
LEAPFROG YOUR INNOVATION CULTURE
The expert knowledge sharing workshop to make design thinking, lean start-up, agile, innovation really work.
THE PROBLEM:
Innovation Theater and the
Organizational Immune System
Companies rush headlong into ‘new’ management concepts like Design Thinking, Lean Start-up, or Agile. Many have set up ‘labs’ and trained methods without having thought about any long-term innovation strategy before. By avoiding the hard road of real organizational change and innovation capability building, employees often perceive them as ‘innovation theater’. Sooner or later most organizations find themselves in a situation were all the cool aid methodologies get stifled by their own corporate culture.
THE SOLUTION:
Successful Innovators Use ‘Hacking’ as an Enabler of Innovation
Our research1 has shown: Innovation vanguards are aware of their organizations innovation barriers. They also know when it is necessary to change or circumvent protocol. They either do so purposefully and supported by management. This is called innovation capability building. Or — which is more often the case — they look for ways to hack their very own systems and culture to make the new innovation approaches work in the end.
1 = Carlgren, L., Elmquist, M., & Rauth, I. (2016). The Challenges of Using Design Thinking in Industry – Experiences from Five Large Firms. Creativity And Innovation Management, Forthcoming.
Schmiedgen, J., Rhinow, H., Köppen, E., & Meinel, C. (2015). Parts Without a Whole? – The Current State of Design Thinking Practice in Organizations (Study Report no. 97). Potsdam: Hasso-Plattner-Institut Potsdam.

The Workshop
We offer a half-day workshop where experts can exchange their hacks that made innovation happen.
Innovation Barriers
Understand existing innovation barriers and how, respectively why, they are inherent in most large organizations, based on an evidence-derived typology of barriers.
Identify Your Barriers
Identify your organizations innovation barriers in particular. Reflect upon your own experiences in overcoming such barriers in the daily practice of your organization.
Create New Hacks
Distill creative ways (hacks) in your team to overcome your barriers. Tailor them to your organization and document them in a structured way.
Open Hack Sharing
Partake in an open sharing of hacks among participants in groups of 5-6 people. After sharing the hacks, we stimulate conversations about their adaptation in the daily life of participants.
Best-of Selection
Participate in a presentation of the best hacks from each group for possible cross-fertilization and application in other participants organizations/functions.
All Based On Research
The workshop is based on 5 years of research into the innovation practices of dozens of companies from the EU and USA. Participants will be exclusively introduced to an evidence-based typology of innovation barriers and ways of how to overcome them.
HackThe.Org workshops can come in two flavors
Internal Workshop
We facilitate the exchange of hacks and clever interventions inside your company only. Selected people from different functions get invited to the company-internal workshop. Learnings are shared within the organization.
Open Workshop
We invite people from several industries and across different functions to a collective workshop experience. Hacks, tips and tricks are shared in a safe space. Learning from industry outsiders is guaranteed.
Requirements for participation
For whom it is
People who are trying to do new things or doing things in new ways (e.g. develop a new product or service, bring a new way of working to the company), no matter if they are product managers, interim managers, external change agents, engineers working in R&D, marketers, business strategists or working in any other discipline concerned with innovation. Meeting two or more of below minimum requirements will qualify you for participation:
- You gained 3+ years of experience working in any corporate function, which deals with continuously or radically improving things.
- You are willing to share your experiences in a safe space and discuss it with other participants.
- You have witnessed or accompanied the introduction of a new management concept (e.g. Design Thinking, Lean Startup, etc.) from your own experience (not hearsay) for at least one year.
- You have a longstanding work experience in your organization. Recently you have been assigned to do/supervise innovation work, but you don’t know were to start.
For whom it isn’t
We do not recommend the workshop to ‘beginners in innovation’ as it lives from the knowledge exchange of its participants. We kindly ask for your understanding that we can only compile teams out of people who meet the requirements to the left.
Most Recent And Upcoming ‘HackThe.Org’ Sessions
Date | Event | Place | Run by | More Infos |
14.01.2016 | DTX 2016/01 | Memorial Ketting Center, New York | Jan Schmiedgen, Ingo Rauth | DTX Website |
15.11.2016 | DTX 2016/02 | Procter&Gamble, Cincinatti | Jan Schmiedgen, Ingo Rauth | DTX Website |
17.11.2016 | Company-internal ‘Hack Jam’ | Siemens, Munich, Germany | Bettina Maisch | – |
29.11.2016 | Innovation Café for D-School students | Hasso-Plattner-Institute, Potsdam, Germany | Jan Schmiedgen | – |
19.06.2017 | SAP-HPI Opening | SAP U.S. Headquarters, Hudson Yard, New York | Marie Schmieder, Holger Rhinow, Adam Royalty | – |
07.11.2017 | Innovation RoundTable 2017 | Copenhagen, Denmark | Ingo Rauth | RoundTable Labs |
What Participants Said
Some Slide Impressions From A Recent Talk
Get a glimpse on what to expect from a ‘HackThe.Org’ workshop session from a recent conference talk, Jan Schmiedgen did.
Book Your Very Own Hacking Session
Call +49 30 / 57 70 77 32
For more information please drop us a line and leave your contact data at mail@hackthe.org. We call you back asap.
Imprint & Privacy Statement
Jan Schmiedgen
co:dify Schmiedgen Rauth GbR
Langenscheidtstraße 12b
10827 Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 30 57707732
Phone: +49 30 57707732
Fax: +49 30 48 49 82 168
Mail: privacy@codify.in
Jan Schmiedgen
co:dify Schmiedgen Rauth GbR
Langenscheidtstraße 12b
10827 Berlin
Germany
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