Tiger Team draws on four key elements: a complex, human-centred problem, a diverse group of change makers, the application of innovation methods, and the Innovation Lab space. This is possible thanks to leadership support and permission space for participants to contribute.

Problems chosen for Tiger Team require input from a variety of perspectives and skill sets giving a system view. It attracts individuals who are disruptive thinkers and are willing to contribute that mindset to other people’s problems. It draw on innovation methodologies from Design Thinking to Systems Thinking as well as Project and Change Management. Finally, it is hosted in a flexible, neutral space that encourages people to leave their titles at the door and contribute as an inter-disciplinary team.

These challenges would otherwise take multiple meetings spanning over months. By using the Tiger Team format, problems are explored and unexpected solutions found in a compressed time frame.

To date, over 20 Tiger Team sