Intrapreneurial Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Innovation Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-IC-012

Before you join: Participants should have at least two years of professional experience and a working understanding of how decisions, budgets and projects are managed in their organisation.

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

Large organisations need new products, services, process improvements and operating models, yet promising ideas often stall between concept and approval. Intrapreneurial leaders must identify a worthwhile problem, build evidence, win sponsorship, work within governance requirements and turn a proposal into measurable action. They face constraints that external founders may not: fixed budgets, risk controls, competing priorities, legacy systems and established decision rights.

This course develops the practical discipline of leading innovation from inside an organisation. Participants use Design Thinking, Jobs to Be Done, Lean Startup and the Business Model Canvas to frame opportunities, test assumptions and develop viable initiatives. They learn to distinguish ideas from validated opportunities, construct a clear value proposition, assess feasibility, map stakeholders, prepare an innovation business case and manage resistance. The course also addresses the leadership behaviours needed to create psychological safety, mobilise cross-functional contributors and maintain momentum after initial approval.

Teaching combines focused briefings, sector-based cases, facilitated group work, decision simulations and structured application to participants’ own organisational opportunities. Cases reflect settings such as public services, banking, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications and international development. Participants leave with an intrapreneurial initiative plan containing an opportunity statement, customer evidence, experiment backlog, stakeholder strategy, business case outline and 90-day action plan.

The course is suited to managers and specialists expected to improve services, introduce new ways of working or sponsor internal ventures. It is especially valuable where innovation must satisfy formal controls while producing clear operational, financial or social value.

What you will be able to do

  • Frame an internal innovation opportunity using Jobs to Be Done and problem statements
  • Generate and prioritise ideas using divergent thinking and weighted criteria matrices
  • Develop a value proposition using customer evidence, personas and journey maps
  • Test critical assumptions through Lean Startup experiments and measurable hypotheses
  • Build an internal venture model using the Business Model Canvas
  • Prepare an innovation business case with benefits, costs, risks and decision gates
  • Map sponsors, stakeholders and resistance using power-interest analysis
  • Produce a 90-day intrapreneurial action plan with milestones and accountability

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Build confidence presenting evidence-based innovation proposals to senior decision-makers
  • Learn to convert operational frustrations into clearly framed improvement opportunities
  • Develop practical methods for testing ideas before requesting significant investment
  • Strengthen influence skills for securing sponsors and cross-functional contributors
  • Create a credible 90-day plan for progressing an internal initiative

For your organisation

  • Improve the quality of internal proposals reaching investment and governance forums
  • Reduce wasted effort by testing critical assumptions before large-scale implementation
  • Create a repeatable approach for identifying service, process and product opportunities
  • Increase ownership of improvement initiatives among managers and technical specialists
  • Connect innovation activity to measurable customer, operational and financial outcomes

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define the intrapreneurial role and position an initiative within organisational strategy and governance.

  • Intrapreneurship compared with entrepreneurship, continuous improvement and project delivery
  • Strategic intent translated into opportunity areas, innovation themes and constraints
  • Three Horizons framework distinguishes core improvements from emerging growth bets
  • Corporate governance, decision rights and risk appetite shape innovation choices
  • Leadership behaviours that create permission, accountability and productive challenge
  • Innovation portfolio logic balances incremental, adjacent and transformational initiatives

Participants can identify and frame a high-value problem suitable for internal innovation.

  • Jobs to Be Done identifies functional, emotional and social customer progress
  • Problem statements define user, need, evidence, constraint and desired outcome
  • Five Whys separates visible symptoms from underlying operational causes
  • Service blueprints expose failure points, handoffs and backstage dependencies
  • Opportunity scoring compares strategic fit, impact, feasibility and urgency
  • Assumption mapping identifies beliefs requiring evidence before investment decisions

Participants can generate, combine and select ideas using disciplined creative techniques.

  • Divergent and convergent thinking separate idea volume from selection judgment
  • SCAMPER produces alternatives through substitution, combination and elimination prompts
  • Crazy Eights accelerates individual concept generation under time constraints
  • How Might We questions convert problem insights into creative prompts
  • Affinity mapping clusters raw ideas into themes, patterns and opportunity areas
  • Weighted decision matrices rank concepts against agreed evaluation criteria

Participants can gather customer evidence and formulate a clear value proposition.

  • Customer interviews use open questions, probes and neutral listening techniques
  • Personas synthesise needs, behaviours, motivations and relevant operating constraints
  • Journey mapping identifies moments of truth, pain points and workarounds
  • Value Proposition Canvas links customer jobs, pains and gains
  • Problem-solution fit assessed through observable behaviour rather than stated preference
  • Evidence logs distinguish interview findings, assumptions, interpretations and decisions

Participants can design proportionate experiments that test critical initiative assumptions.

  • Lean Startup Build-Measure-Learn cycle structures evidence-based innovation decisions
  • Testable hypotheses specify target users, expected behaviour and measurable threshold
  • Riskiest assumption tests focus early effort on uncertainty with highest consequence
  • Minimum viable products match test fidelity to the decision required
  • A/B tests compare proposition, message or process variants objectively
  • Experiment cards record assumptions, methods, metrics, findings and next actions

Participants can shape an internal venture model and assess its operational feasibility.

