Innovation workshop design, delivered in 48 hours
Innovation workshop design is the work of building a session that produces decisions rather than a wall of sticky notes: how ideas are generated, how they are narrowed, and how the group commits to what survives. We design the session and you run it, which keeps ownership of the outcome inside your team. Fixed prices start at $995 and the design arrives within 48 hours of a twenty-minute intake call.
From $995. Delivered 48 hours after the intake call. One revision included.
The real problem
The ideation session that generates ideas and decides nothing
Most innovation workshops are well designed for the first half and undesigned for the second. Generating ideas is easy and enjoyable, and there are a hundred free formats for doing it. The room fills with possibilities and everyone leaves energised.
Then nothing is funded. The convergence half was never designed, so the group narrowed by enthusiasm rather than criteria, and the decision did not survive the first budget conversation because nobody could defend how it was reached.
The reliable pattern in portfolio and pipeline sessions is that the argument is never really about the options. It is about the criteria, which have never been agreed. Groups that debate projects before agreeing what makes a project good will debate projects forever.
What we design against
Designing the half nobody designs
Criteria before candidates. Where the session has to choose between existing options, the design agrees the standard first and applies it mechanically afterwards. It converts a political argument into an analytical one, and it is the single highest-leverage move in this kind of session.
Convergence with real time in it. Scoring twelve concepts takes as long as it takes, and a plan that allocates twenty minutes to it is a plan that will not finish. We check throughput against the clock rather than hoping.
Divergence that is not just the confident people. Written-first generation before discussion, so the quiet specialist contributes before the room has anchored on the first idea spoken aloud.
A defensible record. What was chosen, what was stopped, and why in each case. Stopping work is the harder half of portfolio decisions, and it unravels without a documented reason.
Where this comes from
Eighteen years of consumer goods innovation rooms
This service was built out of consumer insights and strategy work with Fortune 500 food, beverage, and consumer goods companies: pipeline reviews, concept selection, category strategy, and the portfolio sessions where a business decides what it will stop doing.
The vocabulary of those rooms is here because the experience is. That said, the design work is not category-bound. The structure of a decision does not change much between a snack portfolio and a software roadmap.
Pricing
Published, fixed, and the same for everyone
You should be able to decide without a sales call.
Single Objective
One session, one decision.
$995
Fixed. One revision included.
For the meeting that has to produce one clear outcome. A single objective, a room that has to agree, and no time to recover if the first activity does not land.
- Diagnostic call and written brief of what the session must achieve
- Minute-by-minute agenda with timings and transitions
- Facilitator scripts, worded for your room
- Contingency branches for the moments most likely to go wrong
- One-page control sheet to hold while you run it
- Outcomes review after the session
Designed for a session of up to two hours.
Workshop Day
A full working day, designed end to end.
$1,495
Fixed. One revision included.
For the offsite or away day where several things have to happen in sequence, and where losing the room after lunch costs you the afternoon.
- Everything in Single Objective
- Full-day arc with energy management across the whole session
- Break and transition design, including the post-lunch recovery
- Group formation guidance for every activity
- Materials and room setup checklist
- Contingency branches for each block, named to your people
Designed for a half day or full day, including breaks and energy management.
High-Stakes
When the session carries real consequence.
From $2,995
Quoted after a fit-check call.
For the decision that will be relitigated if it goes badly. Restructures, portfolio cuts, merger integration, and any room where the person leading it has a stake in the outcome.
- Everything in Workshop Day
- Stakeholder mapping across official, individual, and unspoken objectives
- Neutrality design when the person leading has a stake in the outcome
- Escalation branches for conflict, dominance, and withdrawal
- Multi-day arc design where the work spans sessions
- Rehearsal call included
Multi-day programs, board-level sessions, and rooms with known conflict.
Questions