From design thinking to design doing: the Newicon Innovation Kit

As a purpose driven company we are always challenging ourselves to develop products that can help to shape a future where talent, creativity and innovation can thrive.

One question that we have been asking ourselves was this: How can we help other teams to innovate without us being there to help?

Lots of ideas crossed our minds, and in the last couple of years we discussed multiple ways in which we could pass our experience and knowledge to others, from blogging about the innovation process, to creating a guide on how to innovate from scratch and generate new ideas. 

But we knew that wasn’t enough.

We wanted other teams to feel the excitement and energy we feel here at Newicon when we work with clients to unlock the creativity and innovation that they already have within their teams.

And we decided that the best way to share our expertise was creating a simple, flexible system that could be used, not only by designers, but by students, business leaders, developers and any team member inside an organisation.

After more than two years with dozens of meetings and countless trials, we are now ready to launch the Innovation Kit — a complete system, born out of proven design-thinking methodologies, viewed through the lens of modern Lean and Agile practices, and forged through 14 years of real experience and testing.

Bristol-based, with a global reach

As a Bristol-based company, we always want to engage and support local organisations wanting to innovate. 

And it was this ethos that brought an unexpected opportunity to us.

Last year more than 300 engineering students at UWE adopted our Kit as part of the Engineering for People Design Challenge. This is a challenge developed in partnership with Engineers Without Borders, which helps students to use their skills and talent to benefit the planet and its people.

In previous years, this programme has helped to solve social and civic challenges, by creating positive change in communities all over the world.

And last year, the team worked to solve a challenge in a community in Peru. 

The students used a bespoke version of the kit to guide them through the challenges, helping them to explore human-centred design using simple techniques to find the best solution to the issues faced by the local community.

You can read the entire case study here.

Until this point, we had always envisioned that businesses would benefit most from using our set of innovation-enabling tools, but after this successful experience, we realised that we had in our hands a versatile and adaptable product that could be used by anyone, anywhere in the world.  

And this is how the new iteration was born.

We are extremely proud and excited to share with the world the Innovation Kit developed by Newicon and Newicon Academy.

Packed with engaging exercises, worksheets, practical tips and a facilitator’s guide, the Innovation Kit will provide everything you need to kick start your innovation process.

What the Innovation Kit can do for you

The kit will allow participants and facilitators to run workshops but themselves, in the space and time that best suits their needs.

Each exercise has been designed and tested to encourage participants to think creatively and to find opportunities and potential solutions from a different perspective.

The team behind developing the kit not only have years of experience creating amazing products for our clients but it is also a multidisciplinary group of people from the world of Design, Digital Media, Programming, and Social Sciences.

The result is a unique system for innovation, adaptable, easy to use and jargon-free.

We are launching the Newicon Innovation Kit on Tuesday 6th April 2021.

Sign up here to get all the updates and a set of free exercises from the kit.