Remember that IBM commercial? The one with the room full of people lying on the floor with the lights out, claiming that they’re “ideating” when they plainly appear to be sleeping? The one that implies that ideation workshops are fluffy, wish-and-a-prayer frivolities and that “real” innovation is something far more staid and serious?
To be fair, there are plenty of bad workshops out there. At some point I’m sure you’ve suffered through an afternoon crammed in a windowless conference room with a stammering colleague at a flip chart repeating, “C’mon guys, who’s got an idea?” Or walked into a session where candy, crayons, and toys were in far greater supply than clear objectives, strategic insights, and a structured process. As an innovation specialist at brand and marketing consultancy Prophet, I once attended a session where the leader insisted that we dangle crystals over a list of concepts to identify the idea with the most “energy.” (The winning idea was as arbitrary as its selection method.) With all of the bad practices out there, it’s easy to see why the very word “workshop” causes many of us to duck and run.
But when done well, workshops are highly effective vehicles for engaging individuals and teams around innovation challenges, promoting creative thinking by incorporating multiple perspectives, and speeding commercialization of fresh ideas. In the words of one of our clients: “It’s great to see everyone engaged and the project gaining traction and momentum. The workshop helped us get so much further in such a short time.”
Furthermore, workshops make innovation tangible and provide a touchstone that employees can go back to the next time they’re called upon to think differently. After participating in a workshop, a client in the B2B space told us, “It struck me yesterday that our team seems to be gaining competence…