by Facilitation Expert | Mar 3, 2022 | Analysis Methods, Meeting Structure, Problem Solving
The purpose of this article is to help you manage and facilitate the transformation of the abstract (sourcing innovative ideas) into the concrete (managing new product concepts).
We hope you beg, borrow, steal, and modify heavily from our technique called Product Concept Management (PCM or Catalyst). Whereas this is the third of three connecting articles, remember to see (1 of 3) and (2 of 3).
Catalyst describes our method for clarifying the “fuzzy front-end” in product development. Meanwhile, the “fuzzy front-end” represents the time and space between a thought (e.g., problem or solution) and the decision to act by first converting the thought into a concrete concept. For your questions or suggestions, please contact us at +01 (630) 954-5880 or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Sourcing Ideas
MANAGING CONCEPTS DEPENDS ON QUALIFYING INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Managing innovative ideas relies on one primary task: qualifying innovative ideas As explained in our last article Converting Raw Product Ideas into Polished Product Concepts (2 of 3), managing concepts means improving the certainty of ideas. We do this by adding information to the description of the idea and the pains it cures. Now we more fully explain the skills supporting four primary activities to QUALIFY innovative ideas:
SKILLS REQUIRED
The qualifying activity requires a broad set of skills to interpret product descriptions, envision them being applied in the market, comprehend market structure (distribution, competition, customer segments), and reasonably assess new product idea revenues and profit-generating potential. Since no one person may have the required talents or time to do everything, Catalyst workshops provide a wonderful opportunity for qualifying innovative ideas.
The qualifier role, fulfilled by a single individual or a team, also identifies resources that are needed to complete the idea qualification. Resources may include production and technical experts, engineers, scientists, economists, sales managers, lobbyists, regulation experts, and experts in customers and competitors.
Summary of Qualifying Skills
Qualifying Skills
Reminder about Sourcing Innovative Ideas and Managing Concepts
A fully qualified and complex product concept exceeds one descriptive sentence. The first QUALIFYING task reviews the idea for a minimal description, typically provided by the idea Author. To us, a comprehensive concept might also answer dozens of questions, such as:
A Raw Product Idea Transformed into a Manageable Product Concept with a Checklist of Issues
Technical/Physical Description
Describe the “need” (or “pain”) as a problem, want, or “hankering.” ABCs . . .
A. Ambition Size the opportunity in currency and units/volume
B. Benefits What are the benefits of the product to the buyer/customer? (Economic, emotional, . . .)
C. Choices What are the customer’s/user’s other options to solve the problem, satisfy the need or want, or achieve the improvement? Why? When, where, and how was the idea conceived?
Qualification Checklist
QUALIFYING enhances the character of a new product idea, enabling assessment and further development by adding information to the description of the idea. QUALIFYING also evaluates the idea for commercial potential and technical feasibility. A comprehensive Product Concept (qualified idea) resembles a business case.
SOURCING INNOVATIVE IDEAS
SOURCING innovative ideas requires one primary activity: discovering innovative ideas, and involves several supporting activities. The other activities support retrieval, including storing ideas and providing coaching, feedback, and incentives to idea authors. DISCOVERING innovative ideas depends on structuring a network of sources that feed raw or fragmented product ideas to our PCM technique.
MODES OF DISCOVERY
Continuous (Steady-State) Discovery
We advocate the design of a steady-state discovery apparatus to provide a continuous flow of ideas into Catalyst.
Based on understanding portfolio priorities, targeted markets, and technology priorities, the organization should structure information gathering, invention, and analysis activities to align with their future direction and constraints (available resources). Preferred sources of information might include:
- Channel members
- Competitors
- Customers
- Prospective customers
- Suppliers
Other sources include:
- Analogous markets (surrogate channels and suppliers)
- Experts in government and regulatory affairs
- Experts in specific technical and commercial subjects
Discrete (Singular) Discovery
Sometimes the need develops to seek innovative ideas through singular activities. Singular discoveries do not depend on regular, continuous activities. Discrete activities are similar to steady-state activities but differ in intensity, resource commitment, method, and results. Sources of information in discrete discovery activities are identical to the steady-state mode listed above.
DESIGN OF CONTINUOUS (STEADY-STATE) DISCOVERY
The principal characteristic of continuous DISCOVERY is the identification, training, equipping, and continual communication of resources involved in information gathering, analysis, and ideation.
Building The Network
Designing steady-state DISCOVERY requires identifying, prioritizing, and selecting network sources that can be accessed continuously. The option of actively seeking innovative ideas through intensive problem discovery, solution discovery, and other creative approaches already exists in most organizations – by way of existing customer-facing and other technically oriented resources.
We recommend a role-based network. Primary advantages when constructing a network include:
- Leverages existing reporting and support structures (such as IT for global access; contact between author and development, etc.).
- Leverages resources that are likely most qualified to establish communications between authors and their idea source (e.g., between a salesperson and customer).
- Uses existing resources, logistically positioned to minimize cost and responsiveness to local situations (improves overall performance, responsiveness, and consistency of contact between author and source).
PCM Leverages the Existing Network of Potential Authors and Sources
Summary of Networked Author/Source Characteristics
Technical resources, such as product and manufacturing engineering, laboratory scientists, installers, and field service technicians are valuable resources with “ears” and “eyes” tuned to problem DISCOVERY and pain identification. Customer-facing resources such as sales, marketing, distributors, and executives are valuable resources to listen for market opportunities.
Catalyst Characteristics
Value Chain Approach
Use the value-chain perspective when constructing a PCM SOURCING network. Using the value chain as a guide, PCM identifies participants who can provide innovative ideas. The network includes target market segments from market strategies and focuses on products that harmonize with the product portfolio strategy.
