Creative problem solving and innovation for sales teams
Turning ideas into action in one day with a B2B Software Company
The Sales & Marketing Team working ‘alone together’ during the session
Introduction
Agilysys are a leading provider of innovative software solutions and services for the hospitality industry, specialising in property management, point-of-sale, and inventory and procurement systems to enhance guest experiences and operational efficiency.
I was lucky enough to work with the Agilysys EMEA Sales team at an off site meeting, where I facilitated a pre-designed workshop aimed at enhancing problem solving skills and addressing key challenges. The workshop followed a structured agenda designed to facilitate retrospection, ideation, and action planning. The primary goal was to identify and prioritise innovative solutions to some of their most common and persistent challenges and then look ahead to implementing actionable strategies.
The desired outcomes for the workshop were as follows:
Foster a sense of optimism about the challenges ahead
Equip the team with some new easy-to-use problem solving skills
Generate some creative new ideas to test with an actionable set of next moves
What we did
Team size - 16, all day off site workshop
‘Sailboat - the quick visual retrospective
After a quick Icebreaker to warm up and introduce the team in a very informal way we went into the first phase, which about collecting information. The Sailboat retrospective asks this: What works well and pushes us forward and what are the main challenges that hold us back?
In these retros we don’t want to start off on any perceived negatives, so first off we ask for people to write down on stickies the things they feel are pushing the team forward. People were then asked to consider the challenges, what might be holding the team back, and then vote on those challenges they felt were the most pressing and urgent. Dot voting ensures that everybody’s opinions are equal, and we don’t simply ‘submit’ to the most vocal (or highest paid!) people in the room!
How Might We - a small but mighty statement!
After voting we took the top voted challenges then as a group took time to create one compelling ‘How Might We’ statement that would allow the team to start to generate a number of different ideas.
These ‘HMW ‘statements are very powerful short questions based on problem areas found during research (in our case, the retrospective) , rapid ideation promotes creativity and unanticipated solutions to complex problems. By asking "How might we", we are attempting to turn the problems into opportunities or alternative solutions.
Developing ‘Prototypes’
Taking the top 4 ideas (as voted based on practical and impactful criteria) the goal was to take and develop those ideas further in small teams. This could mean creating a rudimentary storyboard, sketch, slide deck or ‘project poster’ that communicates enough of the idea - and the practical steps towards implementation - to make something inspiring and compelling to take forward and activate. Each team got the chance to ‘show and tell’, presenting their developed ideas to the whole group.
Results
Empathy and understanding of what the team does well and what can be improved
A backlog of over 60 new ideas generated
Playback document with all captured workshop insights categorised and themed
An illustrated story ‘poster’ of the day to promote wider awareness and skill sharing
Illustrated poster of the day
Conclusion
The Agilysys sales team workshop successfully identified key challenges and generated innovative solutions through time boxed structured activities.
Creating a safe and creative environment from the outset for candid reflection but also to share past success and understand areas for improvement was vital in helping the team to go forward with energy, confidence and optimism.
Key themes emerged with the team now empowered and energised to raise attention with prospects and generate new leads from those conversations. Immediate action plans were begun around 4 strong ideas to test, this ensured a swift start to implementation, bringing the team a renewed sense of excitement and optimism. Design thinking techniques and tools have proven to be well aligned to an advisory, needs-based consultative sales approach and more sessions to help develop these skillsets are being planned.