really listen to what your team member has to say, and ask open-ended questions to get them talking.
Give and receive feedback. Constructive feedback is essential for employee growth. Be sure to give your team member specific feedback on their work, and be open to receiving feedback yourself.
Celebrate successes. Take some time to celebrate your team member’s successes, big or small. This will help them stay motivated and engaged.
Follow up. After the meeting, take some time to write down the key takeaways and next steps. This will help you stay on track and make sure that the meeting was productive.
Use a meeting template. A meeting template can help you stay organized and ensure that you cover all of the important topics.
Be flexible. Don’t be afraid to deviate from the agenda if needed. The most important thing is to have a productive conversation.
Make time for one-on-one meetings. One-on-one meetings are a valuable investment in your team members’ success. Make sure to schedule them regularly and stick to the time slots.

Reminder: The Importance of Regular One-on-One Meetings

Regular one-on-one meetings are essential for building strong relationships with your team members and ensuring their success. Aim to have one-on-one meetings with each of your team members at least once a month.

One-on-one meetings are a great way to improve employee engagement, performance, and development. By following the tips above, you can run effective one-on-one meetings that benefit both you and your team members. Remember that one-on-one meetings can:

Be used to discuss difficult conversations, such as performance reviews or feedback on personal behavior.
Help to identify and resolve problems early on, before they become major issues.
A great way to build trust and rapport with your team members.
Used to gather feedback on your management style and the employee experience.
An opportunity to discuss career goals and development opportunities.
A good time to celebrate successes and provide encouragement.

Today’s Fast-paced Work Environment

In today’s fast-paced work environment, the importance of regular meetings cannot be overstated, especially when it comes to one-on-one conversations between an employee and a line manager. These are not just any meetings; they’re some of the most important meetings in any professional setting. The article delves deep into the best way to conduct these regular check-ins, offering a perspective from both the employee and the manager.

For employees, the first one-on-one meeting can be daunting, but with the right meeting agenda and talking points, it becomes the perfect opportunity to discuss career development, long-term goals, and pressing issues. Reflecting on the previous meeting can provide continuity, ensuring that key topics are addressed and progress is made.

Strike the Right Balance

For line managers, especially new managers, it’s crucial to strike the right balance. Great managers know the significance of dedicated time to understand an individual contributor’s day-to-day work challenges and career path. Embracing best practices and utilizing my one-on-one meeting template can pave the way for productive meetings. Moreover, managers should consider the nonverbal cues and be prepared to handle negative feedback, understanding that open communication goes a long way.

Remote employees present a unique challenge. While face-to-face meetings in a conference room might be the gold standard, regular 1-on-1s via digital platforms can still foster a strong relationship, as long as the meeting questions are well-thought-out and there’s a shared agenda.

Regular, Direct Feedback and Listening are Crucial

“Andy Grove had a mantra at Intel that we borrowed to describe leadership at Apple: Listen, Challenge, Commit. A strong leader has the humility to listen, the confidence to challenge, and the wisdom to know when to quit arguing and to get on board.”
Kim scott, Radical Candor

Consistent with Gallup’s latest State of the Workplace research, this article emphasizes the need for regular feedback, addressing both individual and team performance. Whether it’s making small talk about personal life or diving deep into professional development, achieving the right balance makes all the difference.

It Starts from Onboarding

Furthermore, a great place for managers to initiate these regular check-ins is during the onboarding process for new hires. It sets the tone for open communication, ensuring that the employee feels valued right from the outset. And as they transition from the past week’s tasks to the next meeting’s discussion points, the continuity of regular check-ins keeps the conversation flowing.

Keep Notes and Build Continuity

My article also suggests it’s a good idea to maintain meeting notes for future reference. With the recurrent nature of these meetings, reflecting on the last time you met can offer better insight into the pressing issues at hand and help set common goals. Whether you’re having a hard time in your personal life or seeking clarity on your professional development, the dedicated one-on-one time provides the perfect setting to address these and more.

Make sure you track action items from one-on-one meetings. Followed up on them to ensure that you’re making progress.

So, whether you’re an individual team member aiming to produce your best work or a manager striving to improve the work environment and relationships, embracing the principles and best practices of a successful one-on-one conversation will undoubtedly lead you to a great place at work.

The post Brilliant one-to-one meetings with your team or line manager appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

How to Redefine your Business goals in Uncertain Times

Jo North — Sat, 27 May 2023 11:05:00 +0000

Dr. Jo North

How to Redefine your Business Goals in Uncertain Times

Several months into the year, and New Year resolutions and business goals can sometimes be quickly forgotten. As I write this, we are navigating through a complex tapestry of global challenges and opportunities that necessitate adaptability and resilience.

The world is grappling with significant economic challenges, rising costs, the impacts of climate change, political uncertainty, and the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI). AI, in particular, is a double-edged sword, presenting both exciting prospects and novel challenges.

AI is revolutionizing industries, offering efficiencies, productivity gains, and new products and services, creating massive opportunities for those businesses ready to embrace it. However, it also raises fresh challenges around data security, ethical use, and workforce adaptation, increasing pressure on businesses to navigate this new landscape responsibly and effectively.

The transition towards a more digital and interconnected world, as evidenced by the rise of remote working, video conferencing, and social media, makes this even more critical. Although challenging, this transition presents an opportunity to redefine what’s important to us, where we want to be, and to adjust our goals accordingly.

This period of change also offers an opportunity to make substantial progress on these goals by dedicating some short, highly focused time on them each day.

