Enhancing Change in Creative Sessions at LEF Future Center

Change can be defined as deliberate activities that move an organisation from its present state to a desired future state (Harigopal, 2016). A form of facilitating change is to organise a creative session, which is a group process of applied creativity with the ultimate goal to create a product. The product is the desired future state of a creative session and does not have to be tangible. Most importantly, the product has to be further developed or implemented after the creative session in order to achieve a successful process of change.
LEF Future Center facilitates breakthroughs by organising creative sessions for the Dutch Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat). LEF is the context of the research and the aim of this thesis is to enhance change in their creative sessions. The scope of this research is set on creative sessions of which the problem owner desires an outcome that requires implementation into the associated organisation.
First, complete understanding is created on how a creative session facilitates change. Organisational change management and integrated Creative Problem Solving (iCPS) were compared in a literature review. Revealing that iCPS follows similar steps to organisational change management. Afterwards participant observations complemented the research to understand how LEF facilitates change in sessions. The most promising opportunities that resulted from the research are; (1) Ensure a thorough understanding of the problem as given by the problem owner. (2) Define and phrase the goal of the session. (3) Compose a diverse and balanced resource group. (4) Document creative sessions. (5) Inform the problem owner on its role as a change leader.
To ultimately influence the implementation of change over the full process, the design focuses on the beginning of the LEF-process. The intake meeting is chosen as the specific context for the design.Considering this meeting could educate all partakers on their respective roles regarding the goal of the creative session, whilst engaging in all elements of an intake meeting. The partakers of an intake meeting are the facilitator, problem owner and account manager.
The final design resulted from three evaluation sessions, performed during actual intake sessions at LEF. The Intake Session is the new form of starting the preparations of a LEF-session.
The Intake Session is a combination of context specific table and clear instructions, which supports all partakers to fulfil the meeting in three phases. The first phase is introductory. The second phase critically identifies the purpose and reason for the LEF-session. Hereby the partakers give shape to the LEF-session together. The tangible aspects of the table, remind the partakers of all intake elements. During the third phase of the Intake Session, all partakers will evaluate what is in their power to reach the goal of the session and wrap-up with a picture of all that has been written on the tabletop.

The physical aspects of the Intake Session fit with LEF’s identity and support all partakers. LEF is aware of their prominent opportunities to enhance change. However, LEF lacks a sufficient intake where these opportunities are used. The ‘Intake Session’ provides an essential physical and visual reminder of how to make a good start in the LEF-process, so LEF can flourish during the creative session and facilitate a breakthrough.