Build innovation capability
- at your pace
Strengthen the four capabilities that help innovation create tangible value. Work through the learning when it suits you, use the tools on your own work, and build skills you can use again and again.
£795 + VAT
Includes all four courses and 12 months’ access
Learn when you need it. Apply it where it matters.
Innovation rarely gets stuck because people need more ideas. More often, the challenge is knowing where to focus, what is getting in the way and how to move forward.
Explorer gives you the complete Innovation Compass, with practical frameworks and tools you can use in your organisation, at your own pace. It’s built on a proven body of knowledge and designed to help you apply what you learn straight away.
Explorer is for you if…
- You want to stengthen your innovation capability across all four areas of the Innovation Compass.
- You want the flexiblity to learn when it suits you, without a guide.
- You want practical tools you can apply to real work, oportunities, problems and projects.
- You want learning you can return to as new challenges arise.
What's included
- All four Innovation Compass courses
- 12 months’ access to the learning, resources and world-class tools
- Videos, reading, reflective exercises, practical tools and templates
- Regular knowledge checks
- AI Innovation Buddy to support reflection and application
- Plenty of opportunities to apply the thinking to your work
- Closing review and reassessment
- Invitation to join worldwide innovation leadership community
£795 + VAT
What you'll be able to do
Explorer brings together four connected areas of innovation capability.
- Focus effort where it matters: Connect innovation to organisational priorities, assess where effort is best placed and build a stronger case for support.
- Create a warmer climate for innovation: Understand the behaviours and conditions that help people question, experiment, support ideas and take intelligent risks.
- Make better use of different thinking: Recognise different problem-solving styles and use those differences productively.
- Solve problems and move ideas forward: Clarify challenges, generate and select options, test ideas and think through implementation.
The aim is not simply to know more about innovation. It is to become better equipped to make useful choices when real work is uncertain.
Why the Innovation Compass is different
This is not a content library to work through and forget. Explorer helps you apply practical tools and frameworks to real work, whilst building capability you can use again as new challenges or as your role evolves.
Four courses. One connected capability.
Align to Strategy
Focus innovation on the opportunities that matter.
Connect your projects to organisational priorities, make clearer choices about where to put your efforts and build a stronger case for pursuing an opportunity. Explores why and how to align innovation to your organisational strategy.
Build Problem Solving Skills
From fuzzy challenge to clear way forward.
Learn about the three stages of creative problem solving: clarify the challenge, generate and select ideas and plan for implementation. Create stronger options, make better choices and test ideas. Includes workbook with over 30 problem solving tools.
Create a Climate for Innovation
Foster the conditions where innovation can thrive.
Explore the behaviours, habits and environment that help people question, experiment and take intelligent risks – and identify what may be getting in the way. Discover what makes the team and organisational climate likely to turn ideas into valuea and how leaders can make all the difference.
Lead Diverse Teams
Turn different ways of thinking into better decisions.
Innovation is supported when people with different thinking styles work together, and their styles are valued and deployed. Learn about adaption and innovation, where you sit on the scale and how to optimise collaboration.
Want to see what’s inside each course?
What people have said about the Innovation Compass pilot
Meet your guide
Rob Sheffield works in leadership development, innovation facilitation and research. In more than 30 years he has delivered more than 200 leadership programmes and worked with more than 3,000 leaders.
Questions about Explorer
Choose an individual course if you have one specific capability you want to strengthen. Choose Explorer if you want to build three or all four areas of innovation.
Explorer is self-directed. Navigator includes the same core learning, but adds live clinics, expert guidance, peer input and a structured rhythm around a live challenge.
It can be, yes. Learning as a team has lots of benefits. Explorer is intended for one person so talk to us about team prices.
No. Explorer is self-directed, so you can use it to build your overall innovation capability or apply the learning to opportunities and challenges as they arise. However, you will usually get more practical value when you connect the tools to real work, but you do not need to arrive with a fully formed innovation project.
Explorer includes 12 months’ access to the learning and resources. You’re very welcome to extend your access, you’ll just need to buy for a second year.
No. It depends what your most current needs are. We would rcommend starting with the Innovation Fitness Test, though, since this will give you a good sense of your priorities.
Yes. If you want to focus on one specific capability, the four Innovation Compass courses are also available individually.
Each of the courses takes about 2-3 hours to complete. They’re each created in bite-sized chunks so you can dip in and out.
The AI Innovation Buddy is a thought-partner, designed there to support reflection and help you apply the tools. We provide a list of prompts to start you off. Currently only in ChatGPT though we will be developing a CoPilot version.