Strategic Planning

Navigating the complex business environment and achieving long-term success is the ultimate goal of every business leader. However, this requires strategic planning, a clear vision, and the agility to adapt to new regulatory requirements, external circumstances, and the introduction of new technology.

A crucial starting point for business success is establishing long-term and short-term goals. The goal-setting process allows a business leader to take a hard look at the current strategy and identify new goals in line with the mission statement and overall company’s objective.

Utilising a SWOT analysis can help identify both the opportunities presented by new businesses entering the market and any external threat that could affect the company’s market position. Equally, market research and industry research can provide a clear picture of consumers’ needs and help refine your marketing strategy, target audience, and market share.

Meet Changing Consumer Needs

The introduction of new products and initiatives to meet these consumer needs is an effective way to increase your customer base. Equally, focusing on customer service and customer experience can help improve the customer’s relationship with your business, leading to increased customer retention and new customer acquisition.

Set SMART Goals

Using SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) is a good business strategy for keeping on track. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used to measure the success of these goals and ensure that the business is moving in the right direction.

As the business grows, the leadership team, including department heads and human resources, must work together to ensure everyone is working towards the same business objectives. Regular focus groups and meetings can provide an opportunity for discussion and the development of new strategies and action plans.

Strategic goals may involve expanding the product line, improving the privacy policy, increasing the profit margin, or making fundamental changes to the business model. A successful business strategy will also consider how to best work with key stakeholders, the management of information, and meeting the specific goals of different departments.

Prepare and Involve Your People

While this strategic planning is integral to business success, it’s also important to remember the “big picture”. Successful companies are those that not only adapt to new strategies and significant change but also ensure that their employees are part of this process. Providing training and development opportunities and fostering a culture of best practices and good practice is essential for long-term success.

Adopt a Growth Mindset

Finally, remember that every successful business started as a small business with a good business plan and a lot of determination. Don’t be disheartened by challenges along the way; instead, see them as different ways to learn and improve. Keep focused on your personal goals and financial goals, and with the right people in place, your business has every chance of being a successful business.

Business Goal-Setting – Additional Resources

Here are some additional, free resources that will help you to redefine your business goals in uncertain times:

To lead a deep-dive team session on your business strategy, my article here on How to Facilitate a Business Strategy Workshop gives you a step-by-step plan and agenda
To run a goal-setting session with your team, check out How to Facilitate a Goal-Setting Workshop
Once you’ve reset your goals, keep your team on track with these Facilitation Ideas for a Goal Achievement Workshop
Use these science-backed, evidence-based Tips to Stay Motivated to Achieve Your Goals
Maybe your confidence has taken a bit of a knock, or you feel like you need to take a big leap into the unknown? If that’s you, my article Growth Mindset: Develop the Confidence to Succeed will definitely help you
For an in-depth guide on How to Set Intentional Goals, click here

How to Redefine your Business Goals

I wanted to offer you some inspiration and an activity that will help you redefine and progress your business goals.

This blog is a snapshot of my Idea Time programme, available here on Kindle. Idea Time has directly supported a range of business people from all kinds of industries, businesses, and backgrounds throughout the year to accomplish their goals. These have included:

Saving tens of thousands of pounds through improved procurement and supply chain.
Successfully establishing several new business ventures.
Navigating the opportunities and challenges of AI integration in business.
Attaining fast-paced growth through an even higher performing team.
Identifying and achieving an accelerated career development plan.
Delivery of challenging projects on time, on budget, and to standard, satisfying the diverse needs and agendas of a varied stakeholder group.

It’s time to start thinking about and redefining your business goals, particularly in the context of these changing global circumstances, including the rise of AI. Consider what you would genuinely like to focus on over the next 12 weeks.

Give this a try – I’d love to hear how you get on!

Idea Time

This is a hands-on exercise to get you started and should take between 10-15 minutes. You will begin by getting as many of the thoughts, ideas and challenges that you have coming up onto paper so that you can see them visually and prioritise where you’d like to begin.

Work intuitively, relax and have fun with the process. You might want to use a specific notebook or folder on your computer to keep your work so that you have it all in one place.

Imagine 3 months ahead of today. What do you want to have achieved and benefited from during this time?

It’s time to think about your business goals.

Messy Challenges

Some challenges have straightforward solutions: To achieve X we simply need to do Y.

But most leadership and management opportunities and issues are not so clear-cut. We could be presented with a range of options, none of which are ideal, or something around us is changing in a way that we haven’t experienced before. In the fast-moving world of work, we often have to make decisions and take action with foggy or incomplete information in situations where doing nothing is definitely not an option! In innovation terms, these are known as “messy” or “wicked” problems or opportunities.

Navigating through and delivering against these successfully is of course what we, as managers and leaders, are there to do, so the more effective we can become at it, and the greater our competence and understanding of what we intuitively process as professionals every single day at work, can add real value to personal leadership, and therefore team, performance.

So, over these coming 3 months focus on something “messy”. Your own work may be similar to the examples below, or completely different, it doesn’t matter either way. As long as the answer isn’t obvious or clear-cut, it’s a messy challenge.

A Challenging Business Goal

Think about creating a stretching, challenging and yet achievable business goal that you can achieve with focus and different thinking, and is something that you can get done with current restrictions and challenges. Your business goal will be a statement – or question – that concisely communicates what you want to achieve by tackling your messy business goal.

