The Innovation Accelerator is a unique mix of strategic think tank, creativity training, idea greenhouse, and business incubator that makes it easy for participants to accelerate the process of surfacing new ideas and turning them into products, services, and breakthrough ways of doing business.

In the workshop, participants generate and develop a continuum of new ideas -- from incremental to breakthrough -- that increases their odds of making rapid progress on a variety of promising, new business opportunities.

At the same time, participants sharpen their innovation skills and learn a variety of creative thinking tools that can be immediately applied on the job with their direct reports, teams, or senior leaders.

Action oriented, practical, and inspiring, The Innovation Accelerator provides the perfect balance of divergent and convergent thinking -- enabling participants to not only get out of the box and tap into new realms of possibility, but craft meaningful, post-workshop game plans that close the gap between theory and practice.

Bottom line, Idea Champions' Innovation Accelerator yields high ROI -- Return on Ideas -- with payback year after year.

1. DAY ONE MORNING: Creativity Thinking Training
Participants establish a culture of innovation, reframe their most pressing challenges, identify bothersome obstacles to innovation, go beyond their biggest limiting assumptions, learn and apply three creative thinking techniques, generate a wide variety of actionable ideas, and stretch the limits of their own creativity and willingness to be a force for change.

2. DAY ONE AFTENOON: Strategic Think Tank
Individuals, groups, and teams learn and practice a set of insight-sparking processes and tools to scan their spheres of influence and identify robust innovation opportunities.

Innovation Accelerator participants then select the best of their ideas to improve work processes and develop new product and service concepts within their declared areas of interest, i.e. operations, finance, sales, marketing, customer service, HR, teamwork, R&D, and leadership.

3. DAY TWO MORNING: Idea Incubator
Participants, in small groups, dive deeper into the creative thinking process to further polish the gem of ideas and opportunities identified on Day #1.

Equipped with new tools of the creative trade and having entered more deeply into the mindset of an innovator, participants continue making quantum leaps of thought and action.

4. DAY TWO AFTERNOON: Innovation Launcher
Here's where the rubber meets the road -- the convergent part of the workshop in which participants make the effort to clarify two ways to significantly increase the odds of turning their hot ideas into measureable results:

1. Establish a culture of innovation within their spheres of influence.

2. Craft intelligent "idea implementation plans" that take into account their organization's stickiest obstacles to innovation.

Simply put, The Innovation Accelerator helps savvy, time-crunched people challenge old assumptions, conceive new possibilities, originate powerful ideas, collaborate, network, and jump start the process of helping their organization foster a dynamic, authentic, humane, sustainable culture of innovation.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
-- Aspiring innovators, project teams, departments
-- Cross-functional teams
-- High potential employees
-- Business leaders of the future
-- Forward thinking managers
-- Innovation champions
-- Change agents

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
-- How to identify and transform limiting assumptions
-- How to redefine and reframe business challenges
-- Best innovation practices of leading organizations
-- How to jump start a culture of innovation
-- How to diffuse risk-averse, nay-saying behavior
-- How to double the impact of your brainstorming sessions
-- Tools and techniques for thinking out of the box
-- How to leverage your strengths as an in-house innovator

WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE:
-- A deck of 55 innovation-sparking cards (Free the Genie)
-- The Free the Genie Leader's Guide
-- An annual Free the Genie (online app) license
-- A set of juggling balls
-- Four creative thinking guidebooks
-- Awake at the Wheel (our award winning book on the creative process)
-- Three innovation whitepapers

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY:

"Idea Champions offers pragmatic tools and insights that enable innovation. Their approach is engaging, encouraging and creates an impetus for participants to apply the learning immediately."
- Michael Serino, Senior Director, Merck

"Idea Champions' highly engaging approach, combining creative energy and business practicality, is a real winner. Their process and practical tools helps people experience innovation in the moment, and more importantly, enables them to apply the learning back home with their own teams." - Mike Canning, Managing Director, Duke Corporate Education

"Idea Champions has been a partner with the Chubb Business School for four years and has helped us drive the skillset and mindset of innovation throughout the organization. This partnership has resulted in an approach that focuses not only on the skill of creative thinking, but on the application of that learning. Several ideas from Chubb Business School have been pitched to our Venture Fund Team and received funding for development and implementation. Definitely solid ROI!" - Mary Ann Heenehan, Corporate Groups Development Manager, Chubb Insurance

"Idea Champions continues to be a terrific partner as we proceed on our innovation journey. They are highly knowledgeable about developing an innovative culture, know what to do and, more importantly, know what not to do. They are also wonderful facilitators of group training -- both entertaining and educational. - Darcy Smith, VP Subsidiary HR, Highmark

"Idea Champions is creative in their approach, experienced, willing to share their expertise readily, easy to work with, and delivers exactly what they promise." - Peter Clist, Head of Management Institute, Allianz

"No organization, especially those in Health Care, can expect to thrive without drawing on the collective talent and ideas of their workforce. Idea Champions helped us discover and apply those talents and ideas in a highly productive and practical system." - Don Parker, President, AtlantiCare Health Care Systems

"You are sowers of a wonderfully powerful seed that now has begun to germinate and revitalize our organization." - Candace Thompson, VP, First National Bank of Chicago

"Idea Champions is the firm I recommend for anything to do with innovation." - Melody Mahoney, Center for Leadership and Organizational Excellence, GE Capital

Contact us
Idea Champions website