Workshops

The Inter-American National Bank is an organization with branches throughout the world including the Caribbean. The role is to work with these countries to help stimulate economic growth through loans or grants. They collaborate with the country government and many of the local industries. One of their mandates is to stimulate innovation. They reached out to us at Basadur to provide some training for the 5 offices in their cluster which was prompted by prior training received in Jamaican and Trinidad. In this presentation we will discuss the journey they are on and the observations we found during this extensive training to build innovation capability in each country.

What’s the only thing harder than selling these days?   Buying. The research is in on the process of B2B purchasing – and it’s a pretty distressing picture overall.   Increasingly, purchase decisions are the product of a committee. As the size of the committee grows, the prospects for conflict increase, and the prospects of arriving at any decision whatsoever (much less the best one)  decline.

So what’s this got to do with challenge mapping?  Well – one way to think about an RFP is less as “information” or “requirements” and more as the description of a situation begging for an illuminating interpretation.  By viewing the RFP in that light, the seller responding to the RFP can create value for the buying committee – by organizing topics according to their place in a system of relationships (categorization, causality, adjacency, and perhaps polarity.)

Challenge mapping is useful for clarifying these kinds of relationships.  So can it be used to design compelling solutions in RFP responses, and do so in a way that helps to mitigate the inherent challenges of buying committees?  This presentation offers a qualified “Yes” to that question, based on the story of a successful close of an RFP competition at a price in the high six figures.

Using models to think in 3D is one of the brain’s most preferred ways of thinking. It leads to deeper insights and understanding. When we engage in building we give our brains a hand, allowing the brain to think in 3D (T. Newport). This 3D thinking allows participants to build better ideas and gain a greater understanding, while aligning objectives to strategically meet organizational, community, or business goals. The brain is always looking for a hand, and the hand is looking for a brain (S. Brown).

This workshop goes beyond flip charts and Post-it Notes and transports Simplexity from the wall to the tabletop, where models are constructed and deconstructed. This process allows for old narratives to be transformed into powerful new solutions. In this workshop you will not just hear how the Strategic Play® team has used Simplexity, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods, and other creative activities to solve complex worldwide problems, you will build and experience the process for yourself. These are just some of the issues we have worked to address:

• The effects of poverty, Land use in transition, The perception of safety (City of Surrey)
• Human rights, Education reform, Care for the environment (The United Nations)
• Product and service offerings (P&G, Simply Home, Home Depot, Hermes, and T.R. Price)

In this 90 minute, fast-moving breakout we will demonstrate how we weave together two powerful methodologies (Simplexity and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®) in a curated offering that drives results.

When we try to solve complex problems with others we can be faced with multiple challenges. We often don’t agree on what the problem actually is or how we can move forward and address it.

One the most powerful tools for teams is the CPSP Profile. The Profile not only allows for a very quick understanding and acceptance of the Simplexity Process, it also creates an awareness of the cognitive diversity within the group and the benefits of that.

Most people assume that everyone likes to work and communicate the way they do. Often a big Ah Ha that occurs when debriefing the Profile is when they realize that not everyone approaches problems the same way they do. They start to recognize that there are different approaches and perspectives as well as the key process steps involved. This can be a powerful way to uncover assumptions that the group has not only about each other but also about the problem they are trying to solve.

Join your peers as we discuss the Power of the Profile

You have heard of and seen the results achieved by Frito-Lay as they embraced and used the Simplexity Process to realize cost improvements while transforming their overall culture.

In a free-flowing conversation, Jim Jarratt will discuss examples of how the Simplexity language of “ How Might We”, and various Simplexity skills were successfully utilized at Frito-Lay. 

Jim will also take you on a journey to other industries and companies whose language begins with,  “You can’t do that.  We are different”. Jim will discuss how the utilization of Simplexity innovation skills can overcome this inertia and solve real business problems. 

Join Shannon Wagers and Richard Perez from P&G’s GYM, for an interactive workshop showcasing case studies of applied Simplexity methods with real teams resulting in very satisfied customers with a Net Promoter Score of 95% (Would recommend to friend/colleague).

A Strategy can be viewed as a well-defined problem.  The problem with many teams is that they want  a “strategic plan” without understanding what this means,  or even worse, how this might be created (Let’s hire McKinsey!)

Learn how to guide any team to create an impactful strategy from the ground up applying the Challenge Mapping tool informed by team insights and facts. This dynamic visualization of “How Might We” statements combined with “Why-What’s  Stopping analysis” opens up individuals and organizations to critical thinking through immersive problem definition.  This process creates powerful strategies to overcome the toughest challenges.

Select stories will be shared on how these strategies are making a difference in innovation and leadership.

I plan to engage participants to share how I use Simplexity to generate ideas for new courses and program opportunities, collaborate with different stakeholders – students, faculty colleagues, career services, and members of the school administration – to finalize the conceptualization of them, and then to plan and implement them in an environment averse to change.

I will engage participants in understanding how a new course is designed and taught, how new student-development events and programs are developed and implemented using Simplexity as the backbone with the requirement that students learn experientially.

Artificial intelligence is a buzz word these days, with good reason.  Text, voice and vision recognition notably represent a huge business opportunity and this, in many fields: health, defense, marketing, logistics and so on.

Yet, even with the most advanced technology, scientists are generally agreeing –  by no means can we even forecast the day when we will be able to delegate complex, contextualized, dynamic and increasingly critical decision making to intelligent systems.  If technology is improving decision making efficiency and efficacy in systemic and well-defined processes, people are expected to remain on the long term at the heart of fundamental “sensemaking”.

The workshop will discuss on the role of people at the center of complex decision making, notably how individuals (HI) and groups (CI) present a unique and necessary contribution for addressing large and global challenges. It will also discuss how technology can lead to new opportunities for human beings to better think, collaborate and make efficient decision making as a new collective capacity, and the role of deliberate processes such as Simplexity to help achieve higher quality collaborative decision making.

Institutions, particularly nonprofit and governmental, benefit from strong stakeholder engagement which includes large doses of internal and external voices and buy-in. Ivy Tech Community College, the nation’s largest singly accredited community college system with more than 150,000 students and 19 campuses, is funded primarily by the State of Indiana. In 2016 the Indiana General Assembly enacted legislation requiring Ivy Tech to become more workforce aligned and agile in meeting employer needs as the Indiana economy rebounded. This session will explore the Organizational Restructure from 14 regions to 19 campuses (the first in 50 years) and new Strategic Plan of Ivy Tech, as well as the processes, thinking skills and tool utilized to engage state, industry/employer and philanthropic stakeholders, but also faculty, staff and students across more than 40 locations. A “first quarter” report will be shared on progress and “lessons learned” on change management and the role of Simplexity creative problem solving in supporting healthy organizational change.