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Willis Towers Watson Master Class in Corporate Innovation


  • GIANT Innovation 900 3rd Avenue New York United States (map)

The Willis Towers Watson Master Class in Corporate Innovation is an intensive two-day experiential workshop designed to give Willis Towers Watson employees the foundation they need to build a faster-moving, more nimble organization.

Colleagues will not only develop deep and practical innovation skills of their own, but also the tools they need to build and expand the innovation capacity of their organization. Particular emphasis will be placed on the skills, tools, and strategies needed to drive growth through new products and business models by using relevant case studies and discussion topics.

We’ll also use New York City as our laboratory as we visit, hear from, and connect with the best its innovation ecosystem has to offer. New York City provides a learning environment for corporate innovation unmatched by any other city. 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.

 

Details

  • WHEN: Tuesday, June 11th, 2019 9:00 AM - Wednesday, June 12th, 2019 5:00 PM

  • HOSTED BY: GIANT Innovation

  • WHERE: 900 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  • COST: $1,995

What will you get from the WTW Master Class?

  • Gain a practical innovation toolkit consisting of the latest skills from lean startup, design thinking, creativity research, and strategic communications.  

  • Understand how to manage the complexities of introducing innovation within highly-regulated or complex corporate environments.

  • 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.

  • One hour of post-workshop remote innovation coaching to help you implement 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.

 

Who should attend?

  • Colleagues within the lines of business looking to build agility and creativity into their DNA, including the capacity to more quickly conceive of and launch new products, services, and business models.

  • Colleagues interested in becoming WTW Innovation Masters by training, coaching, and leading innovation initiatives within the organization.

  • Human Resources team members who want to develop the skills and confidence they need to teach core innovation skills in their organizations.

  • Innovation leaders, directors, and executives who are passionate about improving their skills and bringing more innovation into their organization.

  • Those interested in building a foundation in design thinking, lean startup, and creativity skills that they can apply to their organizational challenges.

Who is GIANT Innovation?

GIANT Innovation is a global innovation-capacity building firm that places particular emphasis on the human side of innovation, building the mindsets, toolsets, and skillsets required to build faster-moving, more creative and nimble organizations.

Through our unique partnership with Willis Towers Watson we’ve had the opportunity to work with your Horizons teams and leaders throughout your organization on understanding some of the unique challenges that you face [and, in many cases, have overcome] that can be incorporated into the workshop experience. Every GIANT facilitator has lived the reality of innovation, both as an industry practitioner and a startup entrepreneur. Our facilitators are also academics and educators, so we approach the communication of concepts with a rigor and simplicity that few others can offer. We specialize in a high-energy, experiential learning approach that uses a “flipped classroom” wherein participants learn through continuous hands-on and practical exercises.

 

How can I justify this investment internally? 

Here is what you might say... "This workshop will uniquely equip me to build and expand the innovation competency at Willis Towers Watson. I will learn the latest skills and thinking about corporate innovation and return ready to infuse innovation into our DNA. Not only will I learn how to apply these skills, but I’ll learn how to teach them from expert facilitators who’ve worked with hundreds of corporate intrapreneurs. 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 who can share their own unique experiences with me so that we can grow and learn together. Companies and organizations as diverse as Citibank, Walmart, 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” questions.

  • 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 Corporate Innovation Panel

  • Corporate innovation practitioner panel to learn from leaders from various industries and organizations.

Evening Activity: Participant Dinner  

”Insider Dinner” featuring an open discussion with a few special guests from the NYC innovation ecosystem.   

         

DAY 2: BUILDING AND TESTING BUSINESS MODELS

9am-10am Business model innovation

  • Business model innovation and business model design.

10am-2pm Turning ideas into reality via lean startup

  • 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 interviews with customers.    

  • Introduction to MVPs and solution experiments.

  • Field work: running your first solution experiment . 

2pm-4pm Strategic communications and pitching             

  • Audience mapping.

  • Pitch training, including non-verbal and verbal communications tools.  

4pm-5pm Bringing the skills and tools back to the organization      

  • Understanding the impediments to the innovative organization

  • Building an action plan around future innovation   

                                            

Ticket Purchasing and Class Size Limitations

Please note the following:

  • This class will be limited to 25 attendees.

  • As this class is being custom developed for WTW, please withhold your travel arrangements until we have confirmed a minimum of 15 attendees. You will receive a confirmation via email in the next 3 weeks.

  • You can purchase your ticket using the form that follows or contact us directly at hello@giantinnovation.io if you have any questions.