Unilever: Facilitation training for global design teams
The Context
Unilever regularly holds complex innovation workshops that involve multiple functions, stakeholders, and geographies. The goal is to reduce the time from idea to launch of global innovations. At the same time, increased pressure on travel budgets and physical offsites meant that Unilever wanted support to get more value out of these sessions—and to find new ways to work faster and more efficiently with innovation.
We collaborated with Unilever’s global design team to enhance the quality and impact of their workshops and give the team greater confidence in their facilitation skills.
The Process
Over the course of several days, we worked with the leadership team to equip them with tools and processes that could be put to immediate use in the business. The program covered a wide range of topics, with a focus on reducing time-to-market and creating more efficient innovation processes.
The three-day program was highly practical and actively engaged the participants through exercises, dialogue, and hands-on testing of methods.
The results
The training was put into practice within the organization in workshops as early as the day after the program concluded.
The team used the material to develop an internal toolkit, which is now used consistently throughout the organization in the design and facilitation of workshops.
The time required to prepare for workshops was reduced by approximately 50%.
The team described the program as the best corporate training program they had ever participated in.
"A truly excellent course from which both new and experienced facilitators can learn a great deal. It had a good pace and struck a fine balance between emotional and functional perspectives—delivered with great style and professionalism, which in itself demonstrated the concepts we were working on.
I particularly appreciated the flexibility in tailoring the content to our needs. That in itself was a great example of walking the talk—which is absolutely crucial to me."