Entrepreneurship and Innovation Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Innovation Managers, Product Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-IC-001

Before you join: Participants should have experience contributing to projects, services, products, operational improvement or strategic initiatives.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Established organisations need more than isolated ideas to create new services, products, operating models and revenue streams. Leaders and managers must identify worthwhile opportunities, test uncertain assumptions early, build support among decision makers, and decide when to fund, adapt, scale or stop an initiative. This is particularly important where procurement rules, regulation, legacy systems, public accountability or risk controls affect the pace and shape of innovation.

This course develops the practical disciplines of enterprise entrepreneurship: finding customer and stakeholder problems, framing opportunity areas, generating and selecting concepts, designing viable business models, and testing propositions through evidence. Participants use Design Thinking, Jobs to Be Done, Lean Startup methods, Business Model Canvas and portfolio approaches to move from strategic priorities to investable innovation proposals. They also address intrapreneur roles, sponsorship, governance, financial cases, risk, scaling readiness and innovation metrics.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with cases from banking, government, NGOs and large corporate ventures. Group work applies the methods to realistic service, process and product opportunities; simulations address evidence reviews, sponsor conversations and investment decisions. Each participant develops an opportunity brief and 90-day action plan containing a problem statement, customer insight, value proposition, assumptions, experiment priorities, decision points and resource requests. The course is delivered over five days, 08:30-16:30, in classrooms in 50+ cities or live online, with approximately 32.5 contact hours and a certificate of completion.

It is suited to managers responsible for growth, transformation, service improvement, product development or strategic initiatives, as well as specialists asked to turn promising ideas into governed, evidence-based proposals.

What you will be able to do

  • Identify opportunity domains using strategic intent, PESTLE signals and Jobs to Be Done
  • Frame customer problems through stakeholder mapping, interviews and journey mapping
  • Generate and select concepts using SCAMPER, concept posters and weighted criteria
  • Build a Business Model Canvas with value, channel, cost and revenue assumptions
  • Design Lean Startup experiments using hypotheses, prototypes, metrics and decision rules
  • Prepare venture cases using unit economics, cash forecasts, benefits maps and risk analysis
  • Secure sponsorship through stakeholder salience analysis, influence maps and sponsor briefings
  • Produce a 90-day innovation action plan with experiments, governance and resource requests

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce stronger innovation proposals supported by customer evidence and explicit assumptions
  • Lead sponsor conversations with clearer investment requests, risks and decision points
  • Assess whether an idea needs testing, redesign, scaling or closure
  • Build a credible internal venture case using unit economics and benefits measures
  • Apply structured innovation methods to current service and growth responsibilities

For your organisation

  • Improves selection of initiatives through transparent opportunity and portfolio criteria
  • Reduces avoidable investment by testing demand and feasibility before scaling
  • Creates clearer links between innovation activity, strategic priorities and measurable benefits
  • Strengthens sponsor accountability through defined evidence, gates and decision rights
  • Builds a common language for cross-functional innovation teams and governance groups

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can position enterprise entrepreneurship within strategy, governance and organisational accountabilities.

  • Corporate entrepreneurship: venture creation within an established organisation
  • Three Horizons distinguishes core improvement, adjacent growth, and future options
  • Ambidextrous operating models balance exploitation discipline with exploration freedom
  • Strategic intent translated into opportunity domains, guardrails, and investment themes
  • Founder, sponsor, and venture-team accountabilities clarified through a RACI matrix
  • Public-sector, banking, and NGO innovation mandates compared for constraints

Participants can identify, frame and prioritise innovation opportunities using strategic and market evidence.

  • PESTLE signals converted into assumptions requiring customer or market evidence
  • Jobs to Be Done identifies functional, emotional, and social progress
  • Trend mapping separates weak signals from established demand patterns
  • Opportunity areas framed with problem statements, beneficiaries, and constraints
  • Assumption mapping ranks desirability, feasibility, viability, and evidence gaps
  • Opportunity scoring weights strategic fit, customer value, risk, and scale

Participants can develop evidence-based problem statements from customer and stakeholder research.

  • Design Thinking phases connect discovery, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing
  • Stakeholder maps expose decision makers, users, influencers, and affected groups
  • Interview guides elicit past behaviour rather than hypothetical preferences
  • Customer journey maps locate friction, workarounds, moments of truth, and needs
  • How Might We questions convert research findings into focused prompts
  • Insight statements distinguish observations, interpretations, and testable opportunity hypotheses

Participants can create, screen and communicate customer-centred innovation concepts.

  • SCAMPER generates alternatives by substituting, combining, adapting, modifying, repurposing, eliminating, reversing
  • Crazy Eights produces rapid concept variations before group convergence
  • Concept posters specify target user, problem, proposition, and proof
  • Value proposition statements link customer jobs, pains, gains, and offerings
  • Dot voting screens concepts without replacing evidence-based selection criteria
  • Concept risk registers record technical, regulatory, adoption, and delivery uncertainties

Participants can translate a concept into a viable operating and commercial model.

  • Business Model Canvas links segments, value propositions, channels, resources, and revenues
  • Operating-model choices define partners, capabilities, processes, governance, and service levels
  • Revenue architecture compares subscription, transaction, licensing, usage, and cross-subsidy models
  • Unit economics calculates contribution margin, acquisition cost, retention, and payback
  • Regulatory requirements shape propositions involving data, payments, procurement, or safeguarding
  • Business model assumptions become measurable hypotheses with explicit success thresholds

Participants can design proportionate experiments that inform venture decisions quickly.

