Creative Transformation Academy
Masterclasses by Nel Mathams
Connect To Create Programme
5 MASTERCLASS SESSIONS
This 5-session programme provides teams and organisations with a practical framework and toolkit for different phases of delivery, project work and business as usual. This brings together a number of different facilitation techniques, agile and coaching philosophies for a unique blend of perspectives to explore team connectedness, all to invite improved flow.
Get in touch to see if your team can start this programme right away or if an additional onboarding session is needed to get everyone up to speed.
"It is my mission to invite everyone on a journey of transformation. All masterclasses I facilitate are designed to be engaging, informative and creative. They support rapid-learning, and are highly-interactive.
As your facilitator, I draw from my many years of experience working, training, coaching and mentoring in agile, design-thinking, service design and user research in the private sector and in central government departments as well as GDS (Government Digital Services). As an art of hosting practitioner, I create a welcoming space for exploration and learning in all my workshops and trainings"
- Nel Mathams
Design Thinking Fundamentals
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
A walkthrough of the design thinking process to help with scheduling and planning user-focused activities.
​
An exploration for managers, teams and organisations to reflect on the design thinking process. Learn how it can optimise current processes and de-risk weakness, ultimately to improve the customer-human-user experience.
You’re comfortable enough with the processes you work with but feel like there are some gaps. Design Thinking Fundamentals clarifies which part of the process you are working on and the right tools and approaches to apply.
​
Description
You’ll gain clarity on the required skills and tools to apply across the lifecycle of development and delivery. You will learn how to become more adept at articulating this too. You’ll ignite your inner creative genius by focusing on how to think around a challenge - and the rest will follow.
​
Design Thinking Fundamentals is for:
-
Managers and delivery teams who design, build and deliver products and services
-
Managers and delivery teams who are familiar with concepts of discovery research, experimentation and validation but need to refresh their understanding
-
User experience teams who need time out to refresh and reflect on their processes as well as to finesse the “why” of a human-centred approach including continuous improvement.
​
What you’ll learn​
-
The what, why and how of design thinking
-
How to elicit valuable insight at different phases of development
-
How a product-service vision guides progress
-
Why iteration is a necessary part of the process
-
How to de-risk by starting with the simple; add complexity later
-
How to adapt to change
-
What collaborative design thinking looks and feels like in practice
An Introduction To Service Design
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
How to think about the bigger picture: an introduction to service design and systems thinking for experienced delivery teams.
You already understand that your product or service is one part of a much bigger ecosystem of products and services, all working together. Service design is the discipline you need to help you work with the bigger picture and manage that complexity.
Description
Introduction to Service Design provides managers and teams with structured approaches for appreciating, comprehending and working with the wider service within which your product is just one component. In this masterclass, you’ll tackle working with complex team structures and requirements, and shaping service design delivery.
​
Introduction to Service Design is for:
-
Experienced managers and delivery teams who want to work on larger, more complex systems and services
-
Managers and teams whose product is part of a wider ecosystem
-
Managers and teams who want to expand their understanding of design and systems thinking
-
User researchers, interaction designers and business analysts who want to add a skillset that adds value to their current toolkit.
What you’ll learn
-
Understanding the complexity of a service design project, and the vision needed to be successful
-
The power of following the data and evidence in the system
-
Working with stakeholders and navigating critical conversations
-
Service blueprinting for visualising the aims and outcomes of service design teams and projects
-
Ideation techniques for innovative thinking
-
Prioritisation and risk mitigation pinned to user needs
Optimising Communication Lines
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
Communication techniques and getting your message across in the workplace.
​
An exploration for managers, teams and organisations to optimise communication lines internally. You’ve experienced a slowdown to progress due to issues in effective communication. Or maybe you believe that some of the challenges your team is experiencing could be alleviated by better communication. This masterclass will help you identify opportunities to address this effectively through learning about communication patterns as well as tools and techniques to move forward with renewed confidence.
​
Description
Optimising Communication Lines goes beyond difficult conversations. You’ll gain communication skills you can apply across your organisation and learn how to become more effective in facilitating information flow, message formulation and other communication techniques.
​
Optimising Communication Lines is for:
-
Managers and delivery teams who want to improve communication lines within the team and externally
-
Managers and delivery teams who want to remove blockers caused by poor communication lines
-
Managers and delivery teams who want to ensure their evidence and messages spread effectively across the organisation to optimise successful product or service delivery
-
Teams who want to raise visibility within their organisations of the value and potential of what they deliver
What you’ll learn
-
New forms of communication
-
The relationship between communication and learning styles
-
How to map your own personal patterns and communication styles
-
How to map your organisational communication lines and identifying opportunity
-
To understand what to harness when you want to experiment outside of your comfort zone
-
Techniques of storytelling and its critical role in the workplace
-
The power of voice in organisational culture and communication
Navigating A Specific Work Challenge
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
Experience design thinking and doing in action; work on a problem or challenge and get unstuck.​
​
An opportunity to step back and gather round to take a focused look at a work challenge or a problem to solve. You are already open to collaborative working and ideation to unleash multiple possibilities for exploration.
You want to benefit from inviting external facilitation to address a specific challenge. In the process, you want to demonstrate to others how collaborative practices can drive creativity and innovation to benefit your organisation.
​
Description
Navigating A Specific Work Challenge dives into a problem you want to solve. You’ll gain design thinking and doing skills that you can apply to future problems too. You will learn how to become more adept at applying different lenses for different perspectives with techniques you can replicate.
