Innovation Toolkit : Workshop on Scenario Planning for Innovation

May 24, 2005, 2:00pm - 6:30pm
MetaDesign, 615 Battery St, San Francisco, CA Cost: $400

Overview
Successful businesses, strategies, and products don’t have to be hit-or-miss -- or a roll of the dice. However, they must be created to succeed in the future context, not in the known world of today. The future can’t be predicted with certainty, so how can you plan for it? Scenario planning is a powerful and mature method for defining the trends that will impact the future, articulating the likely futures you face, and creating strategies that address and adapt to the different futures you envision. As a result, you have a better, richer, and more ordered understanding of the future and the trends that drive it. Your business and design strategies can reflect this deep understanding, lowering risk and improving your ability to recognize key opportunities as they emerge. Scenario planning is just one of the methods in the Innovation Planning Toolkit, a set of rigorous tools developed by Vijay Kumar to de-risk and support the Innovation Planning Process. You can download Vijay’s paper "Innovation Planning Toolkit" here: http://www.id.iit.edu/papers/innov_toolkit.pdf.

Activities

Overview of the Innovation Planning Toolkit

Learn the basic theory and examples of the scenario planning method.

Learn the key steps in executing scenario planning.

Perform a scenario planning exercise to give you hands-on experience with the processes. Bring your team along for best results.

Survey additional innovation tools and methods that increase the success of other modes of innovation planning.

Benefits

Improve your ability to sense future trends, define possible futures, and use this understanding to inform business and design strategies.

Recognize when a strategy is dangerously dependant on a desirable future, and recognize that scenario planning would be a valuable method to increase the likelihood of success.

Know how to execute scenario planning exercises to create adaptable strategies.

These will be followed by a workshop where participants will contribute ideas that can help design practice, design education and the people writing about design. These ideas will be captured and shared with the participants and others who can make use of them.

Program Content

2:00pm		Welcome, introductory comments and overview of Innovation Toolkit
2:30		Introduction to Scenario Planning
3:00		Team Exercise -- 4 teams of 5
4:30		Team presentations -- 15 minutes each
5:30		Refreshments and conversation
6:30pm		Conclude

Note: Participation will be limited to 20. If we receive enough requests by May 10th, we will repeat the workshop on the following day, May 25th at another location.

Faculty

Vijay Kumar

Vijay Kumar is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Design. His teaching and research focus on strategic innovation, innovation methods, information structuring, and human-centered product/communication systems. He has over 22 years of experience in consulting, teaching, and research and development in these areas worldwide. As an innovation planning leader at Doblin Inc., Kumar spent more than 12 years consulting on customer-centered innovations for companies such as Alamo, Amoco Oil, Hallmark, Lenscrafters, McDonald’s, Motorola, Pfizer, Royal Dutch Shell, SAS Airlines, Steelcase, Texas Instruments, and Wells Fargo.

Who Should Attend
This workshop on Scenario Planning is for designers, strategists, and entrepreneurial thinkers who need richer and more structured methods for thinking and innovating in future contexts (next quarter, next year, next five years). The workshop provides the understanding, tools, and experience to help you bring order to the future and find adaptable solutions.

Location
MetaDesign
615 Battery St, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111
415 627 0790
http://www.metadesign.com/

Fees and registration
$400 per person
$1000 for three colleagues from the same firm

To register:

1) Go to https://payment.iit.edu and pay on-line with MasterCard, Visa or Discover. Make sure to include your full contact information on the form.

2) Download and fax back the print registration form (PDF, 123k) to the Institute of Design at 312-595-4901, or mail it with a check to:
Institute of Design workshops, 350 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60610.

Contact
Niti Bhan
Director, Graduate Recruiting
niti@id.iit.edu
312-595-4927

Modified: Friday, 06-May-2005 10:27:22 CDT

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