A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of training and certifying a group of talented corporate in-house innovation facilitators during an intense three-day workshop on our X-IDEA innovation method.

While preparing for this “train-the-facilitator” program, I turned to one of our trusted Xploration Tools—Customer Journey Map—to chart the entire innovation facilitation process. Here, the “customer” represents an innovation project traveling through the stages of in-house innovation facilitation. The same principles apply equally well to independent innovation facilitators guiding external corporate clients.

Customer journey mapping often reveals an eye-opening insight: most journeys start earlier and end much later than we initially assume. In this case, it was no different: I identified nine distinct stages that innovation facilitators must traverse. Ready to embark on this journey with me?

1. Challenge Recognition

Every facilitation journey begins with the emergence of an innovation challenge. A challenge could stem from a problem—such as inefficiencies in a production line or difficulties retaining Gen Z talent—or an opportunity—such as creating a sustainable product or launching a disruptive business model.

Recognizing a challenge is the critical spark that ignites the innovation journey. Whether a team member spots a bug to fix or an opportunity to pursue, this moment of challenge recognition sets everything in motion.

2. Challenge Awareness

While facilitators occasionally recognize challenges themselves, more often, someone else flags them. So, how do you, as an innovation facilitator, become aware of these challenges?

For in-house teams, establish clear communication channels—think regular management meetings, bug lists, hotlines, or internal platforms. As an external facilitator, you can rely on tools like a contact form or an AI chatbot to probe potential client challenges.

3. Challenge Prioritization

Too many challenges? Too little time? This is a common dilemma. Innovation facilitators need a structured mechanism for prioritizing challenges.

For example, you can use a simple 3x3 matrix with axes for urgency and impact (each categorized as low, medium, or high) to prioritize all potential projects in your challenge pipeline. By mapping challenges, you can decide:

• Which projects to tackle first,
• Which to address later, and
• Which to pass on altogether.

4. Planning and preparation of an innovation session

At this stage, facilitators plan and prepare for the actual innovation workshop. While you don’t need deep expertise in the project case (that’s the team’s job), you do need a clear understanding of the issue. Collaborate with the project’s owner and sponsor to collect all necessary information to craft a viable project brief.

Key planning considerations include:

• Allocating time to each stage of the creative process. For example, in an X-IDEA session of up to one day, follow the 40-30-15-10-5 rule to go through the stages of Xploration, Ideation, Development, Evaluation, and Action. This time budget —expressed as percentages, with the balance used for project and method introduction and event closure— works well for such short X-IDEA sessions.
• Selecting suitable thinking tools used in each X-IDEA stage that fit the nature of the case and the set time,
• Specifying target outputs you expect in each stage given the time and the number of heads in a team.
• Preparing all workshop materials (e.g., Post-its, flip charts, cutters, scissors, tape, pens) in ample quantities.

5. Facilitation

Now, the real magic begins: facilitating the innovation workshop. Follow your well-prepared plan, but stay flexible. As former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

During the session, stay neutral and supportive. Your role is to guide the team as an impartial servant, not contribute ideas or take sides. As an innovation facilitator, you also help the teams to stay productive and to ensure they produce quality outputs in adequate numbers at each stage.

After each stage and at the end of the event, make sure that you collect or digitize key outputs. Finally, do a post-mortem within a day (“What went wrong? What happened unexpectedly that was good? What can we learn from this to improve our facilitation process going forward?”).

6. Documentation

Professional facilitators don’t stop when the innovation workshop ends. The next stage involves documenting the project flow, tools used, and outputs achieved.

At Thinkergy, we use the X-IDEA Innovation Project Log to capture:

• Tools applied at each stage,
• Key throughputs (e.g., assumptions, points of view, or trends) and outputs (e.g., insights, raw ideas, idea concepts, prototypes, top ideas), and
• Quantifiable project statistics (what we call X-IDEA Stats).

To effectively document an innovation team’s work and outputs, you can involve photographing idea Post-its, scanning worksheets, videotaping, recording and transcribing idea pitches and Q&A feedback, or leveraging online platforms such as Miro. Over time, this archive helps identify patterns, refine processes and tools, and serve as a foundation and reference for future projects.

7. Tracking performance implications

In this stage, facilitators quantify the financial impact of the top ideas generated and implemented. While external facilitators may rely on estimates (based on a mix of actual numbers, assumptions, and informed guesses), in-house teams can dig deeper to gather hard metrics with a bit of persistence.

As innovation facilitators, why do you want to track the performance implications of implemented top ideas? Because the success of your facilitation makes the final stages of this journey much more rewarding.

8. Storytelling

One of my mantras is simple: “Do good things and talk about them.” You have successfully facilitated an innovation project, documented it, and quantified its likely performance impact. Now is the time to tell the world about it. 

Craft a compelling success story that brings the innovation project to life. Include:

• The challenge tackled,
• Tools and processes used,
• Outputs created, and
• Projected performance impacts.

Add team testimonials to make the story more relatable and engaging. Share your success across formats—social media, case studies, newsletters—while respecting confidentiality.

9. Recognition and Rewards

The ninth and final stage of the innovation facilitation journey is vital to preserve an innovation facilitator’s motivation over time. Facilitating innovation isn’t easy. It’s hard work—mentally, physically, and emotionally. But when done right, the outcomes are transformative for both an organization’s culture and its financial performance. So, wouldn’t it be fair to recognize and reward those innovation facilitators for their significant contributions?

For in-house facilitators, companies can offer recognition in the form of incentives, rewards, or training opportunities. External facilitators can increase their fees as their portfolio of success stories grows.

Both can gain wider recognition by participating in innovation awards—a great way to spotlight both ideas and execution. For example, in 2017, a corporate team Thinkergy worked with won their group’s global innovation competition with an idea born from our X-IDEA process.

• Learn more about modern innovation types and all key factors to consider while planning an innovation project in my new book, Unleashing Wow!
• Want to learn how to unleash ideas and breakthroughs with X-IDEA? Explore our X-IDEA website and the X-IDEA booklet to discover how we make innovation fun, structured, and effective.
• Let’s collaborate to unleash the creativity of your team. Contact us today to learn about our training formats and workshops.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2024.