Innovate faster and smarter with innovation sprints that deliver results
Do you have plenty of innovative ideas but lack a structured approach to stress-test them and mature their business cases quickly? Do you need better tools, methodologies, coaching, and feedback to convince senior executives to sponsor your projects?
Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Our Innovation Bootcamps will help you stress-test your innovation ideas quickly and effectively with a proven approach through a 3 to 5 day maturation sprint tailored to your needs. Our experts work with innovators in your company to mature their business cases and build convincing pitches to present to management. We have a unique approach to coaching and feedback that truly helps your teams bring their ideas to life.
"I really appreciate all the work done and the incredible effort put forward by MTI² to make InnovationWorks a success. Truly a successful partnership.“
What are MTI²'s Innovation Bootcamps and how do they help your organization?
MTI² is a global pioneer in innovation bootcamps – a short, intensive, and focused three to five day workshop during which innovation teams stress-test their innovation ideas and mature their business cases into full-fledged business cases to be pitched to management.
Our nearly two decades of experience with leading companies helped us perfect our proprietary tools, methodologies, and our expert coaching and feedback to help your teams bring their ideas to life. We also offer tailored and accurate tools and frameworks to help innovation teams explore their ideas and move in the right direction toward full-fledged business cases.
Our expert coaches will challenge and help your innovation teams clarify and improve their business cases quickly. Therefore, your teams will be able to fast-track their path toward a solid business case using the tools and methodologies we bring to help them explore options and make decisions.
At the end of an Innovation Bootcamp, teams pitch their matured business cases to management who can then make informed funding decisions based on a pitch that covers all essentials of a business case.
Over the years, we have deployed innovation bootcamps at dozens of leading innovators such as Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Aliaxis, Baloise Insurance, Baxter, KLM, MAHLE, Merck, Michelin, SKF, Takeda, etc. Our unique approach has consistently accelerated innovation, reduced risk, and brought products or services to market faster and better.
What does an Innovation Bootcamp with MTI² look like?
Our approach starts with a lean co-design trajectory (one or two meetings) where we work with you to understand your innovation goals and challenges and tailor our sprint approach to best fit your organization’s needs. This entails mixing the right activities, tools, use cases and choosing the right tooling and frameworks to reach your goals.
We then enter the deployment phase, where we deliver your tailored innovation bootcamp. A typical bootcamp helps project teams (1) move from innovation ideas to business concepts, (2) then transform the best concepts into clear business cases, and (3) ultimately convert business cases to a proposal seeking funding from management.
Below we give you concrete examples of the activities and tools we typically use in each of these steps.
From innovation idea to business concept
During ideation, the scope and the sheer number of ideas that innovation teams have can be huge and, at the same time, often insufficiently precise on which customer needs are being solved and why we need a specific solution. This is precisely where MTI² can add value by coaching and supporting teams to clarify their concepts in a short time span. Our coaching is much more than just coaching toward a pitch. It also includes upskilling your innovators in critical business acumen skills such as assessing business viability, preparing for validation, and convincing management.
Example: The MTI²‘s Concept Pitch
The Concept Pitch covers four key steps in developing an innovative idea. First, it helps define the target customer, their pains, and how the proposed solution brings value to them (i.e., value creation). Second, it explains how the company will extract value from the solution (i.e., value extraction). Third, it identifies the main hurdles and explains how teams will overcome them (i.e., hurdles). Lastly, it helps form a team and mentions who else is needed for the team to succeed (i.e., team). These steps force ideators to clarify how users and the company profit from their idea, all while capturing their proposed idea in a systematic and easy-to-share business concept.
From business concept to business case
After selecting the best concepts, it is time to mature them into full-fledged business cases. At this stage, we help selected idea owners form high-performing teams through digital or live marketplaces. We also support the teams in gathering valuable research insights to advance their concepts into business cases. To mature concepts into business cases we organize tailored workshops, typically in 3-5 consecutive days, with intense coaching and practice. These workshops promote collaboration among employees and help them reach their full potential.
Example case: MAHLE Incubator
In 2017, MAHLE reached out to MTI² for help in designing its first incubator program and deploying the same edition. MAHLE’s goal was twofold. First, to stimulate a “startup mindset“ among MAHLE’s employees, through its own incubator program aimed at stimulating internal ventures.
Second, MAHLE wanted to stimulate new business “beyond the core”, ranging from innovations on the electric charging infrastructure to climate control ideas, and even B2C ideas targeting the aftermarket.
Converting business cases into proposals seeking funding
The last important step of our innovation bootcamp is to help teams prepare and deliver a convincing pitch to management where they ask for further resources to validate their business case assumptions and move towards market launch. We help the teams storyboard, streamline and practice their presentation through several dry-runs, culminating in a 12-min presentation to top management to decide which projects to launch. Top management then decides which projects to take forward toward research and validation.
Example template: Business Case Pitch Deck
The Business Case Pitch Deck is one of our proven templates to help innovation teams mature their ideas into full-fledged business cases. By asking teams to follow, to the extent possible, this type of template, we ensure comparability from the management’s perspective. This template forces ideators to clarify (1) their unique value proposition, (2) technical competitive advantage, and (3) the business model for rapid growth. This template helps teams clearly and concisely communicate their idea, which is critical to securing support and resources for further development.