Examples of ‘Wicked’ or ‘Messy’ Business Goals

Here are some examples of “wicked” or “messy” business goals:

My team’s performance looks like it should be great on paper, but for some reason we aren’t delivering in the way that I had hoped with remote working in place.
The market is changing fast and our sales have dropped off. We need to start a new growth curve.
I want to change the direction of my career but am not sure what I want to do and how to make the change.
How do I develop the capability within my team to pursue the new opportunities that are coming up, especially when we are all working from home?

You probably have a range of potential business goals that you’d like to tackle. Focus will be important, though, because if you have too many business goals on the go at once, your efforts and effectiveness could become diluted. So it’s better if you can select one business goal that you would really like to get done over the coming weeks.

By definition, messy business goals are multi-faceted. This means that you might want to work on different aspects of your BHAG as you work through the programme and make headway with your solution.


	4 Key Features of a Great Business Goal

Collins and Porras identified 4 key features of a great business goal. These are:

Aligned. To be transformational and successful, your business goal will work best if it is consistent with your overarching desires, aims and objectives.
Audacious. Your business goal needs fresh approaches and different thinking.
Articulate. It needs to be clear and describe a straight forward target outcome.
Arduous. A good business goal is motivational and inspiring because it provides an appropriate level of stretch that requires you to go somewhat beyond your usual way of thinking.

Idea Time – Redefine Your Business Goals

Your first step now is to begin to redefine your business goal for the next 3 months and map out what is looks like.

Allow at least 10 minutes for this activity. You may wish to spend longer on it, or perhaps revisit it after a few days – all of which is great. A lot can be achieved in 10 minutes, so give it a go and see how you get on.

The reason I’m suggesting that you use this technique is to open up your thinking, and to begin to frame challenges as a positive and motivational possibility.

Step 1:

Spend just a few minutes completing the following statement as many times as you can with real items relating to your work context:

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if…

Jot your thoughts down. See if you can think of at least 5 things.

Do add more if you’d like to go beyond 5 items

Step 2:

Select the statement from Step 1 that would make the most material difference to your individual, team or business performance and that has the potential to become a motivational business goal for the coming weeks. You might have a couple or more of connected statements that you want to combine into a single business goal. If so, that’s completely fine.

Write down your selected statement.

Step 3:

Now add these things into your statement:

Your personal strengths and the tools that you have that will help you to achieve your business goal.
Any hurdles that you think might pop up.
Any questions that are in your mind about attaining your business goal.
Finally, note down the people, opportunities and things that will support you on the journey.

Take Action On Your Business Goals!

If you’d like to get in touch by email, I’d love to hear about your business goal, and will be really pleased to offer any tips or additional insights that might help.

The post How to Redefine your Business goals in Uncertain Times appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

How to Set Your Business Goals for Innovation and Growth

Jo North — Fri, 26 May 2023 08:13:00 +0000

How to Set Your Business Goals for Innovation and Growth

Setting robust business goals for innovation and growth is a cornerstone of any successful enterprise. This guide offers insights into the different types of innovation, how to set and achieve these goals, and how to foster a culture of innovation that fuels long-term success. Dive into this rich exploration of business innovation strategies and discover how to elevate your business potential.

Navigating Continuous Improvement and Expansion

The cycle of improvement and growth is an ongoing journey that isn’t confined to a specific time of the year.

The concept of New Year’s Resolutions and the start of a fresh calendar year often trigger a wave of goal-setting. But it’s crucial to understand that the momentum for innovation and progress should be maintained all year round.

The fiscal year, widely adopted by numerous publicly traded companies in the United States and a majority of large businesses in the UK, also serves as milestone. However, the opportunity for reflection and forward-thinking isn’t exclusive to these annual moments.

It’s crucial to treat every day as a fresh start. An opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned and achievements earned. This constant appraisal and recalibration is what fuels the strategic planning for continuous innovation, growth, and success.

Why Having Business Goals is Important

Research reveals that a significant proportion of us may fail to accomplish our set goals and targets. This is irrespective of the time of year that we set those goals and targets.

Current trends like choosing an annual theme, creating a bucket list, writing down anticipated highlights, and monthly challenges show this.

However, don’t let these statistics or the evolving trends deter you from laying down your professional and business objectives. Here’s why:

Goal setting for business is effective. Possessing a clear, compelling objective steers your attention toward actionable conduct, irrespective of the season.
Witnessing tangible progress toward your goals is inspirational. It generates a positive feedback loop of proactive action that operates all year round.
Striving for ambitious objectives fosters learning and adaptability, critical elements for any business at any time.
Fulfilling goals bolsters your self-confidence, instills a sense of achievement, and provides a cause for celebration, regardless of the calendar date.

For some reason, many of us seem to commit more profoundly to our business objectives than to personal ones. Business goals often feel more formal and mandatory, less optional compared to some – but not all – personal goals. This attitude transcends temporal constraints, making every moment an opportunity for growth and progress.

Effective Goal-Setting

Not all goal-setting is equally effective. Knowing how to set the right goals, and how to best achieve them, takes time, practice, insight and support.

My Idea Time programme, which I have published as a Kindle book on Amazon, has been helping entrepreneurs, leaders and managers to successfully achieve their big, ambitious business goals.

