Course: Building Skills for Digital Innovation

Opening line that doesn't sound like every other training brief you've skimmed this week: if your business cannot prototype an idea in a week, you're not set up to win the next six months.

Overview
This is a practical, business focused course outline designed to build the human and technical capabilities teams need for sustained digital innovation. It's aimed at emerging leaders and mid level managers who sit at the intersection of product, design and delivery, the people who have to pull teams together and make digital bets without a blank cheque. The format is a six week blended programme with a single intensive face to face workshop in week three, complemented by virtual sessions, guided self study and workplace application tasks. Delivery is hybrid, face to face in Sydney (or Melbourne on request) and live online for remote participants. We run it with a pragmatic mix of theory and hands on practice, roleplays, rapid prototyping and metrics that matter to leaders.

Target audience and level
- Emerging leaders, product owners, technical leads and HR learning partners who need to drive innovation initiatives in mid sized enterprises.
- Some participants will be frontline leaders newly promoted into tech projects; others will be business managers responsible for digital projects but without formal technical training.
- Pre requisite: comfortable with basic office tech; no formal coding experience required, but a curiosity about systems, data and UX is essential.

Duration, format and delivery mode (randomised elements)
- Duration: 6 weeks blended programme.
- Format: 3×90 minute live virtual masterclasses, 1×full day face to face design sprint workshop, weekly guided micro learning modules and an end of program assessment day.
- Delivery mode: hybrid, face to face workshop in Sydney with multi site hubs across Melbourne and Brisbane; all other sessions via live virtual classroom.
- Costing model example: $495 inc GST per person for the standard cohort package (negotiable for enterprise bookings and cohort size). Travel and venue costs for face to face days additional.

Rationale and positioning
Digital innovation is not just about technology, it's a capability made of people, process and tools. This programme leaps past the tired "awareness" tick box and trains people to ideate, validate, and operationalise digital ideas in ways that deliver measurable outcomes. Our bias is clear: everyone who leads digital work should be fluent enough to ask the right technical questions, judge a prototype, and measure impact. Some will call that overreach. I disagree; it's essential. Another view you'll hear: design thinking is overhyped. I'd argue the problem is often lazy facilitation, not the method.

Learning outcomes (behavioural and measurable)
By the end of the programme participants will:
- Translate strategic goals into a minimum viable product (MVP) brief that maps expected business outcomes and measurable KPIs.
- Run a rapid user centred design sprint and produce a testable prototype within a single day.
- Demonstrate basic data literacy: frame hypotheses, select appropriate indicators and perform a simple analysis to test impact.
- Apply structured problem solving methods and systems thinking to decompose complex digital challenges.
- Facilitate cross functional collaboration and reduce hand offs by 30% on a pilot initiative (measured by pre/post survey and manager observation).
- Present a stakeholder aligned Business case for the MVP including cost benefit, risks and roll out plan.

Core structure: modules and session by session outline
Week 0, Pre work & diagnostics (self paced)
- 60 to 90 minute diagnostic that assesses digital literacy, collaboration habits and baseline attitudes to risk and experimentation.
- Short micro module: "Digital fluency for leaders", concepts, vocabulary and practical scenarios.
- Participants submit a one page problem statement from their workplace to be used in the sprint.
Purpose: create shared language and focus the cohort on real organisational problems from the outset.

Week 1, Masterclass 1: Foundations of digital innovation (90 mins, live virtual)
- Objectives: set the frames, what is digital innovation, who owns it, and how does it link to strategy?
- Topics: definitions, case patterns, failure modes, and what "good" looks like in six months, not six years.
- Activities: live polling; small breakout on problem statements; short readouts.
Outputs: aligned problem statement; prioritised measures and stakeholder map.

Week 2, Micro skills: Technical literacy for non technical leaders (self paced + 90 mins live)
- Objectives: demystify code, cloud, data and cybersecurity basics so leaders can make informed trade offs.
- Micro modules include: coding logic and data structures (conceptual), cloud infrastructure basics, cybersecurity hygiene and APIs explained.
- Live lab: interpreting a simple dataset and defining a hypothesis. Participants sketch an experimental metric (A/B or cohort test).
Why this is needed: leaders who can frame the right technical question move decisions from opinion to evidence.

Week 3, Intensive: Design sprint day (full day, face to face)
- Format: 9:00 to 5:00 facilitated design sprint. Hybrid observers join online; local hubs in Melbourne/Brisbane run synchronous parallel sprints if required.
- Phases: empathise (user interviews), define, ideate, prototype (paper & digital), test with real users (quick feedback loops).
- Outputs: clickable or paper prototype; test results; one page MVP brief and risk register.
- Note: we place a premium on real user testing, bring at least 3 users or we'll arrange a panel.

