Our NYC Master Class in Corporate Innovation is a hands-on, three-day experiential workshop that teaches participants key concepts and tools to help their companies create new businesses, develop innovation initiatives, reduce risk, and develop a competitive advantage.
We’ll also use New York City as our laboratory as we visit, hear from and connect with the best its innovation ecosystem has offer. New York City provides a learning environment for corporate innovation unmatched by any other city in the world. It is not only home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other city but is also one of the largest and most vibrant startup ecosystems in the world.
Master corporate innovation. A unique New York City experience.
What will you get from the NYC Master Class?
Gain a practical innovation toolkit consisting of the latest skills from lean startup, design thinking, creativity research, and strategic communications.
Experience the NYC innovation ecosystem with curated visits to meet with corporate innovation practitioners from large companies and startup accelerators that can provide unique insight into corporate innovation, startup entrepreneurship, and frontier technology.
Two hours of post-workshop remote innovation coaching to help you implement what what you have learned back at the office and guide you to overcome organizational barriers.
A copy of our Innovation Essentials, a short user-friendly guidebook that provides you all the frameworks used throughout the course, glossaries, and further suggested readings.
Access to our Slack channel for all attendees of the workshop to continue the learning long after the course is finished.
Who should attend?
Innovation leaders, directors, and executives who are passionate about improving their skills and bringing more innovation into their organization.
Those involved with learning & development around innovation or digital transformation efforts within their organization.
Those interested in building a foundation in design thinking, lean startup, creativity skills and for hands-on tools to apply to their business models.
Why is the NYC Master Class Different?
Every GIANT facilitator has lived the reality of innovation, both as an industry practitioner and a startup entrepreneur.
Activities are based upon a “flipped classroom” approach wherein participants learn through continuous hands-on and practical exercises.
Our facilitators are also academics and educators, so we approach the communication of concepts with a rigor and simplicity that few others can offer.
How can I justify this investment internally?
Here is what you might say... "This course will uniquely equip me to be an innovation architect within our organization. I will learn the latest skills and and thinking about corporate innovation and return refreshed, invigorated and ready to infuse innovation into all our operations. In addition, I will connect with leading corporate innovation practitioners and tech startups in New York City who can serve as an important resource to leverage our own efforts. I'll also meet like-minded participants from other firms who can share their own unique experiences with me so that we can grow and learn together. Companies and organizations as diverse as Fidelity Investments, Merck, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, Columbia University and the World Bank have all sent employees to GIANT Innovation training to bring these mindsets back to their workplaces."
What is the agenda?
Day 1: Foundations and Discovering Opportunities
9am-10am The fundamentals of innovation and the innovative mindset
Why the urgency to innovate within large enterprises. Why now?
What is a startup? What can we learn from them and apply in large organizations?
10am-1pm Design thinking and reframing
Ethnographic interviewing and observation techniques.
Opportunity spaces and “How might we” statements.
Empathy and journey maps.
Jobs-to-done theory of innovation and value proposition mapping.
Field work: Digging into customer needs via your first ethnographic interviews.
1pm-3pm Moving beyond brainstorming: Idea generation and creative problem solving
Debunking myths of creativity, idea generation, and brainstorming.
Ideation tools drawn from the latest creativity research: strategic intuition, TRIZ, and task unification.
Selecting the best ideas.
3pm-5pm Guest Speaker
Corporate Innovation Practitioner Guest Speaker.
Optional Evening Activity: Innovation Leaders & Practitioners Roundtable gathering
The Innovation Leaders & Practitioners Roundtable brings together over 100 senior-level innovation practitioners from a range of industries for intimate and curated gatherings (see here for more details).
Day 2: Building and testing business models
9am-1pm Lean startup and business model innovation
Business model innovation and business model design.
Introduction to lean startup methodology.
Understanding key concepts: Customer development, business model assumption ranking, early adopters, and the Build-Measure-Learn loop.
Collecting unbiased data through effective problem and solution interviews with customers (including dos and don’ts).
Field work: running your first experiment with problem interviews.
2pm-5pm Site visits to NYC Innovation Ecosystem
Startup meet and greet: Visit startup accelerators and meet relevant startups that can provide unique insight into corporate innovation.
Dig deeper, discuss, and witness real-world innovation approaches and challenges from other companies and industries.
Evening Activity: Participant Dinner
”Insider Dinner” featuring an open discussion with a few special guests from the NYC innovation ecosystem.
Day 3: Scaling and Communicating innovation
9am-11am Lean Startup Part II
Solution testing and MVP design.
Field work: Getting solution feedback to improve your business concept.
11am-1pm Strategic communications and pitching
Audience mapping.
Pitch training, including non-verbal and verbal communications tools.
2pm-4pm Applying innovation tools within large organizations
Understand how, when, and where to apply innovation methodologies within teams and the organization as a whole
Innovation pipeline and metrics
Managing organizational politics around innovation and overcoming organizational barriers.
4pm-5pm Course reflection
Discussion on how to apply what was learned back in participants’ home organizations.
If you want a tailored Master Class in Corporate Innovation for your organization, contact us here.