Idea Time Innovation with Dr. Jo North ideatime

Company values are more than words on a wall or a website. They're the heartbeat of an organization, guiding decisions and behaviors. Yet, bringing them to life is where many companies struggle. In this show, I share practical ways to help your team infuse your company’s values into your everyday work.
 
I’ll share:                                                                                                                   
How to facilitate workshops with your team to identify behaviours for every role that embody your values
Why and how to make your values the foundation of your business decisions, hiring practices and recognition programs
Keeping your values front-of-mind with storytelling and visual communication
How to check-in and monitor your progress
 

Join me in this dynamic session on creative thinking techniques to elevate your strategy and innovation sprints, workshops and meetings.
 
Whether you're looking to tackle complex problems or pave the way for fresh, more ambitious ideas, this session will equip you with practical techniques to think creatively and act innovatively.
 
We’ll cover:
Foundations of Creative Thinking: Understand the core principles that underpin creative thought and how it can transform your approach to strategy and innovation.
Techniques and Tools: Explore a range of tried-and-tested techniques to stimulate creative thinking and apply these tools in your work.
Real-World Applications: See how organizations have successfully applied creative thinking techniques to solve problems and innovate.
 This show is ideal for business professionals, team leaders, managers, and anyone looking to:
Enhance strategic thinking with creative approaches.
Drive innovation within teams or organizations.
Solve complex problems with out-of-the-box solutions.
 
#creativethinking #psychologyofcreativity #innovation #strategy
 
 

This podcast, "How to Facilitate a Scenario Planning Workshop", will guide you through using scenario planning to help you to develop and strengthen your sustainable innovation strategy.
 
Key takeaways:
Understanding sustainable innovation: Balance environmental, societal, and economic impacts for long-term success 🌱.
Scenario planning insights: How to prepare for various futures, mitigating risks and spotting opportunities 🔍.
From theory to practice: Real-world applications that show the impact of effective scenario planning. 🚀
Tools and processes: Effective strategies and tools for developing actionable plans based on critical scenarios 💡.
 
Who should listen?
Leaders, strategists, and anyone interested in sustainable innovation and strategic foresight.
 
I hope you can join me live or on replay to explore how scenario planning helps to innovate towards a more sustainable future. 🌱
 

🚀  Build a Successful Innovation Team 🚀
 
🎥  🎙️ In this week’s Idea Time show, I explore how to build an innovation-driven team.
 
Highlights are:
Innovation as a Core Value: Essential for product development, adding technical, process, and functional value.
Innovation Time Off (ITO): Learn from Google, 3M and others . Balance innovation and productivity.
Set the Innovation Stage: Effective communication and real-life examples to spark creativity.
Lean Start-up Approach: Validating ideas early with a Build-Measure-Learn cycle.
Diverse Team Composition: Diversity fuels creativity. Importance of a guiding team leader.
Skills for Innovation Teams: Creative, critical thinking, empathy, curiosity, problem-solving, and collaboration.
Sustaining Innovation Culture: Top management’s role in fostering an ongoing innovative environment.

Stakeholder mapping is a strategic process used in innovation, project management and business planning.
It involves identifying and analyzing individuals, groups, or organizations that can impact or be impacted by a project or business activity.
The goal is to understand these stakeholders' interests, influence, and the nature of their involvement.
By mapping stakeholders, innovators can better navigate complex environments, minimize risks, and leverage support for successful outcomes.
In this mini-show, I share helpful ideas on how to facilitate stakeholder mapping, an essential tool for innovators, design thinks and project leaders.
We cover some practical techniques for identifying, mapping, and prioritizing stakeholders, how to develop tailored communication strategies and why keeping your stakeholder map updated is vital.
 

In this content-packed live show, I dive into Horizon Scanning & Foresight for Innovators.
No crystal balls, prophecies or predicting the future, though!
Horizon scanning is about detecting weak signals of potential change before they make it big. It keeps you prepared, and gives you and your innovation strategy a competitive edge.
In this show, I share:
What horizon scanning is, and why it’s important
The differences between foresight, forecasts and prediction
What ‘weak signals’ are, and how to spot them
Emerging trends
Tips and approaches for horizon scanning in a fast-moving, information-dense world
How to do horizon scanning with your team
Data for horizon scanning
A horizon scanning toolkit, including:Seven Questions interview technique
The Delphi technique
Futures Wheel
Text Mining – using AI to scan through large sets of text data, spotting trends in news, social media, or academic publications.
Cross-impact analysis
Scenario planning
Importance / certainty matrix
Transformation maps

It really is a value-packed whopper of a show – ideal for you if you’re planning your innovation and business growth strategy. I also share how you can access my free horizon scanning toolkit.
As always, I'd love your comments and questions on my social channels!