If you’d like to hear from just a few of the people who have used my Idea Time programme to take their business to the next level, tune in to my podcast episodes. For example:

Andrew Palmer, from the Gravitas Matrix, left his corporate career to set up his own successful consultancy.
Andy Firth, director of digital marketing agency Ascensor, significantly expanded his company and moved to brand new, bigger and better located premises.
Anthony Main has grown his company, The Distance, and strengthened its position as one of the UK’s leading app development agencies.

Effective Goal-Setting for Business Growth and Innovation

I want to share some of my tips and techniques with you for effective goal-setting. If you don’t set goals that are meaningful and motivational to you, then you’re setting yourself up to fail from the beginning.

Insights from Behavioral Science

Based on studies by Icek Azjen and others, to follow through and act on an intention, we need to firmly believe these three things:

That we are capable of achieving our goals. And even if we haven’t worked out how we are going to achieve them, we need to have the self-belief to know that what ever happens we have what it takes to work it out and make our goals happen. This particular form of self-belief is called self-efficacy.
That what we are planning to do has a place in our social environment. That is to say, that the people who matter most to us are accepting, and preferably supportive, of what we want to go for and achieve.
That the final outcomes will be worth all the effort we will need to invest in attaining our goals.

Adapted from Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior

Unlocking Business Potential through Continuous Innovation

Embracing new ideas and innovative solutions is key to remaining competitive in the ever-evolving business landscape. From introducing new products to exploring new markets, effective innovation strategies can significantly boost a company’s market share. Business leaders have leveraged innovative ideas to revamp their business model and reinforce their value proposition, ultimately leading to improved customer satisfaction and long-term success. Examples are Microsoft and Google, with their respective AI products, ChatGPT and Bard.

The Different Types of Innovation

The innovation process encompasses various types of innovation – incremental innovation, radical innovation, business model innovation, disruptive innovation, architectural innovation, and open innovation, to name a few.

Incremental innovation focuses on improving current products or processes.

Radical or disruptive innovation introduces completely new concepts that redefine business norms.

Architectural innovation alters the way existing products or services are organised.

Open innovation encourages a culture of innovation, drawing in great ideas from external sources, such as customers and key stakeholders. The Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are good examples of disruptive innovation and technological innovation, respectively.

Setting Business Goals for Innovation and Growth

Embarking on an innovation journey begins with a clear vision and setting business goals for innovation and growth. The first step is understanding the needs of your target market and existing customer base. This understanding can be achieved through market research, customer feedback, and studying customer markets. The second step involves generating innovative ideas to meet these needs. Whether it’s creating new business models, launching new products, or improving existing ones, this step requires creative thinking from all team members.

The Role of Cross-functional Collaboration

Innovation efforts should not be siloed within business units but should involve cross-functional collaboration. The importance of innovation in business success needs a common innovation mission. This mission needs to align with the company’s strategic goals and overall business strategy. Innovation initiatives should therefore be part of a broader innovation system, underpinned by an innovation culture that promotes constant innovation.

Senior Management’s Crucial Role

Senior leaders and senior management have a crucial role in fostering this culture of innovation. By setting the strategic approach and defining the innovation objectives, they can guide the innovation work and ensure that everyone – from product development teams to other business units – works towards common goals. A successful innovation strategy also recognises the real value of intellectual property and how it can offer a competitive advantage.

Investment and Long-term Success

Innovation investments are essential for facilitating the innovation process, and these should be allocated wisely to provide the best value. This could mean investing in new technologies, product teams, or even creating an innovation engine to systematically generate and implement innovative ideas.

While short-term gains from such innovations are essential, the best way to ensure sustained growth and expansion is by focusing on long-term success. This involves regularly reassessing innovation strategies and making incremental improvements to meet evolving customer needs. Best practices suggest that maintaining a balance between meeting immediate customer needs and investing in disruptive innovation for future growth is key when setting business goals for innovation and growth.

Implementing Successful Innovation Strategies

A successful innovation strategy, therefore, demands a clear understanding of your current competitive landscape, potential customers, and different markets. It also necessitates an effective strategy for managing innovation efforts, one that is adaptable, flexible, and always aligned with the organisational goals.

Innovation is not just about having good ideas. It’s about transforming those ideas into real value, creating new value, and driving growth. With the right strategic approach, even the smallest innovation can lead to better outcomes and lower costs. This paves the way for business innovation that truly resonates with the customers’ needs. It will significantly contributes to the company’s core business, and underlines the importance of setting effective business goals for innovation and growth.

Set Your Business Goals for Innovation and Growth

Making sure that you set business goals for innovation and growth is crucial for your company’s continued success in this fast-paced business environment. At the Big Bang Partnership, we’re here to help you formulate effective innovation strategies and achieve those goals.

Don’t hesitate to make the first step towards transformative business growth. Get in touch with us and discover how we can support your innovation journey. Your next big idea is just around the corner, and we’re excited to help you bring it to life.

The post How to Set Your Business Goals for Innovation and Growth appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

How to Build an Innovative Culture

Jo North — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 13:20:01 +0000

This article is all about innovation culture. I’m going to share:

What is an innovative culture?
Why does having an innovative culture matter?
How do you perceive the innovation culture of your team or business, and how does that affect your performance?
How you can measure the innovation culture of your team or business
What you can do to create a better, more innovative culture at work

Dr. Jo North

What is an innovative culture?

A definition of an innovative culture is how an organization’s purpose, practices, processes, relationships, decision-making, activities, history and ambition and more, all combine to create an environment that achieves successful innovation.

