1.1 Activity: case study by Gia Instructor

2025-04-14 05:03:32 UTC

IDEO’s approach is much more deeply embedded in their culture compared to my workplace. While we do have some cross-functional collaboration—such as between Sales and Training, or State Managers and the Education team—it’s not to the same extent as what’s described at IDEO. There, the entire office environment is designed to foster a safe space where employees are encouraged to support and learn from one another.

2025-04-14 05:06:26 UTC

Collaborating and influencing are essential in my role because we don’t work in silos—we’re part of a larger business where people with different skills and experiences come together to achieve shared goals. A strong culture of collaboration helps the business make better decisions, improves performance and inclusion, and ultimately leads to greater commitment and engagement from the team.

2025-04-14 05:10:06 UTC

Potential challenges can be physical—for example, some businesses may not have the space or resources to create a collaborative environment like IDEO’s office, where people can easily share ideas and support each other. Other challenges might be cultural. Not all organisations encourage open communication or create opportunities for team members to voice their opinions and offer help. It takes courage to foster that kind of openness, and not every workplace is ready for it.

In my organisation we don't have teams sit together in the one space the person you sit with would be working on a different project to you. The leadership team also sit in desks the same as everyone else in the office there are no large offices or "corner desks".

2025-08-02 08:34:52 UTC

In my role this culture of "helping" and collaborating is very beneficial as I work across the whole of the organisation to ensure that all teams are meeting their Governance requirement. It is helpful if I am kept up to date along the way so if I can see the requirement is not being met I can help rectify this early by collaborating not just with the one team but perhaps involving other teams to "share" how they remain on track with Governance requirements.

2025-08-02 08:38:59 UTC

Some of the potential challenges may be many employees work from home and it can be harder to collaborate via online meetings, there may not be sufficient space and some workers are resistant to change and don't want to move desks. Also whilst most workplaces claim to foster internal collaboration it must be demonstrated to be true so the employees trust the employer.

2025-08-02 08:41:39 UTC

2025-12-01 12:40:19 UTC

My organisation is structured similar to IDEO. WE are a large business with multiple teams within each business unit. Each business unit has a designated area, and the team can sit anywhere within this area. This makes it very easy for teams to collaborate, and problem solve on a daily basis, without the need to call for multiple meetings to achieve a simple outcome. Team members form across teams get to know each other and this helps break down silos.

The downfall to this model is that the SMEs and experts can be bombarded with questions making it difficult to perform their required tasks and meet SLAs and KPIs.

Louder teams can also impact smaller teams that need quiet areas to concentrate to complete complex calculations or investigative activities. This can impact quality, SLAs and KPIs.

Q1 IDEO case study

2026-04-07 23:51:47 UTC

we make best use of our 'anchor days' by scheduling meetings to genuinely problem solve rather than 'just' share information or updates (usually reserved for Teams meetings). Our office is small and open plan, which encourages collaboration. "Eavesdropping" on a work conversation is a cultural norm, and its ok to butt in with an idea.

Q2 IDEO case study

2026-04-07 23:55:02 UTC

IPAA could do with some more explicit, as opposed to implicit or organic practices. It would promote wider input including from those currently more reluctant to contribute, and provide guide rails to those that do. It would also promote it across all business units not justthose where it is more intuitively obvious (eg governance and finance do it all the time, less so governance and Events management teams)

Q3 IDEO case study

2026-04-07 23:57:39 UTC

potential challenges include that of hybrid working, we find those 'in the room' can dominate over those that are participating online. Other cultural rather than physical obstacles can be the lack of psychological safety - a fear of being judged on the quality of ideas, and support.