Online or In Person Course • Certification • NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
Innovation engineering
fundamentals course
with Blue Belt Certification
In this course and certification you’ll learn the fundamentals of innovation, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, you’ll work with a coach to apply your new skills immediately to solve your real-world challenges.
This is NOT your Typical Course. Most innovation courses are taught by case study, where you sit on the sidelines and guess what went wrong/right for X business in Y situation. We believe that the best learning comes first-hand…from you getting your hands dirty…from you trying things…and from you working on your own challenges. This not only helps you learn, it ensures you get value out of the course immediately.
Level: Introductory
Experience Required: None
Recommended for: All employees, all levels
Category: Research • Technology Development • Prototyping • Financial Modeling • Data-Driven Decisions • Agile Project Management • System Mapping • Innovation • Intra/Entrepreneurship
at the end of this couRse you’ll be able to:
Invent More Ideas
Create 8X more big ideas than traditional brainstorming.
Persuade Others
Increase the persuasion of your writing by up to 5X.
Ship Ideas Faster
Deliver new solutions and ideas 6X faster using a new work process for development.
Jump Start Your Work
Jump Start your thinking & projects using a cloud-based innovation software suite.
Generating New Ideas. Solving Big Problems.
IN THIS COURSE YOU’LL LEARN:
SKILLS TO CREATE IDEAS
- How to recognize a Meaningfully Unique Innovation
- How to 6X Your Creativity without Brainstorming
- How to Turbo-Charge Your Creativity in any situation
- How to Leverage Diversity to Create Ideas
SKILLS TO COMMUNICATE IDEAS
- How to Give Purpose to Your Innovation Work
- How to Help Others See Your Idea as You See It
- Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing
- How to Build Your Innovation Confidence Using Math
PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS
- How to really do Fail Fast, Fail Cheap Cycles
- Best Practices for Accelerating Success through experimentation
- How to 10X Your Innovation Decision Making Success with Rapid Research
- Learn How to Make it Real with Fail Fast, Fail Cheap Prototyping
PLUS A BONUS OVERVIEW OF A 4 STEP PROCESS TO IMPROVE ANY WORK SYSTEM
The Eureka! Ranch team that teaches the course has been named among America’s top innovators by CNN, CBC, Inc Magazine and others. The average American home uses over 18 products or services that the Eureka! Ranch has helped invent or reinvent
Why THIS COURSE IS different
Unlike other business courses that are based on a few personal experiences or third-person research – this course is grounded in front-lines innovation work and hard data from the world’s largest database (25,000+) on what drives success and failure. The data is so reliable that the curriculum, called Innovation Engineering, is recognized as a new field of academic study with undergraduate and graduate degrees offered at colleges and universities.
World leaders in business and innovation who’ve used these methods include: Walt Disney, Nike, Pepsi-Cola, American Express, Procter & Gamble, US Department of Commerce and thousands of others.
This course is brought to you by the Innovation Engineering Institute – a partnership between the Eureka! Ranch and the University of Maine.
Path to Certification
When it comes to learning and innovation – it all happens when you take action. Which is why we have certification assignments that help you connect the dots between your real-world challenges and your new innovation skills.
Expert Coaching from an Innovation Engineering Black Belt. When you’re trying to apply these skills for the first time, you sometimes fail. (A good lesson for all would-be innovators!) Which is why our coaches are there to give you fast feedback, ideas, insights and advice.
Plus, when you earn your Innovation Engineering Blue Belt Certification you get the ultimate double-bonus: greater value for your organization and a great boost to your resume.
THROUGH CERTIFICATION YOU’LL GET TO:
Identify and improve a system you work within.
Create and define an innovation strategy for yourself or your team.
Gather stimulus from patents, customer insights, market trends, future trends and academic articles to spark ideas for a challenge.
Use your new skills and tools to create Meaningfully Unique ideas, for your mission, by yourself or with a group.
Build a business case for your idea – including a written concept, a math estimate for the impact of the idea, and initial risks associated with the idea.
Run three ‘Fail Fast, Fail Cheap’ cycles of learning on your idea to start to reduce uncertainty on one or more risks with the idea.
