Leading workshops to inspire, generate, and prioritize new ideas and strategies for the future of diabetes care

J&J Innovation Workshop, Munich 2015

the problem

Innovation for the future of diabetes care

What will the future of diabetes care look like? Unlike any other large international company, Johnson and Johnson's Diabetes group found themselves disconnected and uninspired on the future innovation for the care of diabetes. My goal was to lead a three-day long workshop to build empathy with patients, ideate the ideal experience, and draft platform strategies to develop a roadmap for quick-wins and long-term innovation strategies.

My role

Researching and developing workshop materials

Leading a three-day innovation workshop requires weeks of preparation and asset development. I initially had to sift through the years of global research in order to understand the current environment within the organization.

In order to create empathy for the patients and their community of care across teams and disciplines, I created a current vs. ideal state patient journeys to be utilized in a 'walk in their shoes' session. In order to inspire teams, I curated a series of science fair boards that highlighted relevant new technologies, models of care, and key behavioral trends that drive desirability. In order to prioritize possible strategies, I coordinated the development of 'How might we...' statements to get teams mapping and prioritizing ideas.

understanding our users

Designing the experience for workshop attendees

One of the biggest challenges of this project was understanding the users (ie. the workshop attendees) and how I could provide a meaningful and inspired workshop experience. I relied heavily on Design Thinking methodologies and tools to get teams innovating for the future of diabetes care. At the end of the 3-day workshop, the cross functional teams had fully developed business models that were created through empathizing with the patients, identifying pain points, ideating on the ideal, and brainstorming ideas into reality. In the weeks that followed, 10 cross-functional committees were formed to research and drive these initiatives forward. Additionally, 6 future workshops and empathy walks were planned in order to roll with the momentum and inspiration from the workshop and to bring the ideas into reality.