Catalyst Value Chain
Summary of Continuous Discovery Sources and Activities
DESIGN OF DISCRETE (SINGLE-EVENT) DISCOVERY
Discrete discovery mode provides a one-time selection of a method, participants, and target for the information gathering, analysis, or invention activity. Managers or team leaders organize single-event discovery opportunities. We recommend the use of the Problem-Solution Matrix (described below), to identify appropriate methods and tools.
Problem-Solution Matrix Summary
Problem-Solution Matrix
We’ve cut a lot of this series (three connecting articles) to keep each article to 2,000 words. Therefore, let us know where we over-cut or if you need further clarification and we promise to reply promptly.
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
by Facilitation Expert | Feb 10, 2022 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support
As defined in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a team is
“two or more draft animals harnessed to the same vehicle or implement.”
Okay, this may not be how you think of your team, but think about it–it’s a great description of what a successful team looks like. A group of individuals who, by working together, will achieve far more than one individual would working alone.
Empirical evidence supports this simple fact: working teams can accomplish more together than individuals acting separately. Team building through the combination and interaction of experience, abilities, knowledge, commitment, and creativity gives teams a powerful advantage for advancing business change.
Team Building and Building Teams Drives Success
As part of our series on Product Innovation (and our Catalyst Product Concept Management), we recommend the use of facilitated workshops that bring stakeholders, thought leaders, and implementors together with key designers and planners, under the guidance of professional facilitators. The network of individuals required in the analysis, design, and implementation of new products can be overwhelming. The guidance of trained professional facilitators in Catalyst, new product development, and voice-of-the-customer assures the highest integrity. We rely on a proven method that may be adapted to your organization when seeking to support your mission and objectives through product development or process improvement. If you have suggestions about how we can improve this or other Best Practices, please reply or contact us at (630) 954-5880, or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Facilitators significantly contribute to organizational effectiveness when they support cohesive teams. The following provides some valuable tips on continuous team-building techniques.
Character of Teams
Teams have the characteristics of working toward a common goal, having shared experiences, and sharing work products for the good of the organization as a whole. Teams produce much more than a collection of individuals when assembled in meetings, sharing information, and following a common agenda.
Effective teams develop their own lexicon, memory, respect, and trust among members. Teams share responsibility, accountability, and glory for their shared output and behavior.
Teams may be built through their time together – or broken. We advocate a deliberate effort to build teams among the participants of your workshop, some obvious and others not-so-obvious.
Team Building
Successful team building can be facilitated despite the obvious challenges of separate priorities, individual goals, and variability of commitment among team members. Yet team building is rarely accomplished as the result of a single staged exercise.
Team building needs to be continuously supported by structuring appropriate events with open and safe exchange of individual biases, ideas, and constructive criticism.
Perform these team-building steps as appropriate:
- Deploy team-building activities throughout your workshop, especially early and upfront.
- Look for agreement beginning with shared mission, vision, and values, and then more detailed team and workshop goals, shared responsibility, and common success factors across products, departments, and business units.
- Plan on using breakout teams frequently, and then use them more often than planned.
- Have the participants perform a self-assessment of their effectiveness as a team at intervals, such as at the close of each day, and engage them in self-diagnosis and remedy.
Team building activities include:
- Staged activities aimed specifically at team building such as business simulations, icebreakers, warm-ups, and situational gaming.
- Activities in the course of the workshop, not apparent as team building activities, such as breakout sessions, combined homework/evening assignments (outside of the workshop), and joint analysis and presentations.
- Identify and reinforce common ground. Where two or more participants exhibit differing goals within the workshop, identify the common elements of their positions while concurrently recognizing their differences. Work to amplify the importance of their commonality to support organizational objectives, yet carefully probe for differences. Differences attributable to uncommon vocabulary or objectives imposed by others not attending the workshop, or even no longer with the organization.
- Most importantly, seeks to determine if challenges to team building are endemic to the culture that must implement the solution formed by the team. If so, share your observations and concerns with the executive sponsor(s) or product owner. The sponsor should structure appropriate action that needs to take place outside of your meetings and workshops.
Within MGRUSH, workshops represent much more than just a generic technique. Workshop design achieves a specific set of results and furthers the design and implementation of change in very specific ways.
Workshop Design and Focusing
The focusing stage of workshops develops a clear understanding of the mission, scope, and objectives of the workshop for all participants, and by extension, those indirectly supporting the workshop (such as sponsors, supporters, and other stakeholders).
Orientation and Focusing
The focusing stage occurs during orientation or early in the launch to:
- Introduce the project or product
- Launch the team
- Introduce the sponsor(s)
- Review and confirm the business purpose
- Confirm the mission, scope, and objective of the project or product
- Identify management priorities, concerns, opportunities, challenges, and constraints
- Identify and articulate the motivating concerns driving this project or product
- Affirm expectations about deliverables, performance, timing, work product, behavior, and other characteristics during development
- Identify additional workshop/project participants, sources (SME or Subject Matter Experts), and beneficiaries
- Management commitment — This is NOT to be obtained during the focusing stage of the workshop. Commitment is already obtained. Here the commitment is expressed and stressed to the workshop participants
Focusing preparation
Complete the following steps to launch team building prior to significant events, ceremonies, and workshops.
