Overview
Based on comprehensive research into future skill requirements, many organisations are embracing more creative capabilities in order to future-proof their workforce. As a more people-centric approach to innovation – also known as human-centred design (HCD) becomes more entrenched in organisations across the African continent, we have been asked to create some of these capabilities for in-house teams.
The Challenge
Many corporate training deployments of design thinking skills are still focused on a very template-driven model of learning instead of encouraging the development of new problem-solving mindsets. Another key feature of current creative skills training programmes is the very playful nature of engagement that is often not a rooted in solving actual organisational problems and can thus become less meaningful or impactful as a result. Our client – a large insurance company – was wary of these challenges and also had a highly skilled workforce that needed to be engaged in adequate ways to buy into the process.
Our Approach
Based on a deep dive into the future challenges of the business we created a bespoke training approach for various parts of the organisation that made use of a design thinking mindset to address some of the concrete challenges they were facing. We engaged with teams over a six-month period in order for them to start embedding some of the new practices into their everyday workflows with an opportunity for coaching from our side. We were also able to create a commercial incentive structure with some of the teams receiving funding from the business to run some of their projects as new innovation ventures.
Key Insight
It quickly became apparent that certain parts of the business resonated more with the design thinking mindset e.g. the actuarial department that has always been fascinated with understanding human behaviour. After the initial pilot sessions we were then able to create impactful cross-functional teams that could literally operate as small intrapreneurial start-ups. This process helped the organisation to uncover entrepreneurial talent and provide more meaningful career paths to retain this valuable talent pool that might otherwise have left the organisation.
The Outcome
Our engagement managed to create a lot of excitement around new and creative ways of thinking and working and this capability has become part of the onboarding and training programmes across the organisation. The company still runs dedicated innovation challenges that encourage employees to make use of the design thinking toolkit to enable the cultural change required. There are also certain pockets of excellence in the business that have fully embedded this capability in their teams and workflows.