Open Challenge: Refining Ideas – by Challenge & Support Innovation Workshop at IIA 2011

The open challenge workshop that I attended was filled with positive energy. All the participants who were involved were very eager to learn and gave their fullest attention and commitment to what was being presented.

There was a lot of teamwork present as we dabbled and dissected real cases together. Everyone pitched in and volunteered their best ideas and efforts. It was really no surprise that the attitude and the atmosphere within that room was very much in tandem to the name and tagline of the workshop. Open Challenge – enrich your ideas by using the power of collaboration.

We were given five objectives, in a local context, to choose from. Three of which were to create: a clothes repair and home furnishing service; a “safe companion time” service; as well as a food market service.

Armed with a given framework – Need, Approach, Benefit, Competition (NABC) by the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) – each group was tasked with creating a solution that would be presented to all in 20minutes.

I have to applaud the facilitators from IKEA and Innventia who did a splendid job in both moderating and running the Open Challenge workshop. There was evidently a showcase of the power of collaboration.

The workshop environment was intellectually intense. Insights and ideas were flying across tables. Participants who voiced critical and pertinent points were invited to share their thoughts with the rest. Two lucky participants were even handpicked to represent particular companies during discussion. It was a back and forth volley of feedbacks.

The Open Challenge workshop was definitely a big success. After all, not only did it managed to teach and help participants apply new frameworks that were made into presentations for real-life cases; it also managed to stir in its participants a sense of collective innovativeness. All the while, maintaining fun throughout.

Killing two birds with one stone, the facilitators also brought back with them evaluations, feedback and insights for their own cases. It was truly a win for everyone involved.

Article by Anders Bjärs