It’s an organizational culture that is both supportive and capable of innovation. Team members have great, innovative ideas, area able to communicate those ideas and put them into action to benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

An innovative culture is one where the status quo is challenged and not accepted as a given. Employees demonstrate a growth mindset, strive for better ways of doing things and for continuous improvement as well as more disruptive innovations.

Video: Innovative Culture

The importance of innovation

Why does having an innovative culture matter?

Csikszentmihalyi (1999) identifies that creativity is only recognised and acknowledged within the social context that it exists within. It depends not just on the individual creativity of those who have new ideas, but also on how receptive people in the surrounding organization are to those new ideas.

This is highly relevant in the context because we all operate within the ‘community’ of our organization – the receptiveness of the organization to our individual creativity will influence how innovative we are at work, and in turn the results that our organizations achieve.

If we perceive that we work in a positive innovation culture, we are more likely to be encouraged and motivated to be more innovative ourselves. Likewise, a less innovative culture is a disincentive for individuals to engage in innovation and share ideas.

Individual and team creativity fuels organizational innovation, which in turns impacts on individual and team creativity as a mutually reinforcing virtuous circle. This shapes your internal innovation ecosystem.

Creativity and innovation create your organization’s unique intellectual capital.

Creativity and innovative culture

Creativity is an antecedent to innovation. Appropriate ideas and opportunities need to be recognised and communicated by individuals in order for the ideas to be used in practise.

It’s helpful to think of every person in the business as an organizational catalyst, mobilising the motivation and resources of the organization, and activating its management practises to results.

As the organization enjoys and gains confidence from the individual’s successful generation of beneficial organizational outcomes, so is likely to become more receptive to further innovation initiatives.

This in turn may also be catalytic in motivating the individual to propose and effect more innovation opportunities to the organisation, creating a virtuous circle. There is a clear link between the organisation and individual employee performance. I studied this in detail in my PhD research.

Individual employees need to be in an environment that supports innovation, because:

“When environments and structures are hospitable to innovation, people’s natural inventiveness and power skills can make almost anything happen.”
Kanter

Long-term growth and profitability are linked with progressive human resources practise and employee engagement.

Most organizations will benefit from learning how to trust their employees and give them the opportunity and encouragement to use their creativity to benefit the business, leveraging their innovation capability as a unique, competitive advantage and source of competitive differentiation.

Why performance management is important for an innovative culture

In addition to creating a work environment that nurtures employee creativity, it’s important to provide scaffolding through discipline, structure, process and competence.

“Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. They’re characterized by a tolerance for failure and a willingness to experiment. They’re seen as being psychologically safe, highly collaborative, and nonhierarchical…[these] easy-to-like behaviors that get so much attention are only one side of the coin. They must be counterbalanced by some tougher and frankly less fun behaviors: an intolerance for incompetence, rigorous discipline, brutal candor, a high level of individual accountability, and strong leadership. Unless the tensions created by this paradox are carefully managed, attempts to create an innovative culture will fail.”
The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, Harvard Business Review

How do you perceive the innovation culture of your team or business, and how does that affect your performance?

How do you feel about your team or organization? Do you perceive it to be too slow and risk averse, gung-ho and risk taking or just right?

We each see our work environment through the lens of our our preferences. A risk averse person may not see a risk averse business as a problem, but someone who loves big change and new ideas might see that same business as being an incredibly frustrating place to work, as if they are banging their heads against a brick wall repeatedly to get any changes made.

Find or create the innovative culture that best suits you

The important thing for you, regardless of your preference, is to be in an innovation culture that is right for you.

If you are a leader or influencer in the business, you have a great opportunity to shape the innovation culture for the better, using the tips below.

If you’re not in a position to influence, think about how any dissonance with the culture might be affecting your performance and happiness at work and maybe start to look for other opportunities.

Research shows that we perform better when we can play to our strengths, so if you don’t believe that you’re getting to use yours most days, then it could be time for a change.

How can you measure the innovation culture of your team or business?

Different employees working in very similar circumstances in the same team or organisation could hold very different perceptions of the innovation culture of that same team or organization.

An individual’s evaluation of innovation culture will always be subjective, regardless of the instrument used to test it, but it’s still worth seeing where you’re at, taking action to improve and then remeasuring.

I can help you to create an innovation culture survey, strategy and implementation plan tailored just for you and your business that will create a step change in the effectiveness of your innovation culture, and lead to measurable commercial results, as well as significant improvements to your employee and customer engagement.

What can you do to create a more innovative culture at work?

1. Make innovation part of your business model’s DNA.

Position innovation as being everyone’s job, not just the role of Research and Development or innovation team. Create and communicate an innovation strategy for your organisation with your employees. Align performance appraisals, rewards, and incentives to the achievement of your innovation strategy.

2. Senior leadership needs to role model the company culture and positive innovation behaviors they want to see in others

Senior leaders need to have a growth mindset, ask great questions – and be open to honest answers, even if they aren’t always pleasant to hear. It also means never being complacent, always striving for better, making decisions quickly and being prepared to try new things.

3. Foster an integrative approach to problem-solving across the business

Bring people from different business units, teams, roles and disciplines together to collaborate in creative thinking for solutions to specific customer needs, business opportunities, and challenges. This destroys silos and leads to greater organizational performance overall, which naturally leads to a more positive and effective innovation culture. Ideal conditions for innovative thinking are a culture that is highly differentiated into specialised fields and roles, yet is held together by a shared purpose, vision and appreciation for collaboration. Team members are always seeking new ways of working for continuous improvement.

