sle’s tailored six week Innovation Gym program built internal capability, empowering Seqwater staff to become innovation champions
Seqwater is the bulk water supply authority for South-East Queensland, Australia. In an area challenged by climate change and increased aridity, Seqwater recognised the potential opportunities for innovation to support their goal of delivering safe and secure water supply to 3.8 million South East Queenslanders.. .
With this in mind, Seqwater wanted to strengthen its Innovation Program to tackle current and future challenges. Isle was commissioned to deliver a tailored six week Innovation Gym training program to Seqwater team members supporting this goal.
The Innovation Gym aimed to strengthen Seqwater’s internal capability by fostering an innovation mindset and culture. It provided them the tools to apply design thinking and problem-solving approaches to address real business challenges. Our team combined workshops and online sessions to build problem-solving, innovation, business agility and technology evaluation skills.
The results were highly positive. The program enhanced participants’ innovation capabilities, boosting practical skills and familiarity with key methodologies. One participant reflected, ‘‘Isle’s Innovation Gym is the best innovation training I’ve done in the research, higher education and government sectors.’’ Another noted, “Following this training, I feel comfortable challenging my way of thinking and embracing human-centred design (HCD) approaches.”
The project also improved Seqwater’s capability in technology evaluation and trial design through their Innovation Program. It strengthened problem-solving and turned ideas into pilots and trials.
Benefits of the Approach
- Innovation Literacy: 71% improvement in familiarity with innovation methodologies.
- Technology Evaluation: 27% confidence increase in technology evaluations.
- Innovation Mindset: Majority gained practical innovation skills in stakeholder engagement and problem identification.
- Solution Progression: ~47% of respondents contributed to at least one pilot/trial after training. Seven participants reported progressing a solution with their team.
Specialist Services Involved
- Innovation Training: Delivered high-intensity team-based program.
- Technology Evaluation: Applied Isle’s proprietary Technology Evaluation Framework (TEF).
- Human-Centred Design: Applied HCD and Better Value Sooner Safer Happier methods to case studies.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Equipped champions to engage and influence internal teams.
Outcomes
- Capability Building: Developed a network of trained Innovation Champions.
- Technology Assessment: Improved ability to evaluate and test new solutions.
- Pilot Generation: Supported progression of ideas into pilots and trials.
- Mindset Shift: Established new ways of working to embed innovation culture.
Key contact: For enquiries and further information, please contact Dr Alex Cech, Head of Change and Implementation at Isle.