Week 4, Masterclass 2: Data, analytics and experimentation (90 mins, live virtual)
- Topics: experimental design, basic stats for decision makers (confidence, significance, effect size explained simply), dashboards that deceive vs. dashboards that inform.
- Activity: read and critique a dashboard, redesign KPI set for the week 3 MVP.
- Deliverable: a measurement plan with leading and lagging indicators, data sources and governance notes.

Week 5, Collaboration & delivery: agile practices, governance and change management (90 mins, live virtual + coaching)
- Focus: cross functional ways of working; reducing friction between product, tech and business; sprint cadence and governance hygiene.
- Practical: roleplay of an inter departmental planning meeting; negotiation and conflict resolution in digital contexts.
- Coaching: optional 1:1 with facilitator to tailor rollout plan for participants' workplace.

Week 6, Final assessment & handover (half day virtual)
- Participants present their MVP case to a mock executive panel (peers, facilitators and invited managers).
- Assessment criteria: clarity of problem, user validation, technical feasibility, measurable impact and risk planning.
- Post programme plan: three month check in scheduled with manager observation and follow up micro coaching.

Module detail and suggested session activities (expanded)
1. Problem framing and stakeholder mapping (90 to 120 words)
- Teach the 5 question problem frame: who, what, when, where, why. Include exercises to challenge assumptions. Participants map stakeholders, influence and decision triggers. Use real problems from participants to ensure relevance.

2. Design thinking practicum (90 to 120 words)
- A practical approach to empathy, ideation and prototyping. Techniques include rapid ethnography, journey mapping and low fidelity prototyping tools. We emphasise small, fast experiments, and a ruthless decision rule: if you won't test it within 7 days, it's not an experiment.

3. Minimal technical fluency (120 to 150 words)
- Short labs on interpreting simple code snippets, understanding cloud costs (basic pricing models), APIs and data flows. Not a coding bootcamp; the aim is to reduce fear and enable leaders to speak credibly to engineers. We recommend a simple hands on exercise: deploy a tiny static site to cloud storage to understand deployment friction.

4. Data literacy and experimentation (120 to 150 words)
- Teach hypothesis framing, choosing metrics (north star, guardrails), and basic interpretation. Practical exercises: run a quick A/B thought experiment and calculate sample sizes using online calculators (we provide the template). Participants leave with a measurement plan for their MVP.

5. UX fundamentals and digital storytelling (100 to 130 words)
- Focus on mapping user journeys, prioritising features and crafting a narrative for adoption. Include an exercise in microcopy and onboarding flows because small UX wins move metrics. We also cover visual story formats for exec communication.

6. Systems thinking and algorithmic problem decomposition (100 to 130 words)
- Train people to see systems, dependencies and feedback loops. Use fishbone diagrams, causal loop maps and simple pseudo algorithms to model decision pathways. The aim is to reduce short term patching and create durable solutions.

7. Agile for leaders and delivery hygiene (100 to 120 words)
- How to design sprint cadences, define clear roles, reduce hand offs and make governance lightweight. We teach a "minimum governance" checklist and have participants workshop their own meeting cadences.

8. Cyber, legal and ethics essentials (90 to 110 words)
- Practical guidance on privacy, data security basics and ethical considerations in AI and automation. Not legal advice, but enough to know where to escalate and how to ask the right questions.

9. Collaboration, negotiation and facilitation skills (100 to 120 words)
- Techniques to facilitate cross functional workshops, mediate trade offs and maintain momentum when stakeholders push back. Roleplays focus on real work scenarios like scope creep, budget squeezes and executive misalignment.

10. Scaling, sustainment and learning cultures (90 to 110 words)
- How to institutionalise learning: post mortems, experiment registries and capability roadmaps. We include templates for a three month learning sprint post pilot.

Learning materials and micro learning assets
- Pre work diagnostics and a 30 page workbook.
- Short explainer videos (5 to 12 minutes) on cloud, APIs, prototyping tools, simple statistical concepts.
- Templates: stakeholder map, measurement plan, MVP brief, risk register, sprint schedule.
- Recommended tools: low code prototyping tools, shared dashboards, cloud sandbox for hands on labs. We prefer tools widely available in Australian organisations and ensure accessibility.

Assessment and measurement strategy (randomised measurement elements)
- Pre/post participant surveys to measure confidence (self reported) in five capability areas: problem framing, data literacy, prototyping, facilitation and delivery.
- Manager observation rubric at baseline and three months post programme to assess applied change in workplace behaviours.
- Roleplay scoring during final panel (rubric aligned to programme outcomes).
- Pilot KPI impact: participants commit to one short impact metric (e.g., conversion rate change, onboarding completion time) and we measure pre/post where data access permits.
- Qualitative case study: one participant team per cohort will produce a 2 to 3 page case study suitable for leadership readouts.

