How to Create a Successful B2B Workshop for Open Innovation Ecosystems and Co-Creation to Build New Value Chains
Authors: Nina Hurme and Tiina Laiho, CLIC Innovation
Designing and executing a successful B2B workshop is a critical step in fostering open innovation ecosystems and co-creation efforts aimed at building new value chains. This best practice guide provides a comprehensive roadmap for planning, facilitating, and managing all aspects of your workshop, whether offline or online.
The Most Important Requirements for Success
Personnel
Along with the event coordinator, make sure there are enough skilled facilitators and note takers present and instruct all their responsibilities well in advance and if necessary, train them. If the venue needs some arranging of furniture, make sure there are enough people to help. Consider also the need for subject experts.
Facilitation Tools and Timelines
Plan well in advance the workshop concept, process and timelines for each of the agenda points. Select appropriate canvases for people to work on, smaller printed ones for people to make notes for themselves, post it notes to be added to the large canvas, pens and any required means for note taking. Consider methods and canvases that are suited to reach the targets for your workshop. Define targets as onset before planning with the team.
Location
If creating an offline workshop, book the venue well in advance. Book the venue to allow possible arranging of the furniture before and after the event. Consider also the need for networking after the workshop. If creating an online workshop, create an online working space.
Stakeholders
To create a successful B2B workshop you need to first identify the relevant stakeholders. Try to identify as many actors as possible and contact them well in advance about the participation. Take note of stakeholder diversity to include businesses, research organizations, educational institutions, public organizations and NGOs depending on your need. If possible, try to include different genders, ages and other demographic groups in the participants. Consider the focus of your workshop and plan accordingly. The composition depends on targets.
Invitations
The invitations to the workshop should be sent at least 1,5 months prior to the event. Attach link to the registration form to the invitation. And if possible, include the agenda to the invitation as well. Webropol is a good tool to create the registration form, because it allows creating a calendar invitation to be sent straight after the registration. If changes occur, both the registration form and the calendar invitation can be altered afterwards.
Location
Consider the location of the workshop and if is it better to execute the work offline or online. When working offline, remember to create an inspiring environment for the discussion and include tools to support physical co-creation. Book the venue well in advance of the event. When working online, create an online working space with suitable online tools to allow activity for all and co-creation. There are several options to select from. In TREASoURcE, we have utilized for example Miro and Padlet for creating working spaces. Remember to fix the using permissions to the working space, the default usually allows only the people from the organizing company to access.
Resources and Technology
Next step is to identify the required resources for the workshop. Usually with large groups it is beneficial to have at least one facilitator per 10 participants to create subgroups. If resources are available, it might be reasonable to have an additional note taker for each subgroup. Creating subgroups also allows working in different themes in the workshop. If working in different themes, remember to add this as a question in the registration form to make it easier to form the groups and make sure each participant has ability to select the group that is most relevant to them. The groups can also be created in advance.
If arranging an online workshop, an online working space is needed. Tools recommended for online co-creation Miro, Padlet, etc. Costs for arranging the workshop depend mostly on the cost of the venue (rent of the location and catering + other associated cost for example IT). If working online there is no cost for the location, but some online tools might be premium tools.
Agenda and Timelines
For bigger workshops start planning 3-4 months in advance. Create working process, agenda with timelines for each activity and canvases suitable for the theme. Several tools are available at CLIC Innovation created https://ecosystemplaybook.com/. For circular economy themes the circular value chain tool is recommended if circularity and circular value chains are in focus at https://ecosystemplaybook.com/tools/circular-value-chain-builder-tool/. The canvas can be printed and / or created in an online facilitation tool as a working space as well. The online tool can also be used to take notes from the discussion. This way only the notetaker will need to access the working space.
Create the program for the event to inspire active, inclusive and result oriented session. Pick opening speakers to guide and motivate the participants to the theme in question. Make sure to contact the speakers well in advance so they have ample time to prepare their presentations and arrange being present at the venue and brief them well what is expected of them. If possible, make sure the speakers are available to participate in the workshop as well, to provide insight and expertise about the theme.
Remember to have enough free time in the program to allow the participants time for networking and discussions. This can be arranged by adding lunch or coffee breaks in the program or having the venue booked for a while after the workshop.
Feedback
Remember to collect feedback from the participants. This is easiest at the end of the event, both on-site and online. For example, a questionnaire made in Webropol can be accessed via QR-code. Questionnaire can then be filled in on the participant’s mobile phone. If session is online, you can use Microsoft polls during the session to collect feedback immediately.