Cross functional teams are not for amateurs. They can be a disaster for the under-prepared, not only wasting the time of key people, but actually damaging long term relationships. We know how to organize and lead full projects, or support on-going projects, to optimize the three benefits of cross-functional collaborations:
| The collaboration designs or improves a business strategy, product, production process, service, marketing plan, organizational restructuring, or organizational intervention |
| Participants learn new concepts, skills and perspectives that increase their creativity and leadership |
| Working and succeeding together develops relationships which facilitate future innovation and cooperation |
We work with your organization to define a project, assemble the right people for a relevant, implemented solution, and lead the collaboration to a clearly defined plan for the next steps, providing "just-in-time" training on highly effective creativity and insight techniques. These projects tend to be about 40 hours of meetings, often three pairs of days in alternating weeks. When appropriate, we also provide:
| Technical and Managerial Experts who can participate in team efforts, contributing expertise and perspective not otherwise available to the team. (Note that these people contribute creatively without giving professional recommendations.) |
| Focus Group Information Gathering from customers, suppliers, employees, and other groups. |
| Strategic Management Education sessions giving managers and engineers concepts and skills related to strategy, management, and organization design, preparing them to more effectively design organizational solutions. |
| Industry and Technology Briefings covering the latest developments which might be relevant to a strategy or a design. |
| Meeting Facilities and Equipment which will impact the productivity of the team effort. This might involve making arrangements for a conference facility or providing an Internet linked collaborative computer system. |
The Co-Creativity Institute's principals have provided a variety of co-creativity services to many different organizations on a variety of projects. In each case our essential contribution was to help knowledgeable people be more creative and insightful together, blending their perspectives into a more complete and integrated understanding of the situation which made new and better alternatives obvious.
| Helping develop or improve products such as medical diagnostic equipment, wireless electronics, fitness equipment, laboratory equipment, automotive batteries, truck brake components, electronic multiplexers, high voltage switch gear, and heat exchange air conditioners. |
| Helping improve the production processes and facilities for building products, batteries, agricultural products, fertilizer, and electronics. |
| Helping improve the structure and operations of a variety of organizations, including design and construction; building control system design, manufacture, and installation; battery warehousing; natural resource management. |
| Helped governments improve the purchase of fire fighting apparatus and improve the design of office buildings, wind tunnels, wastewater treatment plants, military construction, training facilities, and schools. |
In addition to our unique conceptual approaches to creativity, innovation, and leadership, we draw on socio-technical systems, organizational development, general systems thinking, value engineering, strategic management, conflict management, quality function deployment, total quality management, and creative problem solving. Our breadth of experience prepares us to assist most complex cross functional team projects, regardless of industry, goal, or team membership.
We can completely manage the teamwork and collaboration process on a project or can handle sub parts of ongoing projects, such as leading a particularly difficult meeting, assisting in project planning, or delivering education which prepares the organization to use teams.
We have special resources to organize and manage specially focused cross-functional team projects:
| Profit improvement and cost reduction with Value Engineering |
| Product design improvement to reduce potential for catastrophe |
| Pre-planning for disaster and emergency |
| Managing outsourcing, including product redesign for global manufacturing |