4. Create diverse teams

When people from different backgrounds collaborate, the results can be powerful. A variety of backgrounds, preferences, thinking styles, ages, departments and experiences gives a mix of unique perspectives that lead to much richer solutions.

5. Identify your most dynamic, high-potential innovators

High-potential innovators thrive on personal stretch (i.e. challenges that mean they have to work at the very edge of their competency), being future-focused and having the ability to synthesize ideas from sources that appear to have no obvious connection. Research, including my own, shows that might become bored easily. Offer your best talent variety and access to new problems and opportunities to solve.

6. Build psychological safety

Innovations often experience setbacks and failures before they succeed. An individual innovator is taking a risk every time they propose or take accountability for something new. Risk-taking and potential failure are ingredients of creative acts. Making risk-taking and failure less threatening and dangerous promotes innovative behaviors. When creative initiatives are met with suspicion, defensiveness and aggression, the individual’s fear of failure becomes strong and they are much less likely to voice what could be potentially great ideas for the business.

Video: How to create psychological safety in teams

7. People need time and tools to innovate

Give people the time and tools they need to do the job. This does not mean unlimited budget. In fact, research shows that having some constraints such as a limited budget actually strengthens creativity and innovation.

8. Watch out for stress and pressure

Stress and pressure are very subjective. Something that stresses the heck out of me might not bother you at all, and vice versa. Our individual threshold for stress and pressure varies too. Some people seem to be able to absorb a lot, and others less. Every individual has their own sweet spot. We need the right amount to give us a boost to crack on and make stuff happen, but not so much that we become overwhelmed and end up in fight , flight or “in the headlights” mode. Read more about how to develop your resilience here.

9. Take affordable, calculated risks

Take calculated risks that you can afford if they go wrong. Experiment and test stuff. We don’t learn anything unless we trial things. We won’t learn anything from keeping an idea on the shelf because we don’t get any feedback on what works and what doesn’t. When people in your team or business see that it’s ok to try things out, they’ll feel better about taking action on their ideas.

10. Foster playfulness

Collaboration includes being playful and fun behaviors. Playfulness is potentially most important during the creativity stages of the innovation process, but useful throughout as it supports a sense of shared experience and team working.

11. Be decisive and dynamic

Don’t sit on ideas for too long. Show strong leadership. Make decisions in a reasonable timescale and then act swiftly. Research shows that perceptions of an innovative organizational culture increase substantially when individuals see dynamic, decisive action being taken around them.

12. Create physical or virtual space for connections

Create Innovation Lab style spaces and opportunities for interaction. Innovation Labs are a co-working space designed for interaction – these could be virtual, physical or both– to help employees form connections, have light bulb moments in coffee and water-cooler chats, and brainstorm.

13. Build a good innovation process

Management practices for innovation need to be supported by a great innovation process. This should bring the right level of structure and governance for your organization, without being so bureaucratic that it inhibits your innovation progress.

14. Use Agile methodology

Tech companies and many others use agile methodology to accelerate innovation and create a culture of continuous improvement. They deliver projects by working in sprints – short bursts of activity, followed by a retrospective meeting, or lessons learned workshop, before proceeding to the next phase of the project. More innovative thinking and continuous improvement best practices become a natural part of how employees perform their roles as a result.

15. Think long term

if you’re an established business, your entire organization won’t become innovative overnight. Celebrate small improvements, work on your hiring process to bring in people who will stimulate fresh thinking and can support your more innovative projects and disruptive ideas. Be consistent, and show existing employees the mutual value of thinking differently to find new solutions to customer needs.

Get expert support

As I said earlier, I can help you to create an innovation culture survey, strategy and implementation plan tailored just for you and your business that will create a step change in the effectiveness of your innovation culture, and lead to measurable commercial results, as well as significant improvements to your employee and customer engagement.

Please get in touch in the comments and using the contact form here, and I will get straight back to you. We will have a confidential Zoom or Teams call for you to share your thoughts, challenges and ambitions for your innovation culture and I will listen, ask questions and give you some options to get the results you’re after.

The post How to Build an Innovative Culture appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

Creative facilitation techniques for validating business ideas

Jo North — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 17:18:00 +0000

Creative facilitation techniques for validating business ideas

Validating business ideas is an important part of the innovation sprint process, and it’s well worth building time into your agenda to do this after your idea selection and development phases.

Here are some great facilitation activities that you can use to help your delegates with validating their business ideas, whether it’s something big like a successful start up, a brand new business model, enhancements to existing products and services, determining a price point or launching a new sales landing page.

Photo: Dr. Jo North

What’s the difference between an idea and a great idea?

An idea happens when thoughts come together for the first time to create a new thought – or idea. Of course, some ideas – the great ones – have more commercial and practical potential than others. Validating business ideas in a structured way helps teams to make better decisions, by surfacing assumptions and adding structure and challenge to reduce over-reliance on emotions and inconscious bias.

Why is it important to know the difference between an idea and a great idea?

Premature evaluation kills creativity, but it also can kill effective commercialisation when ideas that haven’t been tested are implemented.

Validating business ideas for genuine potential

When you’re facilitating an innovation sprint, your delegates need evidence that their ideas have genuine potential before they execute them, however great those ideas might seem in theory. They need to validate that there is a genuinely addressable market, that there is a gap in that market and that potential customers in the target market will be attracted to the idea. In addition, they need to validate that the business idea will be deliverable in practice.

