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Ready, Steady, Cook

Present the participants with a lucky dip bag of ten ingredients.  One participant, with closed eyes, picks out five items.

The participants proceed to make several dishes out of the said ingredients (and a generously stocked kitchen containing basic ingredients and spices), in 20 minutes.

At the halfway cooking mark, the second participant randomly picks a sixth item. The sixth item could help or hinder the chosen dish.

At the end of the cooking time the participants must name their dishes using a pun.

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Ready Steady Cook – Debrief

In the organisational context, innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitiveness, market share, and others. All organizations can innovate.

If we imagine that [organisation] is the kitchen, it is what already exists in present day [organisation].  The ‘lucky dip’ bag introduced at the beginning of the Ready Steady Cook Exercise is additional innovation that will be needed to create and implement a new strategy – it might positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitiveness, market share etc.

The question we want to explore is;

  • What ingredients does [organisation] need in addition to what already exists.

But before we start on the ingredients there is another question we need to consider;

  • What is it we are trying to make?
  • What is our purpose/our end goal – our final dish?

What Ingredients do you need?

  1. State the goal in the positive (what you want rather than don’t want)
  2. Own it
  3. Make it sensory specific (what will it feel like when you have achieved your goal?  What will it sound like?  What will it look like?)
  4. Check the ecology (is it something you really, really want?  What or who else might be affected when you have achieved your goal?)
  5. Identify the resources you need and go for it.  (Remember, we exist in a system, family, friends, work: if you achieve your outcome, what or who else might be affected?)