  • Lean Startup cycles connect hypotheses, minimum viable products, measures, and decisions
  • Experiment cards state audience, intervention, metric, duration, and decision rule
  • Prototype fidelity matches the uncertainty being tested and available evidence
  • Smoke tests measure demand through landing pages, messages, and sign-ups
  • Wizard-of-Oz tests simulate service delivery before automation investment decisions
  • Evidence reviews determine persevere, pivot, pause, or stop recommendations

Participants can prepare financially credible innovation cases with explicit risks and benefits.

  • Venture cases separate fixed costs, variable costs, benefits, and contingencies
  • 13-week rolling cash forecasts test liquidity under alternative adoption scenarios
  • Expected monetary value compares risk responses using probability and impact
  • Sensitivity analysis tests price, volume, cost, and timing assumptions
  • Stage-gate funding releases capital against evidence, milestones, and decision rights
  • Benefits maps trace outputs, outcomes, owners, measures, and dependencies

Participants can build support, organise venture teams and manage innovation stakeholders.

  • Intrapreneur roles combine opportunity advocacy, delivery ownership, and stakeholder management
  • Stakeholder salience analysis prioritises power, legitimacy, urgency, and engagement approaches
  • Sponsor briefings frame decisions, evidence, resources, risks, and requested commitments
  • Influence maps identify blockers, champions, gatekeepers, and coalition-building actions
  • Psychological safety supports dissent, learning from failure, and escalation
  • Team charters establish roles, cadence, decision rules, and conflict protocols

Participants can assess innovation initiatives as a portfolio and determine scaling readiness.

  • Innovation portfolios balance horizon, risk, strategic fit, and resource allocation
  • Three Horizons portfolio maps show core, adjacent, and transformational initiatives
  • Portfolio matrices compare uncertainty, value potential, readiness, and investment required
  • Scaling readiness assesses repeatability, operational capacity, governance, and customer support
  • Metrics trees connect venture measures to strategic and financial outcomes
  • Kill criteria protect resources when evidence fails predefined thresholds

Participants can convert a selected opportunity into a practical, governed 90-day action plan.

  • Opportunity briefs consolidate problem evidence, concept, business model, and assumptions
  • 90-day action plans sequence experiments, decisions, owners, and resource requests
  • Decision logs record rationale, evidence, dissent, and follow-up commitments
  • Learning agendas schedule critical assumptions, methods, measures, and review dates
  • Implementation roadmaps align pilots, governance reviews, procurement, and communications
  • Personal innovation commitments specify one opportunity, sponsor conversation, and first test

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Innovation opportunity brief template
  2. Customer interview and journey-mapping toolkit
  3. Business Model Canvas worksheet
  4. Experiment card and evidence-review template
  5. Venture case and benefits-map model
  6. 90-day innovation action plan

Who should attend

  • Innovation Managers — need repeatable methods for developing and governing new initiatives
  • Product Managers — need evidence-based ways to test propositions before major investment
  • Transformation Leaders — need to convert strategic priorities into funded innovation work
  • Business Unit Managers — need to build growth cases beyond incremental operational improvement
  • Public Service Managers — need to develop citizen-focused services within accountability constraints
  • NGO Programme Leaders — need to test new delivery models before committing scarce funds

Skills and tools covered

Opportunity identificationCustomer insightBusiness model designExperiment designInnovation financeStakeholder sponsorship

Tools and standards

Design Thinking, Jobs to Be Done, Lean Startup, Business Model Canvas

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce methods, followed by case analysis, facilitated group work, simulations and structured application planning. Participants examine realistic innovation decisions such as testing a digital banking service, redesigning a public-service journey or piloting an NGO delivery model. They create customer insights, concepts, business-model assumptions, experiment designs and venture cases, then practise presenting evidence to sponsors. Trainers adapt cases and discussion emphasis to the cohort’s sector, mandate and current initiatives.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience contributing to projects, services, products, operational improvement or strategic initiatives. They should be comfortable discussing customers, stakeholders, budgets, risks and organisational priorities. Familiarity with basic business cases or project governance is helpful, but not essential. No previous entrepreneurship training, design qualification, finance specialism, coding ability or startup experience is required. Participants will gain most value by bringing a current opportunity, service problem or strategic priority they can examine during the course.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience of projects, services, products, operations or strategic initiatives. You do not need startup experience, design training, advanced finance knowledge or a technical background.

Bring a current business opportunity, service problem, customer issue or strategic priority if possible. You may use it as the basis for your opportunity brief and 90-day action plan.

It is designed for managers and specialists responsible for innovation, product development, transformation, service improvement or growth initiatives. It is also relevant to leaders sponsoring internal ventures or pilots.

The course addresses enterprise conditions such as governance, sponsors, investment cases, procurement, regulation, portfolio choices and operating-model integration. Design Thinking and startup methods are used, but within the realities of established organisations.

Participants leave with methods and working documents for framing opportunities, testing assumptions and preparing sponsor decisions. The 90-day plan identifies the first experiment, evidence required, owners, review points and resource requests.

The programme provides approximately 32.5 contact hours across five 08:30-16:30 training days. Time is divided between instructor input, case work, group application, simulations, discussion and individual action planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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