Innovation in Action - October 2026

Date • Monday 19 & Tuesday 20 October 2026 (bookings close at 12noon Thursday 15 October 2026) A practical, two-day introduction to human-centred innovation for leaders who need to make progress on complex challenges without stopping business as usual. Using the DUCTRI process from Innovation in Action, you will take a real organisational issue from problem discovery through to tested ideas - building the mindsets and practices to make change stick in your context. Each participant receives a complimentary copy of Innovation in Action to support ongoing use of the tools beyond the workshop. Day 1 – Curiosity: Discovering and Understanding · Introduction to human-centred innovation and the DUCTRI process · What is curiosity anyway and who cares? Why is it important? How can we cultivate more of it? · Discovering phase: guided practice with a small set of tools to explore a problem area from the perspective of people involved · Understanding phase: guided practice with a small set of tools to make sense of the data, gain insight and understand the real problem to solve · A short field assignment: participants apply tools and techniques to a problem in their own organisation or to one selected by the facilitators. Day 2 – Creativity: Creating and Testing · Reflection on any field work and refinement of insights and problem statements. · The need for, and how to enable more creativity in our organisations. · Creating phase: use structured ideation techniques to generate potential (and better) solutions · Testing phase: learn low-fidelity prototyping and simple testing approaches to de-risk projects and build what works. · Forward-looking discussion: connecting your early work to the Clarity-focused Resourcing and Implementing phases of DUCTRI, including initial thoughts on stakeholders, stories and first moves in your organisation. Course Facilitators - Christian Walsh and Vaughan Broderick When revising an Executive MBA design thinking course, Christian realised the critical gap: frameworks helped teams ideate but abandoned them before implementation. Over the next 10+ years, Christian refined DUCTRI with 300+ MBA students and consulting projects, testing what actually works across healthcare, technology, government, and social enterprise. Christian is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury and founder of a maritime training simulation company – bringing both academic rigour and entrepreneurial experience to innovation. Vaughan coaches startups, teaches innovation to Executive MBA students, and consults with organisations navigating complex change across health, social services, and agriculture. Vaughan has over 28,000 followers across LinkedIn and X, and 9,900+ newsletter subscribers and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts. He’s founded and grown a financial services business and has seen firsthand why most innovation fails – and what actually works. This Workshop is $2,100pp including GST and Humanitix booking fees. Course fees include catering (all dietary requirements catered for) and booking fees.