A workshop must come as a break in the “business-as-usual” context

Is workshop the mother of invention?  

BtoB customers are demanding for innovative data enhanced products. And if demand is there, competition is there too, more global and aggressive than ever.

 Regarding the development of new products and services, you should better be fast and efficient from idea to action. From customer experience insights to data patterns, the field of possibilities to be explored in new product development has never been as broad as today. The key to success is efficiency and it comes from empowering people in the organization.

 Bringing together key functions like maintenance, customer service, sales or operations together with marketing and engineers well as key partners of the ecosystem, BtoB companies become more creative and most importantly, they can innovate faster.

 A culture of openness can stimulate the invention.

A workshop is an investment

A workshop is a substantial investment in term of time for the participants and project owners as well as money. So the decision to engage resources in a workshop should be made with care. More importantly, a workshop is an event that must come as a break in the “business-as-usual” context.

 A successful workshop should sound like a call for some kind of unexpected thing to happen, whether it relates to the way of working, the stimulating questions or the outcomes.

 A workshop is "a passing instant when an opening appears. This opening opportunity must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved.” modestly referring to the Greek concept of Kairos.

 So one golden rule with workshops is the virtue of scarcity. Organizations should prevent themselves from planning to many workshops. Workshop is not the ultimate answer to every challenge.

The primary reason to consider a workshop relates to one strategic challenge that the organization is facing. Whether it's the development of new brand position or a defining step in the innovation strategy, the development of persona or the design of a new customer experience, the idea getting people together in a workshop is to gather the best outcomes from of their expertise and knowledge combined with their power of invention.

BtoB companies are entering a new era, a time when disparate ideas and forces come together in new and unexpected ways to form new patterns, new businesses and new thinking on how to get things done.

To be more specific, Big data, Predictive analysis, 3D, Virtual Reality, IoT and Platforms are the hallmarks of our time in BtoB. It is huge and must be addressed anyway. Obviously, collaborative thinking throughout cross function workshops helps to address the transformation challenge

The objective is always the driver for the call of a workshop but there are side benefits not to neglect as workshops offer great management opportunities to create momentum and break silos.

Sponsorship is the most important success factor

Senior management sponsorship is crucial. It should be clear for all stakeholders that such an initiative is not made without a clear senior manager/board member sponsoring the project from the early stage otherwise it has lots of chance to backfire or freeze...

 Attendees should know they are empowered with the right to explore and develop inputs/ new ideas that will help the company moving forward. And project owners must develop a detailed agenda and a structured process to get the activities planned with care and precision.

 All material and templates should be developed up front accordingly, in order to document the workshop outcomes. There is nothing worst than fruitful discussions not being captured, realizing after long hours of passionate exchanges and discussions that what we are left with nothing in hands but a couple of un-structured flip charts and some heterogeneous notes from the participants.

It takes time to be good, and sometimes more to be great

Getting ideas, discovering new ways, exploring options takes time.

Think about questioning a business model. Do you believe you can get it done in a blink of an eye?

You should prevent your self from trying to sort it all in half a day. Experience shows that most of the times, it creates more difficulties than answers.

 Give workshops enough time is the rule: 1,5 to 2 days is the most appropriate duration to go through norming, storming, forming stages with the group. And you should avoid tight schedule in the agenda too. If you really intend to get specific, some topics will definitely require more than 30 mn…

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To Be More Specific (TBMS) is a lab-institute of BtoB strategic marketing. More specifically, TBMS works with you. Basing our partnership on a dialogue, we help BtoB companies with identified strategic needs to develop their growth and innovation strategies. With a solid track record of prestigious BtoB customers in many different markets, industries and cultures, TBMS has the best BtoB strategic planning model in the market, and proven efficiency.