The challenge

IHG is a market leader in global hospitality, providing 800,000 guest rooms in 5,000 hotels across nearly 100 countries. This industry has been hugely disrupted by the rocket-fuelled growth of companies such as AirBnB, leaving established players such as IHG playing catch-up.

CoCreate was asked to design a training programme that unleashed collaboration and ignited innovation across the organisation.

The programme

We brought together a cross-functional and cross-hierarchical group from within IHG to participate in a fast-paced experience that would facilitate rapid prototyping of new ideas.

We led participants through a process that developed core skills in Agile Coaching and Design Thinking, enabling attendees to coalesce in groups around a small set of business challenges on which to innovate. We introduced SCRUM, an Agile tool from the world of software development, which the groups used to design and launch four-week long sprints that would rapidly test and launch innovation challenges against core business priorities.

It was a real privilege (and a whole lot of fun) to work with you on our innovation challenge. The feedback from the workshop is overwhelmingly positive and the SCRUMs have really taken off, with some impressive business results as well as hugely increased energy from all involved. I’m pleased to say I’m now using the agile innovation and SCRUM approach on a few different projects and continue to promote this methodology within IHG.

Peter Brennan – VP Operations Performance and Support (Europe) , InterContinental Hotels Group