- Identify participants
- Notify participants of their involvement and contributing roles
- Confirm the availability of participants
- Reserve facilities, equipment, and refreshments
- Learn about workshop participants’ subject matter expertise
- Review techniques, work products, tools, issues, and challenges
- Create materials to be used during the workshop (or a version of previously created materials)
- Prepare likely assignments for breakout sessions
- Draft likely assignments for home/evening work
- Prepare “seed content” for discussions (to be used if the participants are slow to share their points of view, concepts, or insights)
- Prepare and review (with sponsors, and organizers) the workshop agenda; revise it as necessary
Focusing implementation
Complete the following steps that support team building during the workshop.
- Perform the warm-up/startup activities
- Welcome the participants
- Confirm workshop purpose, scope, and deliverables
- Review workshop agenda
- Review workshop/project “ ground rules”
- Confirm workshop/project mission, scope, and objectives
- Set expectations for deliverables and work product objectives
- Obtain commitment, identify principles, values, and organization policies
- Develop and articulate the case for action
- Identify supporting participants
- Document material presented, covered, analyzed, discussed, decisions reached and tabled, and open issues
- Wrap-up session and daily activities
- Close workshop
Focusing work products
The focusing workshops should also validate or produce work products, including:
Workshop:
- Mission statement
- Business purpose statement (may be pre-prepared)
- The case for action or charter
- Team principles, values, and (applicable) policies (that govern team behavior)
- Statement of “success” – what it looks like
- Critical success factors
- Risk factors and risk management approaches
Project or product plan
- Statement of work
- Project organization chart
- Project GANTT chart or sprint sequence
- Staffing and support plan
- SME identification
- Team member profiles
Next Steps
- Assignments
- Open issues
- Meeting schedule and agenda
Supporting In-formation
This activity identifies and articulates the motivating concerns that create the need for this project or product, such as (these are not exclusive of each other):
- Market threats
- Cost position, trends
- Customer needs and personas
- Financial, and market performance shortcomings
- Growth and stability (or lack of)
- Strategic position
- Position company for sale, increased valuation
- Repair history of too few new products
- Improve culture and morale
In the context of the motivating concerns, focusing and launch articulates the impact of action and inaction. Work product should include:
- State likely outcomes if the company/organization proceeds on its current path
- Reveal probably outcomes due to actions of customers, competitors, others
- State value/impact of an improvement in product concept management
- State value/impact of no action regarding product concept management
Best Practices / Lessons Learned
The organization and team may benefit from a scan of other practices, ambitiously seeking “best practices” from which they might model or derive “lessons learned.” This scan identifies or articulates activities of other units within the organization and its competitors or others that can be modeled for their product concept management activity. The content of the “best practices / lessons learned” session will likely include:
- Current PCM (Product Concept Management or Catalyst) practices
- History of PCM efforts
- PCM and NPI (new product ideation) efforts of other organizations
In the context of the best practices/lessons learned, this workshop activity articulates the organizational knowledge about PCM and new product ideation. We often think of PCM as a process that encourages plurality and most often includes
(a) the new product ideation activity and
(b) the business case evaluation
but is most distinguished as being sandwiched between these two more visible activities. Orientation and focusing activities articulate and permit comparison of past, current, and developmental efforts at PCM by other parts of the organization, its competitors, suppliers, and other third parties.
Work product should include:
- Organizational units having new product ideation processes, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
- Product or process surrogates or business units have had, have, or are developing PCM, its reason for being, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
- Organizational units having business case development processes (often the first stage of a Stage-gate-like product development process), and description of the process, its reason for being, experience, process flow, and lessons learned
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
by Facilitation Expert | Jan 6, 2022 | Meeting Structure, Prioritizing, Problem Solving
Product Concept Management (PCM or Catalyst) is the technique of designing, implementing, and continuously managing the ideation, gathering, qualifying, maintenance, archiving, and evaluation of new product ideas into fully polished concepts.
This article advances a 3-step method you can use to transform new product ideas into innovative sources of revenue and increased efficiencies. If you have suggestions about how we can improve this or other Best Practices, please reply or contact us at (630) 954-5880, or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
Converting new product ideas into full product concepts requires numerous disciplines, including technical, information systems, creative, marketing, and financial management. This cross-functional demand on an organization is often the point of failure for most organizations in their attempts to maintain a fertile pool of new product ideas.
A NEW PRODUCT IDEA TECHNIQUE
The PCM technique comprises three major steps: “SOURCE” ideas, “MANAGE” ideas (into complete concepts), and “USE” concepts for further evaluation and possible development. These three steps have numerous activities embedded within them.
The most significant step of PCM is to publish (USE) a concept for further development. Without the movement of a product concept onto commercial development, there is no useful work accomplished. At the same time, most businesses focus today on the SOURCING step. That is the SOURCE and volume and “creativity” of the ideas put into the system for consideration.
With our PCM technique, the bulk of activity occurs during the MANAGE step. PCM holds that ideas are raw, slight notions of a product or business opportunity. Most new product people face having enough “good” ideas. In truth, many ideas are “good,” but suffer from a lack of certainty about their future opportunity. In our view, this is what distinguishes good ideas – their degree of certainty. We define the MANAGE step in PCM as the set of activities that convert new product ideas into polished product concepts. The concepts are then available for serious consideration and additional investment.
Polished Product Concept Technique (PCM or Catalyst)
Step
|
Description
|
Leads To…
|
1. SOURCE
|
The SOURCE step captures the “authoring” activities where ideas arise—invented, gathered from others, or derived from analysis. Ideation occurs here, from employees, vendors, customers, and field people. Ideas may originate spontaneously, through analysis, or by listening well.
Authors must introduce their ideas in the best form they are able to provide. Groups and teams serve as combined authors.
The requirements are low for what is considered an idea, although expectations are high for the effort invested by authors when describing their idea(s). |
MANAGE step |
2. MANAGE
|
The MANAGE step converts ideas into tangible concepts, making them available to others over an extended period.
