Your board says innovation matters. Your innovation manager says nobody decides. Both are right. The Mandate Sprint gets your leadership team to a shared, written mandate for innovation in three weeks: what it must deliver, what it may cost, and who decides. Without a mandate from the top, every case starts at zero.
PLAN A FIRST CONVERSATIONDuration: 3 weeks
For: the leadership team, plus about 12 stakeholders
Location: at your organisation
Fee: on request, fixed price after the first conversation
Language: Dutch or English
WEEK 0 | WITH THE CEO OR SPONSOR
SET THE QUESTIONS
What must innovation deliver for this organisation, and what may it cost? We agree the questions the board will answer in week 3, so the sprint ends with decisions, not opinions.
WEEK 1 | ABOUT 12 CONVERSATIONS
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS
Board members, line managers and the innovation team. Where does innovation stall, who really decides, and what does nobody say out loud?
WEEK 1 | EPIC
MATURITY ASSESSMENT
Empathy, Process, Impact and Culture: a measurable picture of where your organisation stands, and where the gap between ambition and capability is widest.
WEEK 2 | NO SUGAR-COATING
THE DIAGNOSIS
Interviews and assessment come together in the three blockers that cost you most: mandate, evidence or language. Told plainly, by an outsider who can say what is politically difficult inside.
WEEK 3 | HALF A DAY
THE BOARD WORKSHOP
Not “is innovation important?” but: which bets, which budget, which decision rights, and who sponsors what. The leadership team leaves with one answer instead of ten opinions.
AFTER WEEK 3 | IN WRITING
THE MANDATE
A two-page innovation mandate: ambition, portfolio boundaries, decision rights and the first cases. Optional: a keynote to take the wider organisation along, and a Case Sprint on the first case.
Evelien Neirynck is service designer and partner at Twisted Studio
Sarah Boone is professor Entrepreneurschip and Innovation at Ghent University and Associate partner at Decimal Health
Jan Van Caneghem is a lecturer digital strategy and innovation and design thinking at Artevelde University of Applied Science
A short, written agreement from the leadership team on three things: what innovation must deliver, what it may cost, and who decides. Without it, every innovation case has to win the argument from zero.
Because support usually means applause, not structure, budget or decision rights. Innovation managers are asked for results without anyone agreeing what innovation is for. That is responsibility without mandate.
A two-page innovation mandate: ambition, portfolio boundaries, decision rights and the first cases to work on. Each of those cases can go straight into a Case Sprint with the decision criteria already set.
Three weeks. The CEO or sponsor in week 0, about twelve stakeholder interviews in week 1, and the leadership team for a half-day board workshop in week 3.
A maturity assessment on four lenses: Empathy, Process, Impact and Culture. It shows where your organisation stands and where the gap between innovation ambition and capability is widest.
A fixed price, agreed after a first conversation, once the size of the leadership team and the number of interviews are clear.
A case without a mandate is a hobby. Most innovation teams are asked to deliver results without anyone agreeing what innovation is for. Leadership support for innovation usually means applause, not structure, budget or decision rights. The Mandate Sprint fixes that once, at board level, so every case after it starts with a yes on the direction.
From mandate to cases
The mandate names the first cases. Each can go straight into a Case Sprint, with the decision criteria already set by the board.
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