​
Navigating a specific work challenge is for:
-
Leadership, management or teams who have a specific issue they are looking to solve
-
Leadership, management or teams who want to experiment with stepping back and using different perspectives for reflection
-
Leadership, management or teams who feel that they would benefit from independent external facilitation to help them extract tangible outcomes.
What you’ll learn
-
How to approach a challenge you want to work on as a team
-
How to use a complexity-complicated lens to identify the nature of the challenge
-
How to visualise a challenge using design-thinking skills
-
How to effectively implement a serious play approach to dive deeper into the challenge
-
How to navigate uncertainty
-
How you can land somewhere practical for deciding what happens next
-
The best way to communicate the outcomes
Organisational Culture and Values
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
How culture and values affect dynamics at work.
​
This is an opportunity to focus on the power of organisational culture and values. You work with the big picture and large programmes, but you could do with a fresh approach to what you do and advocate for. This masterclass will provide you with an understanding of the Spiral Dynamics model to surface the value of the individual and of the collective in the ecosystem.
Description
Organisational Culture and Values invites you to map your unique organisational culture to visualise an outline of the environment in which you and your team are operating. You will gain reflective skills using a model to apply to your work. You will learn how to observe and work with the opportunity this new perspective offers, as well as how to dial up your organisation’s empathy for its staff.
Organisational culture and values is for:
-
Leadership and management implementing change in their organisation
-
Leadership and management wanting to invite good flow when implementing or planning change and transformation
-
Change management teams wanting to explore new techniques and approaches in their planning process.
What you’ll learn
-
Mapping organisational culture
-
You and your team’s relationship with organisational culture
-
Why organisational culture matters and how to navigate it
-
Using a spiral dynamics lens to understand the big picture
-
Reflecting on the change mindset
-
Drawing upon archetypes to discuss attitudes and behaviours towards change
-
Developing principles for navigating organisational culture for change and transformation.
The Team Connection Masterclass
ONBOARDING | AWAYDAYS
Supercharge team connectivity.
​
Embed organisational vision, supercharge motivation and identify opportunity through understanding the skillset you have in your teams. There is room for the content and duration to be adapted to your team’s needs and desired outcomes.
​
Description
The Team Connection Masterclass benefits whole team thinking, firing up motivation to promote mutual appreciation, collaboration and co-creation.
The Team Connection Masterclass is for:
-
Leadership and managers to monitor and enhance team connectedness in a way that feels safe for teams
-
Teams embarking on a new project or program to help kickstart activity
-
Organisers of awaydays or onboarding who want to invite serious play to supercharge participant motivation
-
Leadership and managers who want to gather feedback from staff in a safe environment
-
Leadership and managers who want to invite staff ideation to create opportunities.
​
What you’ll learn
-
How to create and harness the synergy between people and the organisational culture and values
-
What the key ingredients for highly-motivated teams are
-
The primary, secondary and tertiary skills in play as a collective
-
How facilitation can invite meaningful team connections
-
To nurture team wisdom to underpin the work to follow
-
How to ignite team flow for collaboration and co-creation
-
How to create a team maturity matrix that can be updated and revisited
Advanced User Research
2 HOUR MASTERCLASS
User research techniques and skills for product people wanting more: an introduction to advanced user research concepts and techniques for delivery teams.
If you’ve already had some experience of discovery research and user testing but want to go deeper, this masterclass will provide you and your team members with an advanced user research toolkit. You’ll grow your interpersonal skills, which will be valuable in other areas of your work too.
​
Description
Advanced User Research Techniques goes deeper into user research approaches for teams already comfortable with basic techniques. You’ll gain advanced skills you can apply across the lifecycle of service and product delivery, and learn how to become more customer-focused through innovative facilitation techniques.
​
Advanced User Research Techniques is for:
-
Teams who are familiar with concepts of discovery research, experimentation and validation, but do not have a dedicated user research team.
-
User researchers, service designers, interaction designers, product owners and business analysts who want to take how they work with research to the next level.
​
What you’ll learn
-
An empathy practice to support conscious awareness of bias and non-judgemental application Active listening to support the extraction of subtle findings for deeper analysis
-
A Powerful Questions framework to use for planning your research with specific goals in mind
-
Research-based team innovation techniques that can drive successful customer-focused product development
-
The ways in which accessibility matters in user research
-
How the pandemic continues to impact user research today
-
Principles for your research practice
Practical information
When delivered live, a 2-hour masterclass by Nel is a powerful mixture of theory, instructor-led discussion, some video, and solo and group exercises.
​
Duration
The remote masterclass is a two-hour module, including short breaks for refreshment
The in-person masterclass option includes two two-hour modules, delivered on the same day.
​
Masterclass Investment
The remote masterclass is charged at £175 per person as a starting point. This is for a minimum of 2 people, and we use Zoom.
​
​
The in-person masterclass is charged at £230 per person, for a minimum of two people as a starting point. The in-person masterclass can be held at client premises or our venue in Epping, Essex, UK. Alternative venue hire can be organised by the client, if required.
Reasonable travel expenses are included within England. However, additional expenses at cost price for travel elsewhere and accommodation may need to be added.
​
Leadership Coaching
including 1-1 coaching or setting up a user experience practice or embedding a design-thinking culture cross-organisation - price upon a brief
Testimonial
WHY PARTICIPANTS LOVED THE MASTERCLASS
"It wasn't the standard workshop where you get taught about a million and one techniques. It felt like a group coaching session that allowed me to dive into the research practice and to understand more about my role both as a designer and as a researcher.
What I took away from it (apart from loving pink sticky notes):
1. Be a facilitator more than an interviewer
2. Get creative with research
3. Dive deep into user insights
4. Master storytelling to make your insights memorable"
- Review by Raffaele di Meo