It’s likely that a great deal of the business idea validation will need to happen outside the environment of your facilitated sessions, of course, but if you consider building some idea validation into your innovation agenda it’s a great way of helping them to take the first step and get a head start.

Premature evaluation kills creativity, but it also can kill effective commercialisation when ideas that haven’t been tested are implemented.
Share on X

What do we mean by “idea validation”?

Idea validation is the process of testing an idea prior to investing heavily on research and development and progressing through to launch. It falls into the idea development phase of the innovation process and is an extension of the point of view statement in design thinking methodology, coming just before prototyping.The purpose of idea validation is to test assumptions behind an idea before progressing to invest in the next steps of deeper market research and analysis or creating a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) prototype.

Idea testing has the benefits of:

Saving time and money.
Gaining clarity before more robust prototyping and market testing activities to ensure you get genuinely useful and insightful feedback from them.

Humans and decision-making

There is plentiful evidence that we humans usually base our decisions on emotion, heuristics and unconscious bias. Real people are rarely the cool, objective, rational decision-makers that we would like to think we are. To learn more about this, have a look at my article, The Elephant and the Rider, here.

Using the activities in this article will help the group to shape a forward business plan that’s more evidence-based.

Creative facilitation process for idea testing

Our beliefs about whether or not an idea will be successful is driven by our underlying beliefs and assumptions. Sometimes these beliefs and assumptions are subconscious – we haven’t even considered what they are and the reasons why we think an idea might or might work not even obviously apparent to us.

Using activities that surface these assumptions and beliefs is a great starting point for idea validation. By helping delegates to identify what they are, they can then be tested.

Here’s my tried-and-tested, highly effective creative facilitation processes designed for the idea validation phase of an event. The key steps are:

Defining the idea hypothesis
Assumption surfacing
Impact and probability mapping
Sticking dot voting
Designing trials

I will walk you through each stage below.

Photo: Dr. Jo North

Hypotheses and Idea Testing

I found the process of defining hypotheses for my ideas so that I could test them invaluable – and very necessary – when I worked on my PhD research.

A hypothesis is simply ‘a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation’.

The key features of a well-written, strong hypothesis are that it needs to be:

An informed view about what delegates think will actually happen.
Written in clear, straightforward language.
Testable

Turning business ideas into hypothesis statements is a fantastic way of testing them.

Where an idea has lots of different components, a separate hypothesis is needed for each one. Make sure your delegates create a specific hypothesis statement relating to each main part of the idea.

Business ideas usually succeed or fail based on the assumptions made about demand, deliverability and / or financials, so I include these purposefully when I work on idea validation with delegates. I strongly recommend that you ask your delegates to create at least one hypothesis statement for each of the demand, deliverability and financial components of their idea for this reason.

Turning business ideas into hypothesis statements is a fantastic way of testing them.
Share on X

Defining the Idea Hypothesis

Brief your delegates step-by-step as follows:

1. Explain what a hypothesis is and why it’s useful in idea testing.

2. Ask delegates to create hypothesis statements to test the demand, deliverability and financial aspects of their idea. Explain that they need to write each hypothesis as a concise, clear statement and can write more than one statement for each of the three areas. Every hypothesis statement needs to focus only on one thing.

3. Explain that they will use the phrase ‘Our idea is that…” at the beginning of each statement, and that they should complete that phrase as many times as they can for each for the demand, deliverability and financial aspects of their idea.

Examples for idea hypothesis themes

Here is an example for each of the themes.

Demand. Our idea is that…

… there is a significant gap in the xyz market for our potential new product abc.

…customers buying product xxx also have a need for our potential new product abc.

…our potential new product abc will allow us to sell more to our existing customers x, y and z.

Deliverability. Our idea is that…

… we can produce our potential new product abc much more cheaply than the competition.

…we can despatch our potential new product abc within 24 hours of a customer order being received.

…we can integrate technologies and x and y to enhance our potential new product abc.

Financials. Our idea is that…

… we can save $x in the manufacture of potential new product abc by doing xxxx.

…we can improve margins by adding a service deal to potential new product abc.

…we will get a return of $x in x years / months from new potential product abc.

It doesn’t matter of some of the hypothesis statements could fit into more than one of the prompt headings demand, deliverability and financial. The purpose of the headings is to provoke thought and shape the hypotheses.

4. Once they have completed steps 1-3 above, ask delegates to prioritise and highlight the most important ‘Our idea is that…’ hypothesis statements for further work.

Collectively talk through the hypothesis statements, then move onto the assumption surfacing stage, described below.

Photo: idea development in action at the #2050 Innovation Hub at Port of Tyne

Assumption Surfacing Technique – adapted from Mason and Mitroff

Assumption surfacing is an effective technique to use for getting delegates to identify and share the beliefs and assumptions they have about the potential for an idea to be successful. Delegates may then consider if evidence is or could be available support those assumptions to explore the robustness of the idea.

The process for this assumption surfacing technique is inspired by Mason and Mitroff’s original approach, but I have adapted it somewhat to make it even more specifically useful for idea testing.

Here’s how to run the activity with your delegates.

Use a big grid like this on the wall, whiteboard, smartboard or flipchart paper, and ask delegates to work through it step-by-step per the steps 1-3 below.

