Dentsply Sirona’s R&D Centre of Excellence
Due to changes in regulations, the R&D team of Dentsply Sirona’s endodontics department had been focusing on MDR work for several years. This meant that there was little capacity left for innovation. R&D Director Dr Sarah Poschenrieder knew her team members needed a shift in their approach to collaboration and to find new inspiration.
When Creaholic and Dentsply Sirona began working together, the R&D team had already taken action and created a vision that everyone could look toward. This provided a solid foundation for our next steps together. With our outside perspective and out-of-the-box style, we helped Dr Poschenrieder’s team tap into the potential of what it had already defined and figure out what it could do to make progress toward its vision.
A top-notch, tailor-made training module
Creaholic was on board to help the team rediscover its “researcher spirit”. Since there wasn’t an existing training or workshop format that could meet Dentsply Sirona’s needs, our team used a mix-and-match method to create something tailored for them.
The training needed to address two aspects: exploring new ways of working and empowering team members to pursue the team’s vision. Using our in-house strengths and offerings as building blocks, the Creaholicers involved created a full-day programme to spark the team’s creativity. To ensure the workshop would meet Dentsply Sirona’s needs, the team was invited to provide feedback on Creaholic’s proposals. With this kind of high-level exchange, Creaholic could build the most effective training possible.
We integrated parts of our signature training modules in creativity and prototyping to help participants “unbox” their thinking, discover different collaboration methods and apply iterative learning loops.
“To help our customers take a step forward, we need to first understand where they are now and where they intend to go. I think this is just as true for designing a product or service as it is for designing a training that is useful, relevant, engaging and sustainable”, says Hampe Wyss, Professional Inventor responsible for Creaholic’s School of Applied Innovation.
Out of their comfort zone
The full-day workshop took place at Creaholic in Biel with two trainers and 15 R&D professionals. When they left the innovation factory, the participants had discovered a way to open their minds and develop their creation and imagination skills as part of a team.
“The workshop made me realize that innovation is a game that involves everyone on the team and that we can have fun playing with the innovation process”, says Dr Poschenrieder. “We all learned that our team already had all the strengths and competencies needed for a bright innovation future”.
The collaboration with Creaholic was topped off with a coaching call after the training to help the team sustainably put the workshop findings into practice. Between the training and the follow-up calls, the participants had “homework” that involved applying and reflecting on the acquired knowledge. The additional support from Creaholic allowed the team to ask any questions that popped up after implementing the ideas from the custom training. Creaholic could offer guidance and advice to maximise the effects of the training.
With new energy, refreshed confidence, and a heaping amount of motivation to explore unchartered territory, the team was ready to set sail.
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