Course Dates and Times
Course dates and times are agreed individually with the company.
Course Goals
- Cultivate the innovator's mindset, emphasizing empathy, experimentation, and iterative development
- Facilitate and participate in the foundation sprint for rapid hypothesis definition and risk identification.
- Execute key phases of the design sprint to quickly prototype and test innovative ideas with real users.
- Strategically manage and systematize innovation within an organization
- Understand the role of organizational culture and leadership in fostering continuous innovation.
Teaching Methods
The program will utilize a highly interactive and experiential approach, including:
- Facilitator-led presentations and in-depth discussions.
- Hands-on exercises, workshops, and collaborative problem-solving sessions.
- Real-world case studies and practical examples from leading innovative companies.
- Group activities, peer learning, and facilitated debriefs for deeper understanding.
- Dedicated Q&A sessions for personalized guidance and addressing specific organizational challenges.
Target Audience
This program is ideal for product managers, team leads, R&D professionals, aspiring intrapreneurs, strategists, and cross-functional teams looking to enhance their innovation capabilities, define new products/services, improve existing processes, or foster a culture of continuous innovation within their organization.
Course Duration
This depth of content would likely require at least 3-5 full days to cover comprehensively and allow for meaningful hands-on exercises.
Course content
1.
lecture
Module 1 | Think Innovation
Focus: Shifting perspective, foundational principles, and empathetic understanding through iterative cycles.
• Understanding Innovation: This section introduces the core concepts of innovation, exploring its various types (incremental, radical, disruptive) and emphasizing why continuous innovation is essential for organizational survival, growth, and competitive advantage in today's dynamic market.
• Integrated Mindset: Participants will cultivate a combined mindset focused on human-centered problem-solving and rapid experimentation. This includes learning to deeply understand user needs, generating diverse solutions, and executing the iterative "Build-Measure-Learn" cycle through rapid prototyping and testing, thereby defining Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) for validated learning.
• Adaptive Learning: The module stresses the importance of analyzing experimental results to extract meaningful insights, driving continuous improvement. Participants will develop the critical discernment to know when to adapt their approach (pivot) or push forward (persevere) based on validated learning from practical, hands-on exercises and real-world case studies.
2.
lecture
Module 2 | Do Innovation
Focus: Applying mindset through structured tools and time-boxed processes to define and de-risk individual ideas.
• Foundation Sprint: This focused workshop teaches participants to bridge problem identification to concrete solutions by identifying critical assumptions, generating testable hypotheses, and designing initial experiments for rapid validation, including a hands-on simulation.
• Design Sprint: A structured, time-boxed framework for quickly testing new ideas, it integrates Design Thinking and Lean Startup mindsets with canvas insights across key stages (Map, Sketch, Decide, Prototype, Test), providing practical exposure through a condensed simulation.
• Experimentation Design: Moving beyond basic testing, this section focuses on designing rigorous, evidence-based experiments to validate or invalidate assumptions from business canvases systematically, and on interpreting the evidence to determine clear, data-driven next steps for innovation.
3.
lecture
Module 3 | Manage Innovation
Focus: Integrating validated learnings into strategic frameworks and organizational context for systemic, continuous innovation.
• Strategic Environment Analysis: Learn to systematically analyze external forces (market, industry, macro-economic, technological trends) using frameworks like Strategyzer's Environment Map to inform innovation strategy and identify new opportunities and potential threats for the organization.
• Structured Idea Management: Implement robust innovation operating models, including Innovation Portfolio Management to balance different initiative types, Idea Funnels with Stage-Gate Processes for rigorous validation, and defining Innovation Metrics & Tracking to ensure effective resource allocation and governance of all innovation efforts.
• Cultivating Systemic Innovation: Foster an Innovation-Enabling Culture by empowering leadership, building psychological safety, and establishing collaboration mechanisms. This includes examining Organizational Design to support continuous innovation and developing a clear Roadmap for Systemic Innovation to embed practices into daily routines and strategic planning for a predictable and scalable innovation system.
Kārlis Jonāss
Kārlis is an accomplished innovation facilitator and coach with over 8 years of hands-on expertise in driving strategic growth for both startups and established corporations. He brings a unique blend of strategic facilitation, innovation coaching, startup mentoring, and UX design acumen to his training programs.
With a proven track record, Kārlis has facilitated over 200 workshops, supported more than 150 teams, and guided over 40 innovation and design sprints. His diverse experience includes working with leading corporates and startups through accelerator programs like Plug and Play, Startup Wise Guys, and Startup House Riga.