1st Physical Training – Design Thinking For Innovation

The CTCC project created the framework conditions that enable transferring of design-driven innovation skills to the traditional SMEs of South Baltic. The transfer was happening during the cross-sectoral trainings. SMEs from all 5 regions (in total 300), all 6 sectors (maritime transport & shipbuilding; green (renewable) energy production (offshore wind energy; biofuels, biogas); maritime tourism (yachting, marinas and cruising infrastructure);  design; architecture (naval architecture); advertising (software, games)) and were integrated and connected by creative brokers in joint cross-sectoral trainings and creative auditing. During the project, creative brokers are external experts and coaches.

Afterwards, two types of trainings are implemented – online trainings and physical trainings in 5 regions.

The three-day training dedicated to the implementation of design thinking and design strategies into companies’ operations were hosted by the Klaipeda Science and Technology Park on September 26-27, 2018. Two prominent speakers from creative industries Trevor Vaugh (Design Innovation & Strategy) and Martin Ryan (Design Innovation & Entrepreneurship) were leading the workshops and discussions, where they had demonstrated how design thinking can help to develop a user-centered approach to deliver sustainable innovation.

The user-centered approach for Innovation

In today’s volatile market companies must innovate or die. The training helped participants to learn how to observe and capture user behaviours and attitudes to face the key market patterns and challenges. The special training session dedicated to the process of getting from research to insight and solution creation guided SMEs’ and CI representatives on the way of preparing for ideation.

Gathering research data is only half the battle. The next step is the successful interpretation of the data and extracting valuable insights. New insights must be carefully crafted into a vision statement that retains the new knowledge and balances ambition and realism. This part of the training introduced key methods to promote creative idea generation and a unique, high potential value proposition.

Solution building & validation

During this section, SMEs got an idea about how to build, test, and de-risk innovation concepts. After constructing a complete solution and consider the appropriate business model, the first steps of validating the solution were explained.

Because every solution has implicit assumptions, to manage risk participants learned how to identify these assumptions and test them against market realities. That made it possible to understand the likely success, or failure, in the early stages of the innovation process.