Innovation and Disruptive Entrepreneurship 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 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-IC-032

Before you join: Participants should have professional experience in management, product, operations, strategy, marketing, digital transformation, or business development.

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

Innovation teams often generate promising ideas but struggle to identify worthwhile opportunities, test assumptions quickly, secure investment, and scale concepts without draining resources from core operations. Disruptive entrepreneurship requires more than creativity: it depends on disciplined market sensing, customer discovery, business model design, evidence-based experimentation, and decisions about when to invest, partner, pivot, or stop.

This course develops the methods used to find and shape innovation opportunities under uncertainty. Participants examine disruption theory, weak signals, Jobs to Be Done, customer interviews, opportunity portfolios, Business Model Canvas, unit economics, Lean Startup experiments, innovation accounting, and adoption metrics. They learn to distinguish genuine customer problems from attractive but weak ideas; frame testable hypotheses; select concepts using explicit criteria; and build an evidence base for funding and scaling decisions.

The course is delivered through instructor briefings, sector cases, facilitated group analysis, concept-development work, experiment simulations, and structured application planning. Cases can be drawn from banking, public services, telecommunications, healthcare, consumer markets, energy, and technology-enabled services. Participants leave with a practical innovation opportunity dossier containing a problem definition, customer evidence, concept model, experiment plan, business model assumptions, risk controls, and a 90-day action plan. Delivery is available as a five-day classroom programme in 50+ cities or live online. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

The course suits managers and specialists responsible for innovation initiatives, new ventures, digital products, service redesign, growth strategy, or internal entrepreneurship. It is particularly relevant where established organisations need to respond to changing customer expectations, new entrants, platform businesses, regulation, or emerging technologies.

What you will be able to do

  • Identify disruptive opportunity spaces using market signals, customer evidence and disruption theory
  • Conduct Jobs to Be Done interviews and convert findings into opportunity statements
  • Generate and refine innovation concepts using SCAMPER, morphological analysis and concept posters
  • Prioritise innovation opportunities using RICE scoring, assumption mapping and portfolio criteria
  • Design business models using Business Model Canvas, pricing hypotheses and unit economics
  • Build testable hypotheses and minimum viable product experiments using Lean Startup methods
  • Evaluate innovation investments using innovation accounting, stage gates and risk registers
  • Produce a 90-day innovation action plan with milestones, evidence targets and sponsors

Benefits of attending

For you

  • A repeatable method for turning market uncertainty into testable innovation opportunities
  • Stronger customer interview and problem-framing skills for new venture decisions
  • Practical confidence presenting evidence rather than opinions to senior sponsors
  • A structured approach to testing concepts before requesting major investment
  • A personal 90-day plan for progressing a live innovation initiative

For your organisation

  • Better prioritisation of innovation investments using explicit evidence and decision criteria
  • Earlier identification of customer needs, disruptive threats and adjacent growth opportunities
  • Reduced waste from product development based on untested assumptions
  • Clearer governance for experiments, funding gates, risk exposure and stopping decisions
  • Stronger internal capability to launch and scale new products, services and ventures

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish disruptive opportunities from incremental improvements and frame an initial innovation thesis.

  • Disruptive innovation distinguished from sustaining innovation using Christensen's framework
  • Market uncertainty mapped through known, knowable, complex and chaotic domains
  • Opportunity spaces defined from technology shifts, regulation and customer frustration
  • Incumbent constraints assessed through assets, incentives, processes and profit formula
  • Creative abrasion, agility and resolution as innovation leadership disciplines
  • Assumptions separated from evidence using an innovation thesis

Participants can identify market changes and convert them into structured innovation opportunities.

  • PESTLE signals converted into implications for customer behaviour and economics
  • Trend cards distinguish weak signals, trends, fads and established shifts
  • Adjacent markets screened for transferable needs, channels and capabilities
  • Value chain profit pools reveal pressure points and entry opportunities
  • Scenario axes built from critical uncertainties and predetermined elements
  • Technology S curves estimate maturity, performance limits and substitution timing

Participants can gather customer evidence and define problems worth solving.

  • Jobs to Be Done interviews identify functional, emotional and social progress
  • Outcome statements capture desired gains, constraints and switching triggers
  • Persona assumptions replaced with evidence from observation and customer interviews
  • Journey maps expose underserved moments, workarounds and nonconsumption
  • Problem interviews avoid leading questions and premature solution testing
  • Opportunity statements specify target customer, context, pain and desired outcome

Participants can generate, develop and communicate alternative innovation concepts.

  • How Might We questions frame generative exploration without embedding solutions
  • SCAMPER prompts produce variations through substitution, combination and reversal
  • Six Thinking Hats separates facts, risks, benefits and alternatives
  • Morphological analysis combines independent solution dimensions into novel concepts
  • Analogy transfer imports mechanisms from unrelated industries without copying features
  • Concept posters communicate customer, problem, proposition, evidence and assumptions

Participants can prioritise concepts and make transparent innovation investment choices.

  • Desirability, feasibility and viability criteria score competing opportunity concepts
  • RICE scoring compares reach, impact, confidence and effort transparently
  • Assumption mapping ranks uncertainties by importance and available evidence
  • Opportunity portfolios balance core, adjacent and transformational innovation horizons
  • Real options logic stages commitments under technical and market uncertainty
  • Kill criteria prevent escalation of commitment after negative evidence

Participants can construct business model hypotheses and assess their commercial logic.