The principle behind qualifying ideas is that all ideas are ‘good,’ but that in their description they carry varying degrees of certainty. The impact of the degree of certainty is that the most ill-formed idea, which is expected to have high potential – with a high degree of certainty – would easily attract investment for further development. Similarly, an elegant idea known to have poor revenue prospects – with certainty – would attract little investment. PCM adds value by reducing uncertainty that matches well with decisions and investments.
PCM views that all ideas have value – for someone at some time. Ideas and concepts can have long shelf lives, and some are known to be recognized years after they were first written down. The MANAGE step receives catalogs, stores, updates, files, and fashions ideas into concepts. |
“Use” step |
3. USE
|
The USE step provides the first decision on the future use of an idea. The SOURCE and MANAGE steps treat all ideas with a consistent level of interest. The USE step selects ideas from the database and pushes them further, such as a business case. The selection process operates like a query. The reviewer decides on the traits of the idea that will fit the strategic, tactical, portfolio, financial, technical, and social needs. Ideas that satisfy the selection criteria may then be advanced further. |
Business evaluation |
WHERE PCM FITS IN NPD
A Typical Gated Process
The gated new product development process consists of activities that evaluate, screen, and develop new products. With a gated process, investments in new products match their potential. New product ideas are refined for their commercial success. Products that appear not to be winners are screened or deleted for further development at one of the gates. The earlier a poor-performing product is screened, the more efficient the process.
The “Stage-Gate™” process from Dr. Cooper of Ontario, Canada[1] has five gates as shown below, and starts with the premise of “a great idea.”
The activities of getting new product ideas, gathering them, and turning them into valid opportunities are often missed. Like the Stage-Gate process, most start with the presumption of “the great idea.” They focus on developing the product, not filling the hopper with complete and robust “ideas.”
PCM revolutionizes the new product development (NPD) process by providing a disciplined method to manage a pool of problems and solutions. PCM fits in front of every NPD process because they all begin with the presumption of a great idea.
The Fit of PCM in Gated Processes
PCM contains a lot of activities (activities to design, use, ideate, gather, qualify, maintain, store, and assess new product ideas) to support the overall goal of building a well-managed source of qualified new product concepts for managers.
We defined three major steps to PCM: SOURCE, MANAGE, and USE. (Using the metaphor from publishing, we also refer to the three steps as Authoring, Editing, and Publishing. The distinct roles for participants in PCM are therefore: Author, Editor, and Publisher.)
Roles in a new product idea transformation
PCM is built with Six Sigma methods in mind. In keeping with the spirit of Six Sigma, we will discuss each of the PCM steps using the “right to left” method. Most processes flow from left to right (from inputs to outputs) in a process flow diagram. We will explain from the output back (left) towards the required inputs. This article then focuses on the USE step. Our next and final article (3 of 3) provides more detail on the MANAGE and SOURCE steps.
USE (Publishing — developed product concept)
The USE step reviews ideas for their desirability. When an idea is found to be attractive, it is moved into the next step of a group’s new product process. The USE stage selects ideas that demand more investment. Poor judgment in this stage corrupts the new product process, wastes time and money, and weakens market position.
The USE step is not necessarily a continuous process. It is a discrete activity that occurs when a reviewer has a need or desire to add a new product to his/her new product development portfolio. Thus, the interaction between the MANAGE step and the USE step is intermittent, and largely driven by the event of a “query,” or an attempt by a reviewer to identify another idea worthy of new product development.
USE Step Activities
Descriptions of USE Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Query
|
Submit a query to identify ideas that are of interest or value. |
Review
|
Examine ideas returned by the query. Prioritize ideas for their fit and attractiveness. |
Select
|
Apply explicit (and implicit) criteria and identify ideas worthy of further development. |
Modify
|
Some ideas may be enhanced or made acceptable by changes imposed by the reviewer. Ideas that can be improved in their accuracy (of forecast or technical feasibility), or improved in their acceptability, are modified by the reviewer. |
Feedback
|
As conditions change, information is provided to the qualifier to guide future qualifications. As ideas are reviewed, information about the quality of the evaluations is provided to the qualifier. |
Direct
|
Direct the qualifier about required and desired analysis, information, and output formats. |
MANAGE (Editing)
The core activity in the MANAGE step improves new product idea quality while storing them. When a new product idea comes from an author, it is added to the idea database. The idea is also qualified so that it can be reviewed by an editor.
MANAGE Step Activities
QUALIFYING
The primary activity in the MANAGE step is “QUALIFYING” an idea. The qualification process is comprised of four activities: Interpretation, Investigation, Analysis, and Forecasting.
Description of MANAGE Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Log
|
Review recent ideas. Assess for completeness and prioritize for qualification. (If there are more than one qualifier or multi-person (team) qualifiers, assign the team.) |
Qualify
|
|
|
|
Judge the idea for clarity. As needed, speak with the author to further describe, clarify, and refine the idea.
Interpret an idea for its commercial and technical content (may contain industry, segment, and other specific vocabulary and meaning).
Review the idea for completeness, and get the idea author to provide more information.
Detect the timeframe for use of the idea (near-term, distant, event-triggered, etc.). |
|
|
Assess the information to adequately qualify for the opportunity. Identify sources of information and required methods.
Perform an investigation of the ideal opportunity. Gather information about marketing, distribution, technical development, production, customer demand, competition, and regulation. |
|
|
Analyze the opportunity for (1) technical feasibility; (2) customer appeal and purchase behavior; (3) fit with distribution channels; (4) competitive options and positioning, (5) trends and future market conditions; and (6) fit with existing product portfolio, cannabilistic impact, and marketing strategies.