Topics tackled by previous Innovation Engineering Blue Belts through their certification:
- A system to reduce errors in a woodworking shop
- An improved system for gathering ideas & filing patents
- A better employee on boarding process
- A reinvented check-in process for a hotel
- A software solution taken to a new market
- A personal coaching service
- Visioning for a new community center
- A reinvented construction tool
3 Flexible Formats
The Innovation Engineering Fundamentals Course with Blue Belt Certification is offered 3 ways; online self-paced, as a private virtual cohort, or as an in-person training event.
Online Self Paced
- 6 months to complete.
- You choose when and what to tackle.
- Work one-on-one with an online coach.
Private Virtual Cohort
- 8-24 participants.
- Four 4-hour sessions + 60 days to certify.
- Option to tackle a business challenge together.
Private or Public In Person
- 8-24 participants.
- 2 days in person + 60 days to certify.
- Share an experience that unites the team.
Do you have 8 or more people to train?
Consider doing a private Innovation Engineering Fundamentals Course. We not only offer the online cohort course but also offer a 2-day in-person course that can be facilitated anywhere including the Eureka! Ranch.
Contact us about setting up a private course for your team.
What Others are Saying About This Course
At the end of the course, each person submits a final reflection – a mindful review of the experience and what they really took away. Here are but a handful of the most recent.
First of all, it is probably one of the most challenging course I’ve ever taken online and it has been the most rewarding.
Secondly, Brad has given me such insightful comments on how I can improve my assignments that it has made the challenges even more worthwhile.
I wish you could see the smile on my face. This is because going through this process made me think differently and that is what I need to do in order to grow my business.
Overall what has changed the most for me is that I regularly think of how I can make things better or I’ll try to come up with a new idea for something that already exists.
This course didn’t just change the way I look at my work, but it changed the way I literally look at everything around me.
I have really enjoyed the course and I am changing how I think and tackle new problems on a daily basis. The initial payment that I made is a small investment for a lifetime of more efficient thinking and problem solving.
I have embraced and studied project based learning and design thinking. This course has so many useful aspects that will enhance and complement PBL and the design thinking process already in place at our school.
My biggest take away from this course is that in order to innovate, you are going to fail. It’s part of the process to doing something better. It demystified the word innovation itself.
I learned that paper airplanes did bring out the kid in me. Heck, I stayed later at work just to do this experiment.
My kids and I need to go back to paper airplane school. Our first few designs didn’t get over 6 feet. With a little research we started getting good distances and they had fun working on this with me as my “team”.
I must say I had a love-hate relationship with this course. I realize that the hate part came into play whenever I was pushed outside my comfort zone. Those were the most powerful moments for me.
FAQs
Check out the Q&A below to get the answers to your top of mind questions.
Who is this course for?
This course is designed for anyone that wants to start improving their sphere of influence, no matter their background or expertise.
The groups we tend to see more often are rising leaders, engineers & logical thinkers, and organizations trying to create a culture of innovation.
How long will this course take to complete?
FOR THE IN-PERSON VERSION, you’ll spend about 4 hours watching video courses before attending the live 2-day in-person training. You’ll then have 2 months to complete the certification work to get your Innovation Engineering Blue Belt Certification, if you’re interested in getting certified.
FOR THE ONLINE VERSION, we recommend you spend 30 minutes per day working on the course. Based on that you can expect it to take 2 months to complete the course or 3 months for the course and certification.
If I finish before 6 months do I lose access to the tools and software?
No, you have access to the full suite of tools and software for 6 months regardless of when, or if, you finish the course and certification.
What topics will I work on in the application assignments?
You can work on anything that’s meaningful to you. Some topics that have been tackled by previous students are: a system to reduce errors in a woodworking shop, an improved system for gathering ideas & filing patents, a reinvented construction too, and visioning for a new community center.
What's the difference between the online and the private in-person course?
The same material is covered in both versions of the course.
The private in-person course is a great choice when you have 8 or more on your team or the team needs to move fast, as it’s taught at an accelerated pace. And if you’re the kind of person that lives by the demands of your calendar, scheduling it in often helps make it happen!
The online cohort course is a great choice when you don’t have a travel budget, but still want to work together while weaving the learning into your regular work.