Amphigean makes waves

Amphigean took to the water in our latest innovation workshop, and the outing proved to be an overwhelming success. The destination and chosen activity of the day out had been kept secret from most of the team, and we were delighted to arrive at Lancaster canal in Bilsborrow to learn that we’d be hiring a barge and charting a new course for ourselves. 

The pace was admittedly not going to trouble the Guinness World Record organisers, but the pretty surroundings and relaxing atmosphere were perfect for the team to spend time together outside the office. 

The principal vision behind these quarterly innovation workshops is to float new ideas to improve the way the company operates and the services it provides to customers. Sometimes there is a specific theme to focus on e.g. customer experience, and sometimes it’s a completely open free-for-all. Previous sites for these workshops include a yurt, and a campsite – but always outdoors. 

Ideas which have proved useful include team talks (sharing projects across the group in new ways to keep all staff up to date); deploying the latest collaboration and polling tools for online and classroom training; designing a ‘Knowledge Cube’ for new product launches; and team days away helping a charity of our choice. 

Our canal boat ride was not short of ideas either, with a number of creative suggestions to improve best practice. 

A scheme of short-term apprenticeships/internships was put forward to help young people get interesting work experience, and it was also agreed that a greater effort should be made to invite customers to our office more often, despite the fact that we are based a fair distance away in the Lake District – we won’t suggest coming by canal barge! 

Another good idea was to introduce collaboration boards not only for internal use, but as a potentially effective and fresh way of carrying out training deliveries. 

The benefit of having more blogs written to outline amphigean’s latest news was widely accepted, and on a lighter note one of the team proposed a Nintendo Wii tennis tournament to separate the court kings from the court jesters. 

Finally, one of the team helped us organise our thoughts on the content formats we have using the acronym SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adjust, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate and Reverse). Scamper is an activity-based strategy that we’ll now use to assist with creating content for delivery in innovative ways.  

Overall, the day out on a canal boat was a productive way for amphigean to get to know each other better whilst enjoying an uplifting change of scenery. 

“Yet again the team surpassed all expectations with the ideas that were generated. I think this workshop was the best yet with many ideas already implemented within the week after the event.”

Managing Director, Pete Simpson