SynNovation - Collaborative Innovation

Click here for a diagram outlining our services

Problems can be described as the gap between where you are and where you want to be. We specialise in the art of helping you to
find ways to bridge this gap - in terms of strategic and operational aspects, as well as working climate and skills development.


What we can do for you

Our service covers four complementary areas:

Strategic innovation and change –innovating on all levels

Optimising operations and systems – ensuring effective implementation & management

Energising individuals and teams – ensuring enthusiasm, involvement and collaboration

Developing people, skills and knowledge – training in creativity, people, life & quality skills

You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?"

...George Bernard Shaw


Most important business decisions and problem-solving involve groups of people, and therefore meetings of one kind or another. With the increasing trend towards participative management, more and more people are involved in such meetings. However, for many people, meetings have become a burden - "Too many, too long, too boring, with too little achieved, disrupted by company politics." They feel meetings distract them from getting on with the real work they need and want to do for their organisations. And they feel meetings often aggravate, rather than help to solve, problems.

Yet this need not be so. Using SynNovation-based approaches and facilitation will enable you to have meetings and creative sessions that are both productive and efficient - delivering innovative solutions to issues that need to be addressed, with practical action plans with a high level of buy-in. This could apply to any aspects of business - from short, agenda-type meetings and single problem-solving sessions, to product and service innovation, to strategic planning meetings, break-aways and large conferences. Such effective, truly participative meetings are also essential elements in any change or transformation programme.

 

A positive approach is a key element in all the work we do

What's more, at the same time these highly participative meetings:
 help to build trust and collaborative relationships
promote team effectiveness
enable open communication
and are fun!

We offer two main groups of services, in terms of the SynNovation process - Innovation Facilitation and Skills Development.
 
 

Enabling Strategic Innovation and Change

Developing visions and strategies and facilitating changes, that ensure current and future success

 
The Innovation process we use.
 
We plan and facilitate programmes tailor-made to clients' needs and various situations.These include:
 
Facilitated innovation and change programmes, usually comprising a series of structured workshops, one or more days in length, for a wide range of assignments to identify and prioritise a number of key issues and address them creatively and strategically.
Half-day to two-day sessions to address specific challenges creatively, including action plans.
Customer focussed innovation. Think-shops that produce break-through product or service innovation.
Become customer driven by learning to really listen to clients or consumers, and to turn their wishes into new concepts or break-through products and services.

No company has ever cut-cost itself into greatness.

...Roland Christensen

Optimising Operations and Systems

Systems and processes to ensure implementation of strategies and action plans

 Incremental improvements to products and services
Innovating with your customers and / or suppliers
Efficient procurement: win-win relations with suppliers
Innovation implementation systems
Continuous improvement and productivity
Quality assurance - ISO 9000
Food safety - HACCP
Measuring innovation readiness and results
Recognition and reward systems

Corporations around the world are reaching the limits of incrementalism. Squeezing another penny out of costs, getting product to market a few weeks earlier, responding to customers' inquiries a little bit faster, ratcheting quality up one more notch, capturing another point of market share – these are the obsessions of managers today. But pursuing incremental improvements while rivals reinvent the industry is like fiddling while the Rome burns.

...Gary Hamel

Energising People and Ideas

Creating a climate that fosters innovation and change and builds trust and relationships

 Managing change, conflict, transformation, and mergers. Programmes that help to change thinking and climate company-wide.
"Involve-all" conferences that achieve results and enthusiastic follow-through - rather than the usual talk-shops
Leading for involvement and participation
Benefiting from diversity
Managing gender issues positively
Corporate couples: Promoting productive relationships
 

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

...A.A. Milne


Developing Individuals, Skills and Knowledge

Experiential learning and coaching to equip people with innovation and other skills

We custom design workshops to meet the needs of client companies and individuals. We ensure they reinforce and complement, rather than duplicate other initiatives within the company. Sometimes several elements are combined into one workshop. Topics could include time management, career planning, career-life balance, politics and power, business ethics, sexual harrassment and effective communication. Some of these topics are also combined with creativity and innovation skills. The length of workshops usually varies between half a day (or a series of half-day or one-day workshops) and three days.

What gets into trouble is not what we don't know,
It is what we know for sure - that just ain't so.

...Mark Twain

Art and Craft of Innovation One-to two-hour active mini-workshop, or event to energeise a conference
Toolbox for Brainwaves One-day open or in-house workshops
Thinking, Innovation and Problem-solving Skills workshop (TIPS!) Two-days, in-company, or open (formerly WITS!)
FACIL - Facilitating Innovation Leadership (follow-up on TIPS!) 5 to 6 days
Custom-designed training
Belbin Team Role Profiles for personal and team effectiveness
Practical Communication and Assertiveness
Women in Business
Diversity in Cultures, Styles and Functions
Personal Development: Equip yourself to make a difference
Coaching and Mentoring
Quality assurance and food safety