Course Structure and Topics Covered
A practical, two-day introduction to human-centred innovation for leaders who need to make progress on complex challenges without stopping business as usual. Using the DUCTRI process from Innovation in Action, you will take a real organisational issue from problem discovery through to tested ideas - building the mindsets and practices to make change stick in your context.
Each participant receives a complimentary copy of Innovation in Action to support ongoing use of the tools beyond the workshop.
Day 1 – Curiosity: Discovering and Understanding
· Introduction to human-centred innovation and the DUCTRI process
· What is curiosity anyway and who cares? Why is it important? How can we cultivate more of it?
· Discovering phase: guided practice with a small set of tools to explore a problem area from the perspective of people involved
· Understanding phase: guided practice with a small set of tools to make sense of the data, gain insight and understand the real problem to solve
· A short field assignment: participants apply tools and techniques to a problem in their own organisation or to one selected by the facilitators.
Day 2 – Creativity: Creating and Testing
· Reflection on any field work and refinement of insights and problem statements.
· The need for, and how to enable more creativity in our organisations.
· Creating phase: use structured ideation techniques to generate potential (and better) solutions
· Testing phase: learn low-fidelity prototyping and simple testing approaches to de-risk projects and build what works.
· Forward-looking discussion: connecting your early work to the Clarity-focused Resourcing and Implementing phases of DUCTRI, including initial thoughts on stakeholders, stories and first moves in your organisation.
What You'll Learn
You will learn how to:
· Work with the DUCTRI process and mindsets
Get an overview of the full DUCTRI model - Discovering, Understanding, Creating, Testing, Resourcing and Implementing - and the three core mindsets that underpin it: Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity.
· Use curiosity to slow the reflex to solutions
Practise staying longer in Discovering and Understanding, cultivating curiosity (about people and systems) so you uncover the “problem behind the problem” before committing resources.
· Discover the problem from a human perspective
Use discovering tools to explore your challenge from the perspectives of the people affected.
· Make sense of what you’ve learned
Apply understanding tools to turn field-research data into insights and clear problem statements that teams can align around.
· Generate and develop innovative options
Use structured creativity methods to generate a portfolio of possible solutions, rather than jumping to the first idea.
· Prototype, de-risk and learn fast through intelligent failure
Use low- to mid-fidelity prototyping and simple testing techniques to practise intelligent failure - learning quickly and cheaply in order to de-risk bigger organisational bets.
· Foster alignment and overcome inertia
Explore how to apply these tools and mindsets alongside existing projects and governance that fit inside business as usual and help build stakeholder alignment over time.
· Connect early-stage work to Clarity
In the second half of Day 2, discuss what it would take to move into the Clarity-focused phases of Resourcing and Implementing in your own context, including first thoughts on who needs to be involved and what early steps might look like.
Why This Matters
Leaders tell us they are dealing with fast-paced, complex challenges. Often, their problem is not a lack of ideas, but getting the right ideas implemented in the middle of business-as-usual: misaligned stakeholders, competing priorities and initiatives that stall after the workshop. This programme is designed to shift both mindsets and methods - slowing the rush to solutions, creating shared understanding of the problem and giving you practical ways to de-risk progress that your organisation can actually absorb.
Course Outcomes and Benefits
By the end of this programme you will:
· Have a shared, practical language and set of mindsets - Curiosity, Creativity and Clarity - for leading human-centred innovation based on the DUCTRI process.
· Have taken a real organisational issue from initial discovery through to tested ideas, using tools and mindsets you can repeat and adapt with your own teams.
· Be better able to de-risk innovation by designing small, intelligent experiments that expose assumptions early and cheaply, before significant investment is made.
· Build alignment and momentum by using shared tools to bring stakeholders with different priorities onto the same page, reducing resistance and inertia around change initiatives.
· Feel more confident leading design-thinking style work in complex environments, without needing to become a designer yourself.
