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Learning to Innovate

Our learning programs are based on our understanding of how innovation really happens in organizations and what prevents individuals from being systematically innovative.

  • Innovation only happens when individuals and small teams apply innovative thinking.
  • Cultures, organizations and their managers can only enable or prevent innovation.

Therefore, our approach is, on the one hand, to train the Managers in the art and science of managing an innovative organization and teams and, on the other hand, to train the individual employees to be able to think effectively in an innovative manner every time they need to.

The Methodology

All Ideaction learning programs are based on the Ideaction 4-Step Thinking Process™ . 
This process has been effectively adapted to address problems small enough to be solved in an hour, as well as major issues such as the strategic directions for very large companies. We have successfully trained small entrepreneurial organizations as well as large financial institutions and Government departments.

This rigorous methodology has proved uniquely successful over the past 25 years. The steps are:

Step 1 - Framework

  • What problem or opportunity do you want to work on?
  • What does each word in the problem statement mean?
  • What is the context?
  • What are the boundaries?
  • What type of thinking do you want (incremental or revolutionary, short or long term, etc.)?
  • What are your ideal and your worst possible outcomes?
  • What process will you use to resolve the issue?
  • Who is the “owner” of the issue?

Step 2 - Issue Redefinition

  • What are all the components of the issue, all the different ways to attack the issue?
  • How does the issue look from various, non-linear points of view?
  • What problem or problems do you want to resolve?

Step 3 - Idea Generation

  • What are the best creativity techniques to resolve the issue?
  • What are all the possible solutions?
  • Which are the best solutions to resolve the real issue?

Step 4 - Implementation Planning

  • What is the best way to implement the idea(s)?
  • What could go wrong during the implementation?
  • What can we do about it?