Determine market(s) size or impact on customer lifetime value. Build assumptions. |
|
|
Forecast revenue stream, investment, and timing. |
Store
|
Finish documentation; update idea database. |
Archive
|
Assess the inventory of ideas for relevance. |
Feedback
|
Feed back to idea authors about the status of their submittals. (Not intended to provide direction to authors about the likelihood of an idea being used for more development.) |
Coach
|
Give support to authors to encourage submissions and enhance the completion of their ideas, including support around customer motivation, competitive choices, and tangential uses. |
SOURCE (Authoring — capturing new product ideas)
The core activity in the SOURCE step is discovering ideas, and describing them sufficiently to be added to the PCM organization. When a new product idea is conceived, it is first put to paper to describe – as well as the author can – the need for, performance, and benefits of the new product idea.
SOURCE Step Activities
Articulated ideas are added to the company’s idea database. The SOURCE step is ongoing as well as ad hoc, built of (possibly) many sources of ideas. There are three primary types of DISCOVERING activities: Invent, Gather, and Analyze.
DISCOVERING
SOURCING is the most complex, far-flung, and resource-intensive activity of the three major steps within PCM. When launched on a wide scale, SOURCING spans time (present and future opportunities), spans the organization (engineering, marketing, service, and manufacturing, e.g.), and spans the marketplace (suppliers, distributors, customers, potential customers, e.g.). Thus, SOURCING places great demands on the PCM group to properly direct, manage, and resource activities to gather new product ideas.
Description of SOURCING Step Activities
Activities
|
Description
|
Discover
|
|
√ Invent
|
Conceive ideas about problems and potential solutions. |
√ Gather
|
Observe and collect the points of view of others. |
√ Analyze
|
Compare ideas to product line gaps, competitors’ offerings, and future trends. |
Articulate
|
Express an idea in a form that gives adequate information to qualify further. |
Submit
|
Input of an idea for qualification (usually into an idea “hopper” or database). |
Motivate
|
Provide reasons to authors to build and submit ideas. Can be the design and use of incentives and performance rewards. |
Train
|
Prepare authors to invent, analyze, or gather ideas or idea fragments by providing instruction in various methods of problem/opportunity recognition and idea formation. |
Equip
|
Furnish authors with direction in the areas where ideas are desired, and by giving them tools, templates, and equipment to identify problems/opportunities, and clarify ideas. |
Our summary spares you, the reader, from many of the details found in the transformation of new product ideas. For more information, simply drop us a note at info@mgrushfaciltation.com. Our final article (3 of 3) in this series will focus on details that support the MANAGING and SOURCING steps.
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[1] Business Horizons, Volume 33, Issue 3, May–June 1990, Pages 44-54, Stage-gate systems: A new tool for managing new products, Robert G.Cooper
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Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. We call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including detailed agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
by Facilitation Expert | Dec 2, 2021 | Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support
Our last article launched a method for managing new product ideas called Catalyst or PCM
Now we take a step back before explaining the activities (next article) to tackle some of the myths and gremlins associated with new product concept management and development.
New Product Concept Development Disciplines
Product Concept Management requires numerous disciplines, including technical, information systems, creative, marketing, and financial management. Cross-functional demand frequently becomes a point of failure for many organizations in their attempts to maintain a fertile pool of new product ideas. The PCM process comprises three major steps: “SOURCING” ideas, “MANAGING” ideas (into concepts), and “USING” concepts for further evaluation and possible development.
Three major steps of the PCM process: “SOURCING” ideas, “MANAGING” ideas (into concepts), and “USING” concepts for further evaluation and possible development. The act of ‘deciding’ represents the most important activity of PCM; deciding whether to USE or publish a concept for further development. Without the movement of a concept onto final development, no useful work gets accomplished. At the same time, most investment today focuses on the SOURCING or authoring activity. Namely, the source volume and “creativity” of the ideas placed for consideration.
With Catalyst, the bulk of the work occurs during QUALIFYING. PCM holds that raw ideas represent slight notions of a product or business need. Most new product people have enough “good” ideas. In truth, most ideas are “good,” but suffer from a lack of certainty about their future viability.
In our view, their degree of certainty distinguishes good ideas. The QUALIFYING step in PCM requires activities that convert raw ideas into polished concepts. Then polished concepts become available for consideration and additional investment.
Product Concept Management (PCM or Catalyst) and Development Overview
PCM specifies each step as multiple, discrete activities. In practice, often compressed in time, they look like a single step. For example, when a salesperson suggests an idea to a product manager. In that discussion, the product idea takes partial form in terms of its function, customer benefits, competitive situation, and future sales opportunities. The product manager evaluates the idea for fit into the product line, corporate marketing strategy, and the organization’s appetite for funding new products. In this example, the bulk of the PCM technique occurs in a matter of minutes.
Typical Idea (Instant) Evaluation Process
The Many Product Concept Management Myths
Many myths perpetuate the practical and academic field of New Product Development and Ideation. We don’t purport to disrupt the belief system of these fields but do wish to add to the excellent progress made in recent years in improving the management of Ideation and New Product Management.
MYTH: There are good ideas and bad ideas, but only a few really great ideas.
FACT: All ideas are good as long as they are sound in their construction. An idea seen by a business manager (or “reviewer” in our parlance) may be a poor fit for the business conditions of that day and for his/her specific purposes. But fit does not equivocate to the quality of an idea. PCM frees ideas from judgments of “good” or “bad.” The “goodness” of an idea depends on two characteristics of the reviewer: (1) the fit of the idea with the needs of the company, and (2) certainty about the future performance of the product in the market, in the hands of a specific company, through specific channels, to specific customers, at a specific time. These two characteristics do not depend on the idea but on the owner of the idea. The burden of finding “great” ideas, therefore, falls into the hands of the organization.
