Methods

The work done by this firm draws upon three core disciplines—business management, ideation methodology, and facilitation techniques.

Business Management

We use core business management practices in consulting with clients, such as strategy/mission alignment, operational analysis, P&L review and financial optimization, and marketing/development campaign planning.

Ideation

Go beyond random inspiration and unfocused brainstorming—Richert Innovation Consulting utilizes fail-safe methods of ideation to produce new ideas that stand out from the competition. We teach step-by-step innovation processes to define a problem, generate ideas, work through potential solutions, and decide optimal next steps. Processes include design thinking, visualization, iterative prototyping, and SIT methodology. (Systematic Inventive Thinking is an ideation process developed in Israel in the mid-1990s, derived from Genrich Altshuller’s TRIZ engineering discipline. See sitsite.com for more information.) These methods have been successfully used in many corporate environments—including major educational publishing companies—as practical and effective approaches to creativity, innovation, and problem solving.

Facilitation

The third discipline often used to support clients is structured facilitation, including collaborative work sessions and implementation planning, so we can involve team members, cross-functional experts, and stakeholders. We often use ToP facilitation processes—Technology of Participation is a collection of techniques developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs in the 1960s, and in use since then by corporations, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, professional associations, and communities around the world.