Mind Circus

We'll work with you to ensure your projects exceed their objectives by devising and delivering the correct approach for your team. Our innovation consulting offerings include:

Product Development. We'll help you create successful new products: either extensions to existing lines or breakthrough products in entirely new categories;
Product Naming. We'll help you come up with the most effective names for your new products and services;
New Business Conception. Need to explore the possibility of entering into a whole new business arena? We'll guide you through the process in a way that maximizes creativity and intelligent decision-making;
Strategic Planning & Visioning. We'll assist you in developing and implementing a vision and long-term strategy that will take your organization where you want it to go;
Process Improvement. We'll work with your team to come up with creative ways to make your processes more effective and efficient;
Team Development. If you need better performance out of a team, we can help.

Product Development Process

New and improved … developing breakthrough products and improving existing ones

Using proprietary tools, we will collaboratively facilitate your group in:

fully understanding your customers' unmet needs and wishes;
building consensus around the greatest resulting opportunities;
generating great product ideas - breakthrough and incremental - that hit the mark;
increasing your development capacity;
optimizing your development process.

Product Naming

One of the principles of effective brainstorming is to generate many ideas. This becomes even more important in product naming, where you need to generate thousands of possibilities just to come up with a winning name. We offer a unique approach to product naming which keeps the creativity flowing until you've found the right name.

We've worked with Clorox and others to develop great names for some of their products. We can do the same for you.

New Business Conception

The creation of entirely new lines of business requires focused and devoted attention, away from day-to-day operations and immersed in stimuli from many different sources.

We design and deliver these "immersions" to integrate:

presentations from experts from relevant fields;
site visits to industry-leading companies;
brainstorming sessions that tap into your company's strengths, the industry's opportunities and the imagination of your people to generate great ideas;
decision-making sessions to achieve consensus on your most promising opportunities;
detailed planning for developing the new business.

One of our recent projects involved helping a European conglomerate explore e-business opportunities from their bricks and mortar foundation.

Strategic Planning and Visioning

The future is yours. Finding answers to these questions will greatly increase your chances of success:

What business are you really in?
Where has your business been?
Where do you want to be a few years down the road?
How are you going to get there?
What milestones do you want to exceed along the way?

We'll guide you and your executive team to collaboratively answer these questions in a way that aligns the minds and hearts of your entire organization. You'll generate a compelling vision of the future and create the most effective plans and strategies to make this vision a reality.

We do this by:

ensuring everyone contributes and is heard;
tapping into your entire team's creativity and imagination;
helping you come to consensus on the vision, goals, breakthrough strategies and aligned action necessary for success.

Process Innovation & Improvement

Making it better: improving processes through a structured methodology

Whether it's optimizing your supply chain, improving your customer relationship management capability or harmonizing core business processes across your enterprise, the results can make a meaningful, positive difference to your bottom line. Our methodology takes the risk out of this sometimes cumbersome and time-consuming challenge. We help you design the process and technology solutions that are best suited for your business and your company culture. We work with you to implement the solutions so that your people will quickly learn to leverage the new tools to their full advantage.

We'll lead your team through a structured improvement process that:

Analyzes opportunities for improvement;
Results in design options;
Identifies the most promising solutions;
Helps your team select technology solutions if required;
Creates an implementation and roll out plan;
Develops and trains your people in operating the new processes;
Helps you measure the results including the ROI to your business.

Team Development:

Finding Ways to Perform Optimally Together

There are many challenges to effective teamwork, including:

unclear team charter or mission;
undefined performance objectives;
communication issues;
personality conflicts;
role confusion;
distrust;
dissatisfaction.

At some point, all teams go through one or more of these issues. Team development is about leading you through a process that reduces the impact of these issues and gets your team running on all cylinders.

We'll work with your team to unleash its power through a one-time or ongoing guided sessions. Components might include:

helping team members become more acquainted and organized;
articulating and clarifying a team vision and mission;
determining and identifying team performance gaps;
establishing team roles and norms;
fixing team issues and conflicts and avoiding potential ones;
developing your team's skills.

We'll help you create a harmonious and productive team.