Innovation Readiness Workshop
Innovation stalls somewhere in your organization, and nobody can name where. In one day your management team scores what actually blocks innovation, ranks the blockers, and leaves with an action plan that names owners and dates.
You do not have an idea problem. You have an innovation blocker problem.
Innovation rarely fails for lack of ideas. Something in the organization kills them before they go anywhere. I see this pattern regularly, across industries and company sizes:
Innovation treated as extra work, not a core process, so it gets whatever hours are left over.
Pilots stuck in pilot purgatory: another test, another dead end, no follow-up.
No shared view of where the focus should be, so teams work in silos with different priorities.
KPIs that conflict between departments, so collaboration gets punished instead of rewarded.
A strategy that sounds right in the boardroom and disconnects the moment it reaches daily practice.
Ambition that never turns into outcomes: everyone talks about innovation, nothing changes, and people notice.
Find the blocker first. Choosing a canvas before that is guessing.
Nine dimensions, three levers, one action plan.
An innovation readiness workshop is a facilitated assessment. Your management team scores the organization on nine dimensions across three levers: leadership support, organizational design, and innovation practice. The framework comes from the Strategyzer book The Invincible Company, sharpened in my own practice.
- Leadership support
- Strategic guidance, resource allocation, portfolio management
- Organizational design
- Legitimacy and power, bridge to the core, rewards and incentives
- Innovation practice
- Innovation tools, process management, innovation skills
The day runs in three parts. First the scoring: everyone scores the nine dimensions independently, on the evidence, not the impression. Then the scores go on the wall. Where they align, the conversation is short. Where they diverge, the gap itself is the finding: the CFO scores resource allocation a 4, the head of R&D scores it a 2, and neither one is wrong. Working through those gaps is where the leadership alignment happens.
The last part turns the scores into a plan. The team ranks the blockers, maps what causes the largest gaps, and closes the day with an action plan: the top three to five blockers, the specific change each one requires, an owner, and a date. Not a consultant's report that ends up on a shelf. The team builds the plan itself, so it can start executing the Monday after.
The people who control the conditions.
Budgets, reporting lines, and rewards decide readiness. So the people who own those things sit at the table for the full day:
The CEO or general manager
The CFO
The management team members who own marketing, technology, or R&D
Human Resources
The innovation director, or whoever owns the innovation portfolio
The heads of the business units where innovation is supposed to happen
Everyone at the table can change what the scores expose: budgets, KPIs, reporting lines. That mandate is what makes the day work.
Fixed price, one day, the right people.
The Innovation Readiness Workshop costs €4.500, plus €250 for travel and materials, excl. VAT. One day is the format. If your management team cannot free a full day, a half day works too, at the same price: the scoring is compact, the conversation is what takes the time. The price includes the intake call, the session design, a summary with scores and actions after the day, and a follow-up call. You know the full investment before we start.
It runs in person, with one team of five to seven people, and preferably off-site: an external venue keeps the day away from the daily operation. Venue and catering are not included in the price.
Prepared, small, and honestly scored.
The sessions that end with a plan the team executes share the same shape: prepared, small, and honestly scored. Prepared, so the day starts on the real issues instead of introductions. Small, so everyone in the room can change what the scores expose. And honestly scored, because a diplomatic score that protects everyone's feelings produces a plan nobody owns. I see that pattern regularly, and an outside facilitator is the simplest fix: nobody on the team has to be the one who says the reward system punishes experimentation.
I facilitate this day as an official Strategyzer coach, with 100+ sessions with teams at 50+ companies behind me. It is often where a client relationship starts: the diagnosis decides what comes next, and that only becomes clear once the scores are on the wall.
When this workshop is the wrong choice.
You already know what the blocker is.
Then you do not need a diagnosis, you need the intervention. Pick the design workshop or sprint that addresses it.
See the workshop menu ›There is no mandate at the table.
Without decision-makers in the room this turns into a talking session, not a working one. Wait until the right people can attend, or let's discuss what is possible first.
Request your Strategy Call ›You are looking for a change in innovation culture.
Culture change is an outcome, not a workshop topic. This day works on the conditions that shape behavior: incentives, processes, and authority. Fix those first and the culture follows.
Your team is missing the methodology basics.
If the gap is skills rather than conditions, a training gets you further. Start there and come back when the basics are in place.
See the training ›You want a lighter starting picture first.
The free checklist covers the same nine dimensions in nine questions. It shows you where to look before you commit a full day.
Grab the free checklist ›You want a diagnosis without the full day.
The Innovation Blocker Session is the lighter variant: 90 minutes, remote, and a ranked one-pager of your blockers. It fits when the full management team cannot come together yet.
Book your Innovation Blocker Session ›The diagnosis is done. Now the intervention.
Innovation Readiness Workshop
You know what blocks innovation, what to change first, and who owns it.
The intervention it points to
The diagnosis decides the next step: a strategy or design workshop, or a sprint that produces evidence.
See the services menu ›Not sure this is the right starting point?
Tell me where your organization stands, and I will tell you honestly whether this day fits, or whether something else does. I read every request myself.