Case Study: Developing Innovation Leaders

09 Mar Case Study: Developing Innovation Leaders at a Global Tech Company

Posted at 12:07h in Case Study, Creative Leadership by The Design Gym 0 Comments

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At A Glance:

CLIENT:
Fortune 100 Global Technology Company

TIMELINE:
6 months

PROJECT TYPE:
Culture of Innovation

DECISION MAKER:
Global Strategy Director

FUNCTION:
Sales & Partnerships

I will recommend the program to any of my peers who are looking for more in their positions. The level of self-reflection that I underwent during this program is unmatched by any previous experience that I have had. The leadership took us all seriously and really invested their energy into broadening our horizons and showing the varied opportunities for leadership at [the company]. I am very happy to have been presented with this opportunity and feel like this has been a fulfilling year because of it. The outcome was definitely worth the effort.”
Program Participant

The Challenge:

Translating ah-ha moments and learning into new innovations is challenging, even for a Fortune 100 tech company. With globally dispersed teams, our client recognized a need to develop innovation leaders across the organization. So, they brought us in to redesign their Leadership Development Program with the goal of growing customer-facing leaders’ innovation competencies, tools, and mindsets within their day-to-day work.

The Solution:

Discovery

We began the project by evaluating the existing leadership development program. With the program sponsors, we aligned around a common goal of ensuring participants would not only learn innovation tools, but would have plenty of opportunities to apply their new skills on problems related to identifying new sales growth opportunities. We also defined the constraints, including a six month time frame, a global audience working remotely, and high expectations from leadership.

Design

Then, we designed a six-month learn-by-doing innovation course. Each month, participants attended a virtual workshop where they had the chance to learn and practice innovation tools. Each workshop focused on different steps of the innovation process: Creative Collaboration, Customer Discovery, Opportunity Definition, Concept Development, Prototyping, and Storytelling. To help guide participants, we designed scalable virtual whiteboards with custom tool templates, demos, and pro tips. Then, in between each workshop, teams would apply the tools they’d learned to a real issue facing the company’s customers.

Delivery

Over the course of the leadership development program, we guided teams to interview stakeholders, identify opportunities, prototype concepts, and perfect their pitches. In addition to designing and facilitating the workshop experiences, we also managed the end-to-end program arc. We onboarded team coaches, developed monthly project plans and debrief structures for the teams, and provided feedback leading into the final pitches to senior executives. To support the program roll-out, we devised and led a regular communication plan to engage coaches and participants asynchronously in-between workshops. After each subsequent year of the program, we elicited feedback from participants and coaches that has informed our future iterations on the program.

The Results:

250+ upskilled leaders around the globe over the course of 3 years
60+ hours of structured training and development for each program participant
32 teams collaborated to identify opportunities within their assigned industries, generate ideas, validate concepts, and pitch them to leaders
120+ interviews with end-customers and industry experts
100s of ideas generated before being narrowed down to a few dozen concepts and prototypes
32 innovation concepts with business cases pitched to senior leadership

Leadership Development Program workshop photo — We leveraged remote collaboration tools like Miro and breakout rooms to teach innovation tools and give participants the chance to practice them in real-time.

Over the months, we have come together from being strangers to people [with whom] you can have a personal conversation. This is the stuff you cannot quantify or put on paper. This is the stuff that gives the program value.”

Program Participant

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The Design Gym is a strategy and innovation consultancy helping leaders to grow their business by fully unlocking the power of their most important advantage: their people. We work at the intersection of business strategy, experience design, and change management to engage the people that matter most to your work: your customers, your leaders, and your employees. See something that resonates with a project or challenge you're working on? Shoot us a note at [email protected].