Nov 2021, Sawsan Khuri. Our team designs each intervention from scratch with clients using tried and tested tools and methods, and ensuring the context and outcomes are aligned with client needs.
An innovation intervention starts with a lot of listening, then analysing the information received and synthesising from it a process for the client that will deliver the outcome they are after. So far it sounds very much like any other professional service provision… and then the fun starts.
What happens after that is a meeting or series of meetings with the relevant client team and others who might be impacted by decisions taken at that meeting. The meetings themselves typically involve a lot of sticky notes, virtual or paper, flipcharts, whiteboards, energiser activities to keep the pace up and a variety of asks that unleash creativity and allow ideas to flow and synergies to emerge. It is all wrapped up at the end with a plan of action points that the client can take forward.
The process and top level strategy we use to introduce or improve upon innovation within businesses are independent of sector. Whether the new product that a business wants to develop is a new way of buying houses or a new brand of clothing or an online platform to build a community of foodies or of maths teachers: it all starts with listening to why the client cares about the outcomes, what actual outcomes they are after, and then building the collaborative innovation intervention that will help them get there. At Collaborative Capacities, we ensure that the interventions speak directly to client context, and that the client leaves with short term, medium term and long term action points that they can implement to deliver the outcomes they are after.
Collaborative Capacities has been working with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the South West through our affiliation with the Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab at the University of Exeter. The Impact Lab runs a business development service that attracts SMEs who rely on large quantities of data in order to serve their customers, and in turn they are referred to us when there is the need for an innovation intervention. Here are some of their quotes:
“This was the most enjoyable project scoping meeting I’ve ever had”
“It was such an informative workshop and really made us think critically about some of the things we want to achieve”
“The session delivered more than I was expecting”
“We were given clear guidelines that we can meaningfully apply in our business context”
“We have known each other for a few years, and Sawsan enabled us to think about the same issue in new ways”