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Innovation is often touted as essential to competitive advantage, yet most engineers receive very little training in systematic innovation techniques. Much has been written about innovation, but IIA has found that most of what is written is strong on retrospective examples yet light on specific tools and methodical processes that engineers can easily apply and that will truly change their mindset. Most engineers and technical professionals receive an education that develops strong technical and analytical capabilities, but which teaches them very little about recognizing opportunities, stating problems, and developing great concepts that address those opportunities. In response to this situation, IIA has developed extensive teaching materials on systematic innovation techniques that can be applied to help engineers routinely generate creative, innovative, high-value solutions.

During this 8-hour introductory workshop, participants will engage in several exercises designed to help frame the need for, and value of, an innovative mindset and a structured, tool-based approach to innovation. Participants will be briefly introduced to IIA’s ‘Innovator’s Toolbox.’ The toolbox contains approximately 25 tools which are organized into three drawers: Strategy and Problem Definition, Ideation (or Concept Generation), and Idea Management and Implementation. Participants will have an opportunity to apply several of the simpler techniques during the course of the workshop. Further depth on the tools is available in follow-on workshops; this workshop is meant to be largely an awareness-level experience given the time limitations – a critical first step in developing deep expertise with the systematic innovator’s toolset.