The 3 ways to squeeze the most out of innovation training

Posted: May 15th, 2009 in Innovation Training

K&A has been conducting innovation training for many years, and we think the lessons we’ve learned will help you make best use of any innovation training.

It’s certainly no secret given the news of the past 2 weeks that the American economy is in trouble. In times like this, companies often pull away from innovation as they try to shore up their base businesses by optimizing production, decreasing waste, and taking other measures to cut costs. However, top companies still have innovation at the top of their minds. One way these companies are continually investing in innovation is through innovation training. K&A provides a variety of targeted training offerings; as do many others. We want to take a moment to reflect on some of the factors that have been critical to the success of K&A training efforts in the past.

1. Upfront interviews

Any training effort needs to begin with an upfront assessment of your business. Too often training is not specific to your organization; the right approach is to begin by collecting data from 2-5 key decision-makers in the innovation process. Talk with managers who either drive innovation today or will be responsible for championing innovation in the next 3 years. When we conduct these interviews we look for:

  • An understanding of where innovation fits in the culture: Important insights can be gained when a senior manager believes that innovation is “in the blood”; it’s just as important (if not more so) when senior managers indicate that the cultural focus is currently on cost optimization – not new products, services, internal processes or business model innovations.
  • A guide to innovation processes currently in place (if any): Many companies look to upgrade their processes that have been successful so far at generating internal and closer-in innovations. Training modules need to be customized to supplement or modify current established processes, not to reinvent the wheel.
  • Knowledge of the goals for innovation: Training efforts should focus on reaching whatever goals have been set for the business, whether it’s the development of breakthrough new products, entry into new markets, or successful application of a proprietary new technology.

The alternative to upfront preparation is that the training is delivered and a company then struggles to understand how to assimilate an alien process and culture.

2. Getting the right people

Training events should have the right group of people in the room. Obvious, right? It’s not always so. Innovation training should be directed at certain key groups in distinct sessions. This is because successful innovation training should be tightly tailored to a given level and function within your organization. Effective use of everyone’s time depends on taking account of the content necessary to impart to each audience, as well as the time available (especially when senior management is involved).

The goal is to get each audience exactly the information they need while minimizing time and expense. Senior management training should focus on strategy, integrating innovation into company culture, and leading innovation throughout the organization. On the other hand, innovation project teams which will be tasked with actualizing the new product/service development project need a much higher level of depth, including walking the team through the recommended process. (In the case of K&A training, this is the 7-Step Innovation Process.)

The key is not only to explain the process, but to provide hands-on experience with the process. For example, we often walk innovation teams through generation of problem and opportunity areas, solution generation, and the vetting of solutions against agreed-upon screens. While this experience is limited (compared with, for example, the 4-5 months hands-on joint innovation projects we execute with our clients), it gives project teams a flavor for the process they will be executing going forward.

3. Concrete plan for the future

Training engagements should end with a clearly defined and agreed-upon (to the extent possible) blueprint. Too often, we hear friends and colleagues tell us that training they received generated significant interest and enthusiasm but that when the training ended momentum was lost and, with it, excitement surrounding innovation. This not only dampens the benefits of training but often has a negative effect: when employees see management making a commitment to innovation and not really following through, they are less likely to devote serious energies to scaling up the next innovation effort. It’s better to have no training than innovation training that just leads to dashed spirits and disappointed expectations.

We end most of our training sessions by generating a 90 Day Innovation Blueprint, listing the concrete steps that need to be taken to achieve the goals of the organization, be it to agree on an innovation strategy and financial goals or to launch an initial innovation project. This way, training participants understand and have agreed on the next steps coming out of the session. Whatever your approach post-training, make sure to maintain momentum and build in a component of accountability and ownership to the process.

Training can be a valuable way of sparking innovation in your organization, a task that is especially important in light of the temptation to focus all available resources on cost-cutting. Successful training imparts a customized message, to the right people, and ends with concrete action steps.