MYTH: We don’t need more ideas, we need “home runs.”
FACT: An organization and its management may want “home runs.” They seek the eventual impact of new product ideas, not whether the idea becomes a “home run” or not. A home run for one company could be a dud for another. A home run this year could be a dud next year. With slight changes in material specifications, the dud could become a cash cow in a different division. The burden is not on the idea of being great. The challenge of greatness belongs to those who handle the idea.
MYTH: We don’t have enough ideas. We’ve run out.
FACT: Zillions of new ideas develop every day. Each of us probably develops a handful of new ideas for products, product attributes, packaging, and so on. Many take shape before we arrive at our offices, based on our morning routines. Frequently we envision ideas, but perhaps not for our own business. Those ideas might be availed to whomever is willing to invest to gather them. Ideas arise in our heads continuously, for untold numbers of products and applications. Most of these ideas evaporate soon after they form.
MYTH: Our new product development process is terrific. We need better filters at the ideation stage to keep the bad ideas out. (Or, more filters are better.)
FACT: We don’t argue that your NPD process may be functioning well, or that ideas pass through development and flop in the market. However, more and better filters do not assure better product market performance. The perfect filter would be needed only once. Therefore, “more filters” implies low-quality filters at each stage of their application. More ideas indicate more success, with better information about their prospects, rather than fewer with tighter filters. If the profitability of an idea exceeds thresholds with 100% certainty when conceived, it would be pushed through development and launch with no filters. The defect in NPD and launch is not “bad” ideas or necessarily poor filters. The quality of information about the prospects for a new idea or the “certainty” of an idea’s prospects drives improved decision-making.
MYTH: We can’t afford to invest in many new product ideas.
FACT: Again, we don’t take issue with the notion of allocating scarce investment resources. However, we believe that if proper investment is not made at the earliest stages of idea management, poor-performing concepts will make it through NPD and into launch (for eventual failure) without sufficient success to pay for the failures.
MYTH: We can’t afford a product failure.
FACT: No one wants product failure, but some failures cannot be avoided. To eliminate new product failures, the only complete solution prohibits new product development. To accept a reasonable degree of risk, investment is required to reduce the uncertainty around a new idea.
MYTH: We don’t need a process of new product ideas, we need a champion.”
FACT: A “champion” provides prima facie evidence that your approach remains hostile to new product ideas and new product success. Perhaps not by intent, but by behavior. A champion is only needed when one or more of these conditions exist:
- The existing new product idea and development process has low/no credibility within the organization (or doesn’t exist) and the “champion” acts in a vacuum;
- “Certainty” appears only to the champion and not to the people involved, and the champion provides the lone supporting voice.
Popular business management lore converts folk heroes into “champions.” Champions reflect a failure to create a viable system that transcends individual fortitude and charisma. When you find an aggressive “owner” of a neutral method, then you’ve found your true “champion.”
MYTH: There isn’t enough money to support more new product ideas.
FACT: Money abounds. With a decent idea and reasonable certainty. you can attract a virtually endless supply of money. An idea with a certain payoff will attract investment with ease. Certainty provides the key. Money stays away from ideas it doubts. Venture capitalists knowingly invest in incredibly risky ideas: they invest in ideas they feel have a reasonably good chance of success after researching the opportunity. Venture capitalists accept different risks than the average corporation, but not necessarily more risk, and certainly not less well-researched ideas. The more certainty in the performance of your idea, the easier the money will be found.
Product Concept Management Gremlins
Many “gremlins” also arise in Product Concept Management. By gremlins, we mean the attitudes, behavior, policies, and cultural norms that tear at the fabric of successful new product ideation and development. Gremlins operate to hinder PCM at any time, in many ways, and with frightening effectiveness.
Gremlins range from apathy to “championing” a product through to launch. Our observation of the greatest gremlins suggests:
- Apathy – When the motivation to share new product ideas with those who can make use of them diminishes the apparent idea flow.
- Arrogance – When a participant in ideation and/or new product development demonstrates the arrogance to diminish ideas from other sources. Thus, they discourage the prolific exchange of new ideas that hamper the new idea process.
- Under Investment – The critical investment in a new idea demonstrates the assessment of its commercial, technical, and financial viability, especially early in the life of an idea.
- Lack of Direction – Do not build your PCM to be ad hoc. Catalyst requires clear direction to focus scarce resources toward the most productive sources of new product ideas that support the organization’s strategy.
Before we explain the various agendas supporting the primary steps in Catalyst, a forthcoming article provides some excellent and practical tips on “Teams and Team-Building Techniques.”
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[1] The term “service” can be freely substituted for the tangible concept of “product.”
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The following provides you with a Holiday Gift. Below are links to sites found in our Best Practices articles, but seldom recognized. No doubt you’ve seen a few already. However, a few of them will cause a WOW reaction:
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
by Facilitation Expert | Nov 4, 2021 | Facilitation Skills, Leadership Skills, Meeting Structure, Meeting Support
The purpose of this article is to prepare you with a workshop approach, including the method and tools you can use to increase product innovation in your workshops — to speed up product development based on structuring the voice of your customer. If you have suggestions about how we can improve this or other Best Practices, please reply or contact us at (630) 954-5880, or by email at info@mgrushfacilitation.com.
