Facilitating Open Innovation
Facilitating Open Innovation was designed as a 3-session learning sprint for Postgraduate students from the LSE Department of Management in Spring 2020.
Role: Learning Designer and Guest Lecturer
Client: LSE Department of Management, London, UK
Partner: Eidos Global
Learners: Postgraduate students across LSE Department of Management
Sector: Higher Education
The Brief
In a world full of challenges and rapid interactions, attracting the right kind of crowd and keeping it motivated to collaborate in an open innovation process is quite challenging. What if there was a way in which we can tweak the OI process to channel human energy into innovative outcomes?
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Dr. Nadia Millington, Senior Lecturer of Practice at the LSE Department of Management, wanted to introduce students of her graduate course in Open Innovation to methods and mindsets of designing engaging experiences while they worked on their live projects in varied industries. With my expertise in Design-focused learning, I was brought on board with Lucía Burtnik of Eidos Global to co-design and facilitated sessions on 'Facilitating Open Innovation' in Spring 2020.
My Design Process
Our design process began by interviewing Dr. Millington as well as students taking the course and 2 past graduates to understand the students' needs for mastering the skills, mindsets, and tools to create more engaging, and human-centred, Open Innovation sessions- in-person and online. We also conducted in-depth desk research on emerging strategies in the field of Open Innovation and Experience Design.
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Based on our findings, we created a learning journey of 3-sessions, that would be interspersed with Dr. Millington's course over the Spring semester. As the students were working on a live project, we used the project as a way for students to apply, and reflect on the tools we would introduce them to.
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Drawing from tools of user-centred research and experience design, I worked with Eidos to create and facilitate a range of activities, frameworks, and tools such as canvases and thinking routines, that students could use to work collaboratively and design their OI sessions. ​
The COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown took effect right in the middle of the course. I adapted by helping students think more about creating engaging online OI sessions, and even took our last session on 'Communication and Story-telling' online by creating a framework and comprehensive set of resources that students could refer to when designing their final presentation for industry stakeholders and their final assessment.
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Here is a {Link} to the 'A Pitch to Remember' website I created for our final session.
Outcome
'Facilitating Open Innovation' was designed as a 3-session learning sprint for Postgraduate students at the LSE Department of Management. The aim of the sessions is to equip students with the mindset and tools to create the right conditions for innovation to arise during online and offline sessions, and facilitate them in a way that generates diverse, bold and creative ideas. The sessions incrementally built the skills of creativity, curiousity, and empathy; systems thinking and experience design; and communication and storytelling.
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We developed a unique experience design framework of People > Purpose > Form > Farewell, to help learners clearly understand the who and why of their experiences before designing the form (a survey, event, or workshop). Our framework also encourages learners to design for an effective farewell for the stakeholders (rewards, sharing of knowledge, etc.) to recognise all those who contributed to the OI process and create a sustainable community of practice.
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Eidos Global and I are currently adapting this workshop to be offered as an online training to organisations.
Impact
In an informal survey conducted by Dr. Millington with her students, more than 80% highly enjoyed our sessions, and all groups of students successfully facilitated and presented their OI projects using our tools. Many students have expressed an interest in using our ‘Experience Design Canvas’ for other projects and in the companies they work with.
While we are working on further compressing and simplifying our sessions, Eidos Global and I have been invited back to implement the ‘Facilitating Open Innovation’ sessions with Dr. Millington’s next batch of postgraduate students in Spring 2021.
Students getting their hands dirty with a rapid innovation challenge.
A glimpse of our ‘Experience Design Canvas’- a tool for students to ideate and design their Open Innovation experiences.
Opening page of ‘A Pitch to Remember’ website of resources that helps students collate and present their design projects effectively: https://eidos2020.wixsite.com/pitch-to-remember