How can you create successful innovation events?

1 Define your goals

Before you start organizing your innovation event, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. What is the main challenge or opportunity you want to address? Who are your target audience and stakeholders? What are the expected outputs and impacts of your event? Having a well-defined goal will help you design your event format, content, and activities, as well as measure your success.

2 Choose your format

When selecting an innovation event to reach your goal, you have several options to choose from, such as hackathons, workshops, ideathons, and design sprints. Each of these formats come with their own benefits and drawbacks, so it is important to take into account your time, budget, resources, and objectives when deciding. For instance, hackathons are intensive events where teams of programmers and designers collaborate to create prototypes or solutions for a specific problem or theme. On the other hand, workshops are interactive sessions where participants learn new skills and tools and apply them to a project or challenge. Similarly, ideathons are brainstorming events where participants generate and pitch ideas for a specific topic or issue. Lastly, design sprints are structured processes where teams follow a series of steps to define, prototype, and test a product or service idea.

4 Engage your participants

The success of your innovation event hinges on the engagement and satisfaction of your participants. To ensure that they have a positive and productive experience, you should invite diverse and relevant participants who can contribute to your event's goal and challenge. Additionally, create a safe and supportive environment where participants can express their ideas, opinions, and feedback and respect each other's contributions. Encourage collaboration and creativity through interactive activities like icebreakers, games, or challenges that promote teamwork, communication, and innovation. Finally, recognize and reward your participants' efforts, achievements, and learnings with incentives such as prizes, certificates, or opportunities to motivate them to participate and excel.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?