Once delegates have selected the idea that they feel is the most appropriate to develop, ask them to list all the reasons why they feel that this is the best choice based on these four headings:
- Demand: user or customer needs and aspirations
- Deliverability: the business’ capability to make the idea happen
- Financials: the likely costs and potential revenues and / or savings and efficiencies stack up.
- Other: to catch any other important assumptions that might not be captured by the other three headings.
Next, ask delegates to write a counter-assumption alongside each of their actual assumptions. A counter-assumption an opposing or alternative argument to the actual assumption.
The next stage is for delegates to work down the list and delete any assumption / counter-assumption pairs where it would make little difference to their idea selection whether the assumption or the counter-assumption were actually the case.

Impact and probability Mapping Technique

Analysis of the impact and probability of potential risks and opportunity is an important part of validating business ideas. Ask delegates to assess each of the assumptions that still remain from the previous Assumption Surfacing activity, treating each as a risk or opportunity. They should populate the matrix below, placing each of their assumptions in the appropriate section of the matrix.

Ideally, you’ll then ask your delegates to consider and write in how they would mitigate (or reduce) the impact and / or probability of each of the risks, and maximize the impact and / or probability of the opportunities. They’ll reclassify the assumptions on the matrix as appropriate.

Delegates will then review the contents of the matrix they have just completed for validating their business ideas. and summarize their overall insights about the idea in a visual – such as a poster. You could then move on to sticky dot voting.

Sticky dot voting

This is a quick, widely used voting method. Once all the summarised ideas are on display give each group member a number of sticky dots (for example 5 each) to ‘vote’ for their favourite solution or preferred option. The number of sticky dots can vary according to what you think will work.

Give everyone a few minutes of quiet review planning time so that they can privately work out their distribution of votes.

Delegates may distribute their votes as they wish, for example: 2 or 3 on one idea, one each on a couple of others, all on one idea or one each on a whole series of ideas.

To minimise the risk of people being influenced by one another’s votes, no votes are placed until everyone is ready. When everyone is finished deciding, they go up to the display and place their votes by sticking dots beside the items of their choice.

As facilitator, lead a discussion on the vote pattern, and help the group to translate it into a shortlist.

The next step is for delegates to list specific aspects that need further testing and move onto the trial stage.

Designing trials for validating business ideas

If time and the agenda allow, it’s really useful to design the trials for validating business ideas from the previous stage whilst delegates are still all together. These trial designs create tangible actions to progress once your event has ended, maintaining momentum with the project.

Hand out a trial canvas outline below for delegates to work through and complete.

The designing trials stage can also be used to design the specification for validating business ideas by creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prototype.

Next steps

I hope that this has given you some ideas for your own events in the future. If you’d like any tips, ideas or advice, do feel free to contact us.

We also provide exceptional Creative Facilitation courses and programmes. If you’d like more information to help you run your own events, download my free DIY Away Day toolkit. It’s a great resource and contains an agenda, instructions for all the creative techniques I suggest plus my top tips for successful facilitation.

Click to get your free DIY Away Day Toolkit now!

The post Creative facilitation techniques for validating business ideas appeared first on The Big Bang Partnership.

Lead - The Big Bang Partnership

Creative Facilitation – An Introduction

Creative Facilitation – An Introduction

Creative Facilitation is my most Favourite Thing – Ever!

Competence and Confidence

What is Creative Facilitation

Definition of “Facilitate”

Responsibilities of the Creative Facilitator

Start with the End in Mind

Facilitating Group Sessions

Delegate Commitment and Motivation

Work with Adult Learning Theory to Engage Delegates

Emotional Intelligence and Creative Facilitation

The Seven Key Skills of the Emotionally Intelligent Facilitator

Additional Creative Facilitation Tips

Record and visualise outputs

Guide the group to achieve the event objectives

Next Steps

How to Build a Thriving Innovation Ecosystem

What is an innovation ecosystem?

Drivers of innovation ecosystems

Innovation ecosystem map

What is an open innovation ecosystem?

Why are innovation ecosystems important?

The power of innovation ecosystems

Social innovation

Small business benefits

Innovation ecosystem policy

Examples of Innovation Ecosystem Policy from around the World

USA

Israel

European Union (EU)

United Kingdom

Australia

New Zealand

Callaghan Innovation New Zealand

Singapore

Local and regional innovation ecosystems

What sort of participants should an innovation ecosystem include?

What are some of the challenges of operating in an innovation ecosystem?

What makes a strong innovation ecosystem?

Governance and management

Examples of innovation ecosystems

1. Maritime 2050 Innovation Hub at Port of Tyne, UK

2. Catapults

3. Level 39 London, UK

How to build an innovation ecosystem

Set-up and facilitation expertise

About the Author

Be a Great Meeting Facilitator: Skills and Tips

How can you spot a great meeting facilitator?

Improve your meeting facilitation skills

What makes a great meeting facilitator?

1. Emotional intelligence is at the core of great facilitation

Reading the room

What is emotional intelligence?

Empathy is essential for great facilitation

2. A great meeting facilitator is ready for anything

3. Design and lead an effective process to achieve your workshop objectives

Setting the Stage

The Meeting Agenda

Ground Rules and Safe Space

Meeting Participants and Group Dynamics

Right People and Team Members

Small Groups and Different Personalities

Facilitation Techniques

Open Discussion and Open-Ended Questions

Time Management and Next Session

After the meeting

Action items and meeting notes

Good News and Next Time

4. Generate collective energy

5. Combine strength and warmth

8. Professional considerations

The best way and best practices

Career path and key meeting facilitation skills

7. Just add YOU

How to be a great meeting facilitator – putting it all together

Next steps

About the Author