Collaborate cross-functionally on new ideas
Who It’s For
The Cross-Functional Innovation Sprint is great for innovation, growth, strategy, and product/service/experience design teams who need to:
- Better articulate an opportunity space and push thinking beyond what’s been done in the past
- Build momentum and gain buy-in amongst a complex, cross-functional stakeholder group
- Increase connection and engagement within, and across, teams
- Prioritize and refine recommendations before being presented to a leadership / executive team
How It Works
Week 1: Onboarding and Strategy Brief
Our teams become one team with an immersion into goals, desired outcomes, and business results. We co-create a Strategy Brief that will guide the project.
- Immersion into existing documentation (asynchronous)
- 1x 90m Visioning Session with the team leader (virtual)
- 1x 3-hour Kickoff + Problem Framing Workshop (in person/virtual)
- Interviews with up to 8x members of your team (in person/virtual)
- 1x team inspiration dinner designed to inspire and connect (in person, fees not included)
- Research Planning (asynchronous)
Weeks 2-3: Research Immersion
We ground the process in insights on your users, your business, your industry, and a few of the people who are shaking it all up.
- Desk research / immersion in your team’s existing insights (asynchronous)
- Up to 8x 1-hour customer or user interviews to understand beliefs, behaviors, and needs (virtual)
- Up to 3x leadership interviews to integrate business needs and strategic priorities (virtual)
- 1x 3-hour session to prioritize opportunity spaces with the team leader and core team (virtual)
Weeks 4-6: Cross-Functional Ideation + Concept Definition
We’ll bring together a divergent, cross-functional group and ground them in the insights from our research before facilitating them through a highly creative and experiential ideation workshop. From there we will gather a smaller group to prioritize and refine our top 5 ideas into a detailed concepts prototypes that are ready to be put in front of customers / users for feedback testing. We’ll develop the concept name, description, key features, interaction storyboard, 1/3/5 year vision, and a higher fidelity illustration to bring it to life.
- Design of the ideation sessions and inspiration stimulus
- 1x 2-day ideation session for up to 30 cross-functional people and/or guest stars (in person/virtual)
- 1x 3-hour prioritization and decision making session with the core team (in person/virtual)
- Heads down time to refine the concepts
- Additional 1:1 feedback sessions as needed to refine the concepts (asynchronous)
Weeks 7-8: Roadmapping + Testing Plan Development
We’ll map out the next steps, including a recommended pipeline strategy, the short term testing roadmap, and research plans and discussion guides for customer / user testing. Then we’ll either kick-off the pilot phase with you, or transition it to your team for testing in-house.
- Development of final deliverables
- 1x 90m share-out (virtual)
- 1x 60m team retrospective to debrief the process and collaboration (virtual)
- Optional: 1x 90m workshop to co-create a narrative to cascade through the team (virtual)
Sprint Deliverables
- Strategy Brief
- Research Plan
- Empathy Interview Videos
- Insights + Opportunity Space Presentation
- 50x Raw Ideas and 5x Refined Concepts
- Testing Roadmap
The Details
Starting at 8 weeks- A hand selected team of 6-12 cross-functional people
- Expert facilitation and coaching from 3 TDG strategists
- Virtual or in person, wherever you are
Starting at 8 weeks
A hand selected team of 6-12 cross-functional people
Expert facilitation and coaching from 3 TDG strategists
Virtual or in person, wherever you areThe Business Case
- Accelerate quality outcomes
- Increase employee engagement
- Spend less money and time
- Get closer to your customer
Accelerate quality outcomes
Increase employee engagement
Spend less money and time
Get closer to your customerEXAMPLES OF PAST INNOVATION SPRINTS
Global Grocery Conglomerate
Gathered cross-functional leaders to quickly update their ‘meals to go’ strategy at the onset of the pandemic. It included competitive assessments, opportunity definition, concept development, and investment strategies.
Sponsor: Director of Strategy
National Wellness Brand
Designed a 5-year innovation and growth roadmap resulting in an acquisition and 2x new $10M+ rapid growth products
Sponsor: Head of Innovation
Fortune 100 Tech Company
Designed a robust 3-year executive rotation and development program to address leadership retention issues and increase executive engagement
Sponsor: Business President
About TDG Sprints
TDG Sprints are strategy and innovation projects designed to help leaders move quickly, creatively, and collaboratively in environments that are volatile, lean, and fast moving (kind of like right now).
What types of activities can you expect?
- Core Team working sessions
- Full Team facilitated workshops
- Customer listening and feedback sessions
- TDG synthesis, strategy, and design time
What does a Sprint Team look like?
- Our side: 3x strategists + 1 partner
- Your side: 3-6 people on the core team + additional stakeholders at key moments
My team is busy – what’s the time commitment?
They can be fully embedded with our team or hands off – we know calendars are tight, we so we’ll mold to what is feasible.
Our priorities are already set. How do these fit in?
Sprints are designed to accelerate the highest priority initiatives you’re on the hook to deliver. We will work with you in advance to make sure they’re scoped against the right strategic priorities so it doesn’t feel like a ‘side of desk’ project.
Check out the other TDG Sprint Offerings.