  • Business Model Canvas links segments, propositions, channels, costs and revenues
  • Value propositions tested against customer jobs, pains and gains
  • Revenue models compare subscription, transaction, usage and licensing economics
  • Unit economics calculate contribution margin, acquisition cost and payback period
  • Pricing hypotheses distinguish willingness to pay from stated preference
  • Platform models assess network effects, governance rules and chicken egg risks

Participants can design low-cost tests that produce decision-relevant evidence.

  • Lean Startup loop connects hypotheses, minimum viable products and learning
  • Test cards define assumptions, methods, thresholds, dates and owners
  • Smoke tests measure demand before product development commitments
  • Concierge and Wizard of Oz tests isolate value drivers
  • A/B tests compare alternatives using conversion and retention metrics
  • Evidence standards distinguish signal, noise, bias and false positives

Participants can position innovation initiatives alongside existing business operations and strategic priorities.

  • Disruption theory identifies low end and new market footholds
  • Incumbent response options compare acquisition, partnership, imitation and internal ventures
  • Ambidextrous structures separate exploration mandates from exploitation performance systems
  • Three Horizons planning sequences core renewal, emerging businesses and options
  • Cannibalisation analysis quantifies trade offs between legacy revenues and new growth
  • Ecosystem maps clarify complementors, competitors, regulators and strategic bottlenecks

Participants can establish proportionate controls and investment gates for innovation initiatives.

  • Innovation accounting tracks learning milestones, leading indicators and investment gates
  • Stage gate governance matches evidence requirements to funding decisions
  • Risk registers address technical, market, operational, regulatory and reputational exposure
  • Intellectual property choices compare patents, trade secrets, licensing and publication
  • Data protection and AI ethics reviewed before customer experimentation
  • Stakeholder maps build sponsorship among executives, operators and external partners

Participants can prepare an evidence-led plan for market entry, adoption and operational scaling.

  • Beachhead market criteria focus resources on an attainable early segment
  • Go to market plans align channel, sales motion, onboarding and support
  • Adoption metrics track activation, retention, referral and revenue quality
  • Operating model changes specify roles, processes, systems and decision rights
  • Experiment backlogs sequence next tests by risk, value and effort
  • Ninety day innovation plans assign milestones, evidence targets and sponsors
  • Investment narratives connect strategic intent, evidence, economics and funding request

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

What you take back to work

  1. Innovation opportunity thesis template
  2. Jobs to Be Done interview guide
  3. Opportunity prioritisation scorecard
  4. Business Model Canvas and unit economics model
  5. Experiment test card and evidence log
  6. Ninety-day innovation action plan

Who should attend

  • Innovation Managers — responsible for building and governing innovation pipelines
  • Product Managers — need evidence-based methods for new product and service concepts
  • Entrepreneurs and Founders — need to test markets before committing scarce capital
  • Strategy Managers — assess disruptive threats and create new growth options
  • Digital Transformation Leaders — translate technology investments into validated customer value
  • Business Unit Leaders — sponsor ventures while protecting core operating performance

Skills and tools covered

Opportunity identificationCustomer discoveryBusiness model designExperiment designInnovation portfolio managementScaling strategy

Tools and standards

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

How the course runs

Training methodology

Instruction combines short practitioner briefings with case analysis, group exercises, structured customer-discovery work, concept selection, experiment design, and investment decision simulations. Participants apply named frameworks to realistic innovation challenges, including regulated markets, digital services, platform models, and internal ventures. Facilitators provide feedback on assumptions, evidence quality, business model logic, and funding narratives. The final sessions focus on converting course outputs into a practical 90-day plan for a current business opportunity.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have professional experience in management, product, operations, strategy, marketing, digital transformation, or business development. They should be comfortable discussing customers, markets, revenue models, costs, and organisational decision-making. Familiarity with basic business planning is useful, but formal entrepreneurship education is not required. No prior knowledge of Design Thinking, Lean Startup, financial modelling, coding, data science, or intellectual property law is assumed. Participants will gain most value by bringing a real business challenge, service concept, customer segment, or growth opportunity to 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

Participants need general professional experience in a business, public-sector, NGO, product, strategy, operations, marketing, or digital role. Prior entrepreneurship training is not required, and the course introduces each method before it is applied.

Bring a current product idea, service challenge, customer problem, growth opportunity, or internal venture proposal if possible. Participants can also work from course cases where they cannot share organisational information.

The course is designed for managers and specialists who must identify, test, fund, or scale new products, services, business models, or ventures. It also suits leaders responsible for responding to disruptive competitors or changing customer expectations.

Design Thinking courses usually concentrate on customer-centred problem solving and idea development. This course also covers disruptive strategy, opportunity portfolios, business model economics, controlled experiments, funding gates, governance, and scaling decisions.

Participants leave with templates and a 90-day action plan that can be used on a live opportunity. The methods support early discovery, concept selection, experiment design, investment proposals, and decisions to continue, revise, partner, or stop.

The programme runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing approximately 6.5 contact hours daily. Time is divided between instructor input, cases, group analysis, simulations, framework application, feedback, and 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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