From our experience with

The DIY guide for

INNOVATION
TRANSFORMATION
Innovation Transformation is not a plus, it’s a business
imperative. 50% of today’s S&P 500 companies will
abandon the list within 2027, a study suggests. In an
unpredictable environment, companies can’t rely merely
on spotted initiatives to steer innovation, aimed to well-
defined change. Instead, a transformation program is
needed. This guide will lead you through the steps to start
an effective corporate transformation.
62 years
211%
return
Design-driven
companies

50

S&P 500
years

30

10

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 TODAY

The average lifespan of S&P 500 companies has In the last 10 years, design-driven companies have
reduced from being listed for over 60 years in outperformed  the S&P 500  by 211%.
1920, to 17 years today.
An overview
Our experience in designing
multiple training programs and
innovation projects for
Corporates like ING, Proximus,
Adidas, and others, led us to
ideate an Innovation
Transformation Program that
minimizes the risks and costs of
innovation while boosting the
learning outcomes for the
company and its employees.
Here’s how.
9 capabilities to acquire in 2018
Culture change? Build it through real projects
Are you aiming to a company-wide cultural and
capability change? Don’t just tell your
employees what they should do – make them
work on concrete projects. A study shows,
learning by doing is 7x more effective than
reading, and 15x than simply listening.
Dream big, act small: run a pilot first
Is your plan to inspire all your 20,000
employees? Start with a small pilot with 20
employees involved, learn from experience,
refine the program. Is the program perfect?
That’s the time when you can scale up to the
broader organization.
Build internal capabilities, avoid
dependencies
Are you resorting to consultancies to help you
reshape the internal capabilities of your
company? If yes, make sure they will
successfully transfer the mindset to the internal
workforce – you don’t want to depend on them
in the long term. With our Train-the-Trainer
programs and Design Thinking Academy, we
train internal coaches. So that you can do
without us.
January February March April
1. Discover
You can’t change if you don’t
know what you’re trying to
change. The first phase of an
Innovation Transformation
Program starts with a deep
understanding of the current
culture, the existing capabilities,
and the strengths of the ongoing
organizational structure. Next,
you plan the needed innovation
initiatives for the first Pilot
project(s) + earn the buy-in of
management. Rule of thumb:
start small.
Duration
2 months (January and February)
Participants
Change team + Steering Committee
Aim
To define strengths and weaknesses of
the organisation AS IS + design a pilot
May June August September October November December
Understand current culture and
personality profiles
Is there a bottom-up or top-down approach
to new initiatives? Is entrepreneurship
encouraged? How customer-centric is the
workforce? To what extent is your
management aware of new customer trends
and future scenarios? Which personality
profiles (e.g. MBTI) are working in the
organization and in which departments?
Understand current projects methods
What are the departments (marketing, R&D,
innovation center, …) that push the most
innovative services and products? Is there a
central Innovation Department? Are
innovation teams selected within or across
BUs? How are new projects financed?
Understand current capabilities
Which initiatives proved to be the most
effective? Which teams are delivering the
best results?
Design the change strategy
The details for it really vary from
organization to organization – see later
some suggestions to design a good change
strategy, or book a call with us to get
additional insights.
Create your own playbook
On the basis of the insights you gathered
from the previous steps, you’re able to write
a playbook – a declaration of intent where
you define the goals you want to achieve
through the transformation, and the
methodologies you plan to use.
January February March April May June August September October November December

Select one (or two) project(s) with a

defined scope

2. Pilot
Select one or two project(s), with one
defined topic scope, and one geographic
scope – this will be your sandbox where to
experiment, test, learn and adapt your
Innovation Transformation Program, before
scaling it to the whole organization.
Ready, go! Time to run the first
Select one (or two) project team(s)
pilot project(s) – we always Select hands-on, 110% motivated, T-shaped
encourage multiple projects, so individuals. Opening an internal enrolment
on a voluntary basis is an option. The hats
that you can compare and learn. you need? Look for a Team Lead, a Tech Lead,
During these 3 months (duration a Customer Lead, a Business Lead + an
external Transformation coach (need one?).
is indicative), the team(s) go
through an innovation program, Start with a kickoff Design Sprint
A Design Sprint (usually with a different
with a weekly commitment of 2 scope) is a good first step to bring the team
to 3 days a week. The program together, to give a first insight into Lean
Startup and Design Thinking mindset, and to
should feature a healthy mix of create commitment and motivation by
creating quick results.
theoretical and applied learning.
Give guidance through ad-hoc workshops
Add (minor) theoretical sessions to the
program, to give the team the fundamentals
of Innovation Transformation. We usually
focus our training on a blend of Design
Thinking, Lean Startup, and Scrum/Agile
methodologies (more details here).
Duration
3 months (March, April and May) Do – and document learnings
Nike already claimed the slogan, but it’s true:
Participants just do it. Doing stuff is the best way to learn.
Change team + Steering Committee +
Project Team(s) Call external coaches for on-demand
support
Aim Make sure to have extra Transformation
To learn by doing, via the first pilot expertise to challenge the process and to
bring an external point of view.

