Module 1
Innovation workshop architecture
- Clarifying purpose, participants and decision.
- Pre-work, evidence and challenge briefs.
- Workshop flow and energy management.
- Room, virtual and hybrid design.
- Facilitator roles and ground rules.
Intermediate Programme
Idea Generation, Concept Development and Innovation Workshops
Design and facilitate innovation workshops that move from productive divergence to evaluated concepts and clear decisions.
Course overview
Turn collaborative creativity into evaluated concepts and clear next steps.
This course equips professionals to design and facilitate structured innovation workshops. It combines group creativity, facilitation, concept development, evaluation and decision design so sessions produce more than energy and sticky notes—they produce usable concepts, evidence needs and committed next steps.
Participants work through structured exercises and a realistic innovation challenge, progressively applying innovation workshop architecture, facilitating divergence, concept development and the later course modules to make evidence-based decisions rather than treating innovation tools as isolated techniques.
The course emphasises practical judgement, usable outputs and workplace transfer so that participants can apply the methods immediately after the programme and adapt them to their organisation’s strategy, governance and innovation environment.
Learning outcomes
What participants will be able to do.
By the end of the course, participants should be able to:
- Define the purpose, scope and decision outcome of an innovation workshop.
- Choose appropriate divergent and convergent activities.
- Create psychologically safe participation and manage group dynamics.
- Facilitate ideation without anchoring or dominating.
- Develop raw ideas into structured concepts.
- Apply transparent concept evaluation criteria.
- Manage disagreement, bias and selection trade-offs.
- Produce a workshop decision record and action plan.
Who should attend
Designed for professionals building innovation capability.
- Innovation facilitators and team leaders.
- Design, product and service teams.
- Managers running improvement or transformation workshops.
- Consultants, business analysts and project professionals.
- Learning and development professionals facilitating innovation sessions.
Prerequisites
Practical, professionally relevant entry requirements.
- Some experience of meetings, workshops or collaborative problem-solving is useful.
- Participants should bring a potential workshop challenge where possible.
- No formal facilitation certification is required.
Course structure
A five-part journey from workshop design to actionable innovation concepts.
The sequence may be delivered across five days or adapted to another approved format while preserving the learning outcomes.
Module 2
Facilitating divergence
- Brainwriting and structured ideation.
- Silent versus verbal methods.
- Round-robin and perspective shifts.
- Managing hierarchy and dominant voices.
- Psychological safety and constructive challenge.
Module 3
Concept development
- Clustering, combining and building ideas.
- Concept cards and value hypotheses.
- Customer, process and business implications.
- Assumptions and dependencies.
- Making concepts comparable.
Module 4
Convergence and decision design
- Evaluation criteria and decision rights.
- Dot voting versus evidence-based selection.
- Bias, groupthink and political influence.
- Ranking, scoring and portfolio selection.
- Documenting rationale and uncertainties.
Module 5
Facilitation practicum and transfer
- Live facilitation practice.
- Handling conflict, silence and low energy.
- Timeboxing and adaptation.
- Workshop close, ownership and follow-through.
- Personal facilitation improvement plan.
Learning experience
Apply ideas—not simply remember terminology.
The course uses a structured mix of explanation, facilitated discussion, realistic innovation challenges and workplace-focused application.
Analyse
Integrated innovation case
Participants diagnose a realistic innovation situation and progressively build the course-specific innovation approach.
Practise
Tools and working templates
Exercises produce practical maps, canvases, decision aids, experiments, analyses and other course-specific working outputs.
Decide
Scenario-based workshops
Teams assess evidence, compare options, manage uncertainty and make defensible innovation decisions.
Reflect
Professional judgement
Facilitated reviews connect innovation methods with leadership behaviour, governance, ethics and accountability.
Apply
Workplace transfer
Participants identify how to adapt the methods to their own innovation challenges and organisational environment.
Reinforce
Knowledge checks
Short reviews, peer challenge and facilitator feedback confirm understanding and identify areas requiring further development.
Completion requirements
Demonstrate participation, application and professional judgement.
- Participate actively in discussions, exercises and innovation workshops.
- Complete the principal course outputs assigned during the programme.
- Contribute to the final application or decision workshop.
- Complete knowledge checks and a personal workplace action plan.
Participant outputs
Typical course outputs include:
- Workshop brief and agenda.
- Facilitation plan and activity sequence.
- Idea and concept templates.
- Concept evaluation matrix.
- Workshop decision and action record.
- Personal facilitation development plan.
Delivery options
Choose the format that fits your people and business requirements.
Instructor-led
Live Classroom
Facilitated face-to-face learning with group exercises, case work, discussion and immediate feedback.
Instructor-led
Live Virtual Classroom
Interactive online delivery with facilitated workshops, collaborative activities and real-time discussion.
Flexible
Blended Learning
A structured combination of preparation, live facilitation, assignments and follow-up application.
Organisation-specific
Corporate and In-Company
Customised delivery aligned with the organisation’s strategy, terminology, innovation environment, governance and capability priorities.
Frequently asked questions
Course information and participation.
Do I need previous innovation experience?
The expected experience varies by course level. Foundation programmes require no formal innovation qualification; intermediate and advanced programmes benefit from relevant workplace exposure. The prerequisites above provide the course-specific guidance.
Will participants receive practical tools?
Yes. The programme uses structured templates and produces practical outputs that participants can adapt to their organisations, subject to local governance, legal and methodology requirements.
Can the programme be customised for an organisation?
Yes. Corporate delivery can incorporate organisation-specific innovation challenges, strategy, cases, governance, terminology, tools, portfolio priorities and expected outputs.
Does completion provide a professional certification?
The course develops practical innovation capability and provides an INDENTRA course-completion record where applicable. It is not presented as a third-party professional certification unless separately stated.
Can the five Modules be delivered in another format?
Yes. INDENTRA may adapt sequencing, exercises and delivery format while preserving the stated learning outcomes and overall learning effort.
Take the next step
Design and facilitate innovation workshops that move from productive divergence to evaluated concepts and clear decisions.
Discuss public delivery, a corporate cohort or a tailored programme aligned with your organisation’s innovation priorities.