Programmes · Innovation management
Build a repeatable innovation management system.
Two programmes for leaders and innovation champions, aligned to ISO 56001 — the international requirements standard for innovation management systems. Foundations builds the system; Accelerating pushes an existing one further.
The two programmes
Where to start, and where to go next.
Both are for leaders and innovation champions. The difference is whether you are putting a system in place or improving one you already run.
Foundations for Strategic Innovation
Who it is for. Leaders and innovation champions developing innovation leadership capability, guiding teams and building an innovation culture.
What it does. Takes a leadership team from "we should be more deliberate about innovation" to something the business actually runs — a structured view of where you are now, challenge from peers who have done it, a plan the board can hold you to, and support while you run it. Aligned to ISO 56001, so the work counts towards a management system rather than sitting beside one.
Dates, duration, format and rates are on the booking page, which is always the current source.
Accelerating Strategic Innovation
Who it is for. The same audience — leaders and innovation champions — at the point where the basics are in place and the constraint has moved.
What it does. Builds on an existing innovation management approach: sharpening how decisions get made, how portfolios are managed, and how innovation activity connects to the strategy it is supposed to serve.
The next cohort is not yet open for booking. Register interest below and the programmes team will contact you when dates are set.
In practice
Participants work on their own live questions.
The management programmes are built around doing the thing: mapping how ideas actually move through a company, arguing about what to stop, and leaving with a sequence rather than a theory.
Participants bring a live question from their own organisation. That is the material the sessions work on.
Why the standard matters
What ISO 56001 alignment actually buys you.
A system, not a campaign
ISO 56001 describes an innovation management system — policy, objectives, roles, process, measurement and improvement. It is the difference between innovation being someone's enthusiasm and it being how the organisation operates.
Something auditable
If your organisation is pursuing certification, the programme work maps onto the clauses rather than having to be redone. IRDG does not audit or certify — that is done by an accredited certification body.
A shared language
Members working to the same standard can compare practice usefully. That is what makes the peer-challenge element of these programmes work rather than being a discussion group.
Certification, and IRDG's boundary
We build the capability; we do not certify it.
IRDG supports organisations building innovation management capability. Certification to ISO 56001 is carried out by an accredited certification body, not by IRDG. Dell Technologies' Cork manufacturing operation is certified to ISO 56001 — the first Dell site worldwide, certified under the NSAI–APCER partnership — and IRDG's support began with Foundations for Strategic Innovation.
Who to ask
Talk it through before you commit a team to a programme.
Bernie has spent more than twenty years across research, innovation and enterprise support. If you are weighing which programme suits where your organisation actually is — or whether a programme is the right answer at all — start with her.
Bernadette McGahonDirector of Innovation Services
Before you book
Not sure which of the two is the right starting point?
Tell us where the organisation is now and we will say which programme fits — including if the answer is neither yet.