Airbus: Design thinking training to accelerate innovation

Building a culture of innovation with leaders at Airbus using the ExperienceInnovation™ simulation from IDEO & ExperiencePoint

How can we make our approach to innovation more consistent and effective?

The challenge

Innovation is at the heart of how the Information Communications and Technology (ICT) team at Airbus creates value for the business.

They are the team responsible for responding to the technological needs of the broader business, anticipating future business needs and determining how emerging technologies can be deployed to meet them.

The solutions that they design must not only work within the context for which they are designed, but they must also be globally consistent and aligned.

The ICT team at Airbus was looking for a way to accelerate innovation across global locations in a consistent, joined-up fashion.

What we did

We used design thinking to provide this group with a unifying approach to innovation and problem solving.  Bringing around 200 Airbus leaders from France, Germany and Spain together, we led an accelerated training in design thinking using the ExperienceInnovation™ simulation from IDEO and ExperiencePoint.

The outcome

This experience was deemed a great success by sponsors and participants. The 200 leaders went away with a new methodology, which would would enable them to develop better, more innovative solutions for internal customers, and ultimately the thousands of passengers that fly in Airbus aircraft everyday.