  • Business Model Canvas maps value, customers, activities, resources and costs
  • Operating model choices define processes, capabilities, partners and service channels
  • Feasibility assessment tests technology, capacity, policy and procurement dependencies
  • Make-buy-partner analysis compares control, cost, speed and specialist capability
  • Unit economics estimates revenue, variable cost, contribution and break-even volume
  • Stage-gate decisions align investment levels with evidence and remaining uncertainty

Participants can prepare a concise business case for an internal innovation decision.

  • Logic models connect activities, outputs, outcomes and intended organisational impact
  • Benefits maps show causal links between initiative features and value
  • Cost estimates include delivery, transition, training, maintenance and opportunity costs
  • Sensitivity analysis tests financial outcomes against uncertain volume and cost assumptions
  • Risk registers assign owners, mitigations, triggers and review dates
  • Decision papers present recommendation, evidence, options, investment and approval sought

Participants can secure sponsorship and build stakeholder commitment for an internal initiative.

  • Power-interest grids identify stakeholder influence, concerns and engagement approaches
  • Sponsor mapping distinguishes executive sponsors, champions, users and gatekeepers
  • Stakeholder value exchanges clarify requested support and offered benefits
  • Influence without authority uses credibility, reciprocity, coalition building and evidence
  • Resistance diagnosis separates legitimate risks from political, cultural and resource concerns
  • Message framing adapts the proposal for finance, operations, technology and customer leaders

Participants can lead teams through uncertainty while maintaining disciplined learning and delivery.

  • Psychological safety enables challenge, candour, learning and early risk reporting
  • Ambidextrous leadership balances exploration activities with execution discipline
  • Kanban boards visualise experiments, decisions, dependencies and work-in-progress limits
  • After-action reviews capture expected results, actual results, causes and improvements
  • Innovation metrics track learning velocity, adoption, benefits and portfolio progress
  • Escalation paths resolve blocked decisions, resource conflicts and governance delays

Participants can convert an innovation proposal into a prioritised 90-day action plan.

  • Initiative charters define purpose, scope, sponsor, team and success measures
  • Ninety-day plans sequence discovery, experiments, approvals and implementation preparations
  • RACI matrices assign responsibility, accountability, consultation and information requirements
  • Milestone plans identify decision points, evidence required and accountable owners
  • Pre-mortems anticipate likely failure modes before commitments become difficult
  • Personal leadership commitments specify conversations, actions and review dates

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

What you take back to work

  1. Jobs to Be Done opportunity statement template
  2. Assumption map and experiment card set
  3. Customer interview guide and evidence log
  4. Internal venture Business Model Canvas
  5. Innovation business case decision paper template
  6. 90-day intrapreneurial action plan

Who should attend

  • Innovation Managers — responsible for converting strategic priorities into funded initiatives
  • Department Heads — expected to improve services, processes or customer outcomes
  • Product Managers — developing propositions within established governance and resource constraints
  • Project and Programme Managers — leading change initiatives requiring stakeholder commitment
  • Operations Managers — identifying practical improvements to cost, quality or service delivery
  • Subject-Matter Specialists — championing ideas that require cross-functional sponsorship

Skills and tools covered

Opportunity framingCustomer discoveryExperiment designInternal venture planningStakeholder mobilisationInnovation business cases

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 cases, group analysis, simulations and individual application. Participants assess examples of internal ventures that succeeded, stalled or failed at approval stages. They practise problem framing, customer discovery, assumption testing, stakeholder planning and business case development using realistic organisational scenarios. Facilitated peer feedback helps participants strengthen proposals before preparing a focused action plan for use after the course.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least two years of professional experience and a working understanding of how decisions, budgets and projects are managed in their organisation. Familiarity with a current service, process, product or improvement opportunity is useful because course application focuses on realistic internal challenges. Participants should be comfortable contributing to group discussion and interpreting basic operational or financial information. No prior innovation qualification, design background, business case training, entrepreneurship experience or specialist financial modelling skill is required.

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 professional experience in a structured organisation and familiarity with how work is approved and delivered. Previous innovation, design thinking or entrepreneurship training is not required.

Bring details of a service, process, product or customer issue that could benefit from improvement. Participants may also bring non-confidential performance data, stakeholder information or existing proposals for use during application work.

The course suits managers, product leaders, project professionals, operations leaders and specialists who need to progress an idea from problem definition to internal approval. It is useful for people leading change without direct authority over every contributor.

Design thinking courses usually focus on user-centred problem solving, while entrepreneurship courses often focus on independent ventures. This course addresses the additional realities of internal sponsorship, governance, business cases, organisational politics and implementation dependencies.

Participants leave with an initiative plan built around a real or realistic opportunity. They can use the templates to conduct customer interviews, test assumptions, engage sponsors and prepare an approval paper.

The five days provide approximately 32.5 contact hours, combining instructor input with case analysis, group work, simulations and application planning. Modules progress from opportunity identification through experimentation, business case development, stakeholder mobilisation and a 90-day plan.

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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