Facilitation team and trainer profile
- Lead facilitator: senior practitioner with product, UX and change experience, known for messy, real projects, not idealised cases. We deliver with at least one technical subject matter expert (cloud/data) and one design coach. Facilitation emphasises lived experience and candid advice. We are biased towards hiring facilitators who have shipped product in Australian Organisations. We, the team, will run a pilot cohort first to calibrate.

Logistics and cohort design
- Optimal cohort size: 12 to 18 participants to balance diversity and interaction.
- Multi site delivery: face to face sprint in Sydney with satellite hub in Melbourne, hybrid technical setup to ensure remote participants can actively test prototypes. We'll provide a facilitator at both hubs.
- Participant selection: encourage cross functional teams from the same business unit where feasible to create real traction post programme. If participants are from different organisations, ensure at least one problem statement per participant is viable for the sprint.

Customisation and scalability options
- Light customisation: swap industry scenarios and bring internal datasets for Week 4 analytics lab.
- Deep customisation: bespoke version for large cohorts, delivered on site over a two week intensive and integrated into the organisation's product roadmap. This version includes dedicated coaching and a sponsored pilot budget.
- Scalable approach: run multiple cohorts in parallel with a lead facilitator and local co facilitators trained by us.

Risk management and common pitfalls
- Pitfall: participants bring problems that are too big to test, remedy with pre work problem sizing coaching.
- Pitfall: executive sponsorship fades, we require a short sponsor brief and check in cadence.
- Pitfall: tech blockers slow prototyping, we provide low code alternatives and sandbox resources to keep momentum.
- Contingency: if face to face can't proceed due to restrictions, we convert the design sprint to a two day virtual sprint with smaller breakout groups and extra facilitation support.

Success indicators and expected business impact
- Immediate: increased confidence to run experiments and a tested MVP at the end of the sprint.
- Short term (3 months): measurable improvement in at least one business metric for a pilot (conversion, time to complete process etc.).
- Organisational: improved cross functional collaboration evidenced in manager observations and fewer stalled projects. We aim for a 30% reduction in friction metrics on pilot initiatives within three months.

Two positive opinions that might ruffle feathers
- Opinion 1: every manager should be capable of reading a piece of code, not to write production software, but to understand system constraints and trade offs. It makes decisions faster and cuts waste. Some will disagree; that's fine.
- Opinion 2: design thinking, when taught properly, is the single best discipline for avoiding feature bloat. If your design thinking workshops are a fad, blame the facilitators, not the method.

Practical resource and support model
- Post programme support: two group follow up coaching sessions (weeks 6 and 12) and an optional paid three month coaching retainer for teams rolling out the MVP.
- Community: invite to a closed alumni channel for cross cohort problem solving and peer review. We moderate and seed challenges.

Evaluation instruments and quality assurance
- Standardised rubrics for roleplay and manager observation.
- A/B test of cohort formats, we track outcomes from fully virtual cohorts versus hybrid cohorts to optimise future delivery.
- Participant satisfaction metric: Net Promoter Score target >+40 for the blended model.

Sample schedule (micro)
- Week 0: Pre work and diagnostics (2 to 3 hours total).
- Week 1: Live Masterclass 1 (90 minutes) + workbook.
- Week 2: Live Masterclass 2 (90 minutes) + self paced labs (2 hours).
- Week 3: Full day design sprint (9 to 5).
- Week 4: Analytics masterclass (90 minutes).
- Week 5: Delivery & governance masterclass (90 minutes) + coaching.
- Week 6: Final presentations and evaluation (half day).
- Week 12: Follow up coaching check in.

Recommended leadership slide pack (what participants leave with)
- One page MVP brief template, measurement plan, experiment registry, stakeholder map, sprint schedule and a one page "what I learnt" for leadership consumption. Keep it small; leaders read one page.

Implementation considerations for HR and L&D
- Recommend tying the programme to performance conversations for participating leaders.
- Suggest a pre workshop meeting between L&D, the sponsor and the facilitator to ensure outcomes are aligned to business metrics.
- For geographically dispersed teams, we recommend a hub model to maintain cohort engagement.

Final notes on impact and ethics
Digital innovation can entrench advantage or reinforce harm if we're lazy. This programme insists on user testing, ethical guardrails and transparency about intent. It's practical, not preachy. We want to build capabilities that persist beyond the workshop slides.

Understanding emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in leading digital transformation, as it helps managers navigate the human side of change while driving technical innovation.