The Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop

The Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop is a practical team building event designed to promote creative improvement in organization employees through the design of an unstoppable competitor in your own industry.

This is not your brother's design thinking course where you play with building blocks, gift wrap and and solve silly problems through painful interviews.

This course is intended to

• increase the creativity in the workplace by showing attendees to reach into new areas of interest.
• increase invention by exemplifying what it means to invest in new ideas.
• enable better pathways for change by recognizing innovation of successful processes, systems and designs
• understand ideation as a driving force for all of the above.

The time is now to galvanize your team for the future

Amid these tumultuous times of the retail apocalypse, the encroachment of the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and other human replacement technologies, white, blue and grey collared individuals are striving to stay relevant in this world.  This workshop is about empowerment of employees and recognizing their contributions to the future.

The Workshop Components

Setting: Across the street from your corporate office, a new startup has moved in.  This organization works in your industry.  In fact, they are a direct competitor.  And yes, they are fierce.  What do they look like?  Why are they successful?  How do they operate differently from your company?  In what do they invest?  People?  Products? Processes?

Coaxing the answers to these questions from your staff gives them the opportunity to suggest the optimal situations for your competitor- and thereby also suggesting them for your company as well, without the fear of challenging the status quo.

We have designed our Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop to inspire your 21st century workforce to greatness:

• Design the Best Version of your Own Business Disguised as a Competitor
• Learn how your Employees would Improve your Business
• Inspire Creativity in Employees to be more than Just their Job Title
• Uncover Real Opportunities for Company Improvement
• See Team Building with Actionable Results- not fluff and games
• Uncover Hidden Skills Employees

What does a Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop Look Like?

Big Paper Strategy  provides a structured and fun event for 12-40 people that fits well into off-site meetings, national sales meetings, and company retreats.  Big Paper Strategy focuses on visual communication so big paper, whiteboards and creativity is encouraged.

A typical Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop agenda includes:

1. The Buildup - An inspirational and exciting glimpse as to what a Fiercest Competitor might be. Attendees learn that they will be given the chance, both individually and corporately, to build a more perfect version of your company (without the baggage of fear and change).  This is accompanied by drawing.
2. Conditioning - An employee that can grow and change is essential for the 21st century.  This malleability, at least for the Fiercest Competitor Design Workshop, is told to be valued by leadership, and not something to fear.
3. Fierce - Let's get to it.  The first round of open brainstorming gets some of the big ideas of the most ready attendees.  Big Paper Strategy facilitates this brainstorming, adds guiding questions, and records answers graphically.
4. Cross Pollenization - We'll mix up your personnel to get everyone talking at different levels and different departments.  Team thinking and reporting in a Cherette style event.  Drawing by teams, and Big Paper Strategy.
5. Drawing on other Experiences - Instead of spending time on understanding the fixed process of design thinking, we instead focus on how creativity comes to be- how ideas are more often borrowed and recombined than appear out of thin air.  We will ask employees to dig deep on their past experiences- both personal and vocational, to ideate.
6. The Fiercest Competitor Naming Ceremony - Consolidating the day's ideas, and naming your fierce competitor.
7. Take Aways - An analysis of the day's events, identify the best of the best to incorporate into your business.

Customizing the Fiercest Competitor Workshop

Your company is unique.  We get it.  Let's work together ahead of time to identify the specific components of the Fiercest Competitor Workshop that would best suit your needs.  Maybe this you need this for a slew of engineers, or your accounting department, or maybe the men working in your machine shop or running your service department.   We can customize the workshop to meet their needs and guide questions and activities accordingly.