PRODUCT INNOVATION RESULTS
Below you’ll find the guiding principles, structure, theory, and practical advice for leading product innovation results in your organization. We hope you beg, borrow, steal, and modify heavily from our benchmark method called Product Concept Management (Catalyst). Catalyst is our method for clarifying the “fuzzy front-end” in product development. The “fuzzy front-end” represents the time and space between a thought (problem or solution) and the transformation into action by first converting the thought into a tangible concept.
What is a new product “idea”?
We are defining a thought as only a fragment of an idea. To have a complete idea to develop a new product with the Catalyst technique requires five elements. We’ll cover them in greater detail in our next article (part 2 of 3). For now, the five fragments include:
- Statement of the problem, pain, want, or improvement that needs to be solved
- Description of the solution that creates value including some of the technical descriptions and functional specifications
- Explanation of the customer’s options, choices, and competitive alternatives
- An estimation of how large the solution or opportunity is measured by currency over time
- Narrative description of the value proposition created by the new product idea — both economic and emotional benefits
Prerequisites
The prerequisites for developing and applying product innovation within your organization are few but important:
- Desire to improve the quality and quantity of new product ideas emerging from your organizational network
- Desire to improve the new product lifecycle by increasing the quality and reducing costs by structuring valuable new product ideas
- Hunger to reduce the waste from lost and abandoned new product ideas
- Desire to increase the enthusiasm, productivity, and creativity of your new product “ideators”
- Desire to “win” in the market, win with your employees and colleagues, and win by increasing the wealth of your company.
PRODUCT INNOVATION WORKSHOPS
We recommend the use of facilitated workshops that bring stakeholders, thought leaders, and implementors together with key designers and planners, under the guidance of professional facilitators. The network of individuals required in the analysis, design, and implementation of new products can be overwhelming. The guidance of a trained professional facilitator in Catalyst, new product development, and voice-of-the-customer assures the highest integrity with this proven method that should be adapted to your organization when seeking to support your mission and objectives.
Catalyst Product Innovation Method The Catalyst product innovation approach provides substantial benefits (when compared to traditional interviewing and internal team analysis and design):
- Early leadership involvement
- Early customer (user and owner) involvement in the evolution of the design
- Business analysis that reflects a broad understanding of the market as well as the intricacies of each segment, technology, and economic climate as appropriate
- Sharing and socialization of intent about strategic direction, product development capabilities, and supply and demand chain structure and value, thus creating stronger group and individual ownership
- Common commitment to persisting in the design of the process through to completion
Within MG Rush, workshops are more than just a generic term. Each workshop aims to achieve specific results and to further the design and implementation method through a structured sequence. This article guides you when planning, conducting, facilitating, and managing the design and implementation of product innovation results by applying a flexible structure.
WHEN SHOULD INNOVATION RESULTS WORKSHOPS BE USED?
We recommend that workshops be used in situations guided primarily by
- The number of participants,
- The complexity of the market and product information,
- Disparity (or diversity) of participant backgrounds and knowledge, and
- The visibility desired for the design process.
The basic structure for the sequence of product innovation workshops is:
- Orientation & Planning
- Business Purpose
- Design Process
- Catalyst NPD (New Product Development) Introduction
- Team Building and Optimization
- Design and Workshop Protocols
- Process Schedule
- Workshop Approach & Structure
- Internal Situation
- Focusing
- Visioning
- Business Requirements
- Organization Structure
- Product Inventory
- Product Commercialization Process
- NPI (New Product Ideas) and NPD Experiences and Lessons Learned
- Organizational Best Practices
- External Situation
- Market Strategy(ies)
- Customer Segmentation
- Sales and Service Channel Structure & Performance
- Competitor Behavior
- Process Design
- Implementation Design
- Measurement, Monitoring, and Control
WHEN SHOULD WORKSHOPS NOT BE USED?
Workshops should not be used when:
- There is only one business user;
- The available participants do not understand the business, typically due to inexperience overall, inexperience in their function, or inexperience within the Organization;
- Participants are not able to garnish resources to support the function of self-organizing teams;
- Commitment to the design outcome is not clear from necessary senior management, including the lack or availability of resources to implement;
- Lack of availability of participants’ time, facilities, or the inability to complete tasks and assignments;
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS
Here are the factors critical to the success of your workshops and to the completion of product innovation results:
- Appropriate facilities
- Belief in the relevance of the organization’s mission and initiatives
- Experienced and prepared facilitator or facilitation team
- Focus on design (initially) and less on implementation
- Management commitment
- Participants with knowledge, availability, interest, and availability
- Time and resources for preparation, task and assignment completion, session attendance, and follow-up
(WHEN) SHOULD PRODUCT INNOVATION WORKSHOPS BE USED INSTEAD OF WORK SESSIONS?
The Catalyst design typically requires a multi-functional, stratified team and is thus most often best served by workshops. However, work sessions are an acceptable substitute when:
- Are less formal, but no less disciplined in analysis, information exchange, and documentation.
- The work session involves a few participants
- The work session involves participants from a particular discipline
- The workgroup is focused on a narrow issue(s) and is working in support of the broader design-team objectives
- There are logistical (such as geographic distance) issues that are best served by discrete teams working apart from the general group
- Work product, including deliberations, notes, and input information, can be reasonably summarized and disseminated to the broader NPD design team – and reported on during workshop sessions
PRODUCT INNOVATION RESULTS TECHNIQUES
For each workshop during product innovation design, and for each step in the workshop agenda, decide on the particular technique to support the appropriate introduction, discussion, and completion of the agenda item. Workshop tools supporting product innovation include:
SESSION LEADER RESPONSIBILITIES
A successful product innovation method depends on the effectiveness of the person assigned as the facilitator – for team management, workshop management, and content delivery. The assignee is more than a facilitator; they are also the quality control officer for the NPD design process. Successful workshops require special support and a special temperament from the facilitator. Participants must feel comfortable, valued, safe, respected, and motivated if they are to contribute fully to the overall Catalyst design during each workshop session. Their motivation will continue over to the assigned tasks when they feel that their efforts will be valued when returning back to the team in subsequent workshops. The facilitator’s role requires the following responsibilities to gain participants’ respect, following, trust, and cooperation:
- Be flexible to meet clients’ schedules
- Behave without ego, and be non-defensive
- Demonstrate respect for each individual, be fair in dealing with each participant, and in the interplay between participants
- Facilitate group consensus, while seeking the best overall output
- Monitor session agenda and time constraints
- Provide an environment for each participant to have an opportunity to contribute
- Provide for document exchange of the inputs, in-workshop work product, and post-work product follow-up, including workshop notes, assignments, and agenda
- Remain open and self-disclosing
- Seek and work with the sponsor(s) to provide continuous commitment
- Stick to the agreed-upon plan regarding deliverables, scope, timing, and MG Rush Facilitation stipulated leadership responsibilities (in and out of the workshops)
FACILITATOR TECHNIQUES SUPPORTING PRODUCT INNOVATION
Conducting successful product innovation workshops requires a combination of skills, techniques, and content knowledge. A successful facilitator requires high, sustained energy, intense concentration, and a good disposition. A sense of humor is useful, too. A facilitator is non-defensive, absorbs barbs of all descriptions, and stays focused on the challenge of delivering on the objectives of the workshop and goals of the product overall. There are many skills and tools used by skilled, successful facilitators. A few are mentioned below but are not intended to be a comprehensive inventory. Other techniques may evolve outside of the view of our Best Practices for Catalyst and product innovation and may also be useful for you.
FACILITATOR SKILLS
- Ask and give clarification
- Avoid ambiguity
- Be alert to differences in information as provided and information as received
- Document, clarify, and expand the information exchanged in the workshop
- Explain the structure behind the flow
- Identify, communicate, and demonstrate decision-making methods
- Legitimize participants’ comments and contributions
- Practice active listening
- Provide “structural flex” and adapt the task, workshop, and overall process as needed
- Provide traceability – Adopt a retrospective perspective, that is, construct plans and documentation so that they are understood in the present and in hindsight
- Recognize opportunities to intervene – Be prepared to prevent or change an activity or event to improve the quality or productivity of the workshop procedures.
- Use guiding questions; provide sample answers from a metaphor or analogy
Examples of Preventions to Secure Innovation Results
- Confirm agreement on purpose, scope, deliverables, and agenda
- Follow-up workshops with accurate and comprehensive documentation
- Involve and utilize client workshop experts (such as trained facilitators, Product Owners, and Master Black Belts)
- Pre-determine work groups and breakout teams
- Prepare materials in advance
- Provide advance information to inform, educate, and normalize participants’ knowledge
- Respect client protocols, practices, and workshop traditions
- Utilize subject matter experts to leverage outside (of the workshop) knowledge to the benefit of the workshop participants
Examples of Interventions to Secure Innovation Results
- Observe and reverse retreats or aggression by participants. Most people have a “primary style” of discussion, debate, and persuasion, however, when a person’s primary style is ineffective (that is, they feel challenged, frustrated, or embarrassed), that person will often retreat into a secondary style that is either aggressive or sullen.
- Prevent attacks on an individual or organizations, including those not participating in the workshop. Work to inhibit attacks and, in particular, abuse during the workshop on any participant or group. As necessary: physically move between speaker and target of any “attack”; or, interrupt attacks by calling for a break, or attention back to the agenda, or summarize a key point; or, turn the situation with appropriate humor.
- Some comments or questions are unclear to all but the speaker. Restate comments or questions that you perceive as unclear by one or more of the participants. If appropriate, ask the speaker to clarify their comment or question without embarrassing the speaker or recipients.
- Watch for impatience with progress during the agenda. Periodically, highlight the progress made during the workshop by physically indicating the current agenda item and upcoming items. Remind participants of the important progress made during the day and workshop, especially during transitions.
In our next article, we’ll provide the product innovation workshop design support tools and work products for the Catalyst method (or other NPD phases), such as:
- Facilitating Internal Environment Assessment
- Facilitating External Environment Assessment
- Converting Ideas Into Product Concepts
- Consensual and Co-Owned Implementation
______
Don’t ruin your career by hosting bad meetings. Sign up for a workshop or send this to someone who should. MGRUSH workshops focus on meeting design and practice. Each person practices tools, methods, and activities daily during the week. Therefore, while some call this immersion, we call it the road to building high-value facilitation skills.
Our workshops also provide a superb way to earn up to 40 SEUs from the Scrum Alliance, 40 CDUs from IIBA, 40 Continuous Learning Points (CLPs) based on Federal Acquisition Certification Continuous Professional Learning Requirements using Training and Education activities, 40 Professional Development Units (PDUs) from SAVE International, as well as 4.0 CEUs for other professions. (See workshop and Reference Manual descriptions for details.)
Want a free 10-minute break timer? Sign up for our once-monthly newsletter HERE and receive a free timer along with four other of our favorite facilitation tools.
Go to the Facilitation Training Store to access proven, in-house resources, including fully annotated agendas, break timers, and templates. Finally, take a few seconds to buy us a cup of coffee and please SHARE with others.
In conclusion, we dare you to embrace the will, wisdom, and activities that amplify a facilitative leader. #facilitationtraining #MEETING DESIGN
______
With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we need to append the following for your benefit and reference
Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