Create project rooms

Bring the project team(s) away from their
daily workplace. Set the stage for innovation
in informal, comfortable spaces (and please,
fill them with fine food and orange juice).
January February March April May June August September October November December

3. Adapt Update the plan

Are the project loops long enough to deliver
actual results, and short enough to grant
The pilot project is concluded. efficiency? Are the team adequately
committed?
Before scaling the Innovation
Transformation Program to the Update the toolbox
One goal of the Transformation Program is
broader organization, collect to give new tools and mindsets to the
feedback from all the participants participants so that they can use them in
their daily routines and share them with
of the pilot. You may need to adapt colleagues. Are these tools well-suited to be
the following: duration of projects, shared and included in the daily routine? Can
they be improved?
intensity of training, weekly
commitment, mix of senior and Put a center of excellence in control of the
Transformation Program
junior participants, tools to be A center of excellence is a formal group in
the organization that coordinates innovation
transferred to the regular working
initiatives to ensure that innovation is
routine, and so on. structurally embedded in the organization.
Make sure to have such a structure, and put
in in control of the Innovation
Transformation Program.

Train internal trainers

If you rely on external experts to design your
Duration Transformation Program, make sure they
3 months (June, August and September) transfer their expertise and capabilities to
internal coaches – in this regard, we deliver
Participants Train-the-Trainer sessions to build internal
Change team + Steering Committee + expertise in your organization. This will
Project Lead(s) prevent you from being dependent on
external consultants.
Aim
To refine the Innovation Transformation Ensure buy-in from Senior Management
Program before scaling commitment of Executives and CIO is
fundamental to scale the Transformation
Program to the broader organization.
January February March April
4. Scale
The pilot served as a learning
space, where a sub-group of the
organization went through a real-
life business experiment to learn a
new Way of Working. When
scaling the same format to more
projects, keep the same run-learn-
adapt loop: the Transformation
Program itself needs to be
continuously updated to achieve
the greatest learning experience
and to make the new capabilities
endure when the participants go
back to their daily jobs.
Duration
3 months (October to December)
Participants
Change team + Steering Committee +
Project Team(s)
Aim
To scale the transformation to the
broader organisation
May June August September October November December
Repeat phase 2 (just bigger)
Run multiple real-life business experiments
with multiple teams.
Create sharing moments
Create a sharing environment where the
teams (or the Team Leads) periodically come
to the same room and mutually exchange
opinions and insights.
Build an innovation community
Create a community both for people who
have practiced the innovation approach and
for the coaches. The goal: to efficiently
transfer the learning points into the daily
processes.
Leave internal coaches lead the program
further
At this point, you should have already
trained internal coaches for Innovation
Transformation – internal points of
reference that will make your organization
independent from any external consultants
or experts.
Did we forget
something?
This guide is in continuous transformation, thanks to help
of numerous contributors. Share your thoughts (your
challenges, your questions, your experiences) with us to
make this guide even better.

say hi hello@boardofinnovation.com or read more about Transformation

Anneleen Vanhoudt
Design Thinking Lead
anneleen.vanhoudt@boardofinnovation.com
Feel free to tweak, fix, remix any
part of this work, as long as it is
Nick De Mey
for non-commercial purposes.
Good karma on you if you credit Co-founder
Board of Innovation. nick.demey@boardofinnovation.com

Board of Innovation makes Philippe De Ridder

corporations innovate like startups,
Co-founder
mixing proven methods from Design
Thinking and Lean Startup. philippe@boardofinnovation.com
www.boardofinnovation.com
Giorgio Orsucci
Innovation Researcher
giorgio.orsucci@boardofinnovation.com

Yin Lei Zhang

Strategic Designer
yinlei.zhang@boardofinnovation.com

Simone Petersen
Design Thinker
simone.petersen@boardofinnovation.com

We make Corporates innovate like Startups