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.
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?
- State the goal in the positive (what you want rather than don’t want)
- Own it
- 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?)
- Check the ecology (is it something you really, really want? What or who else might be affected when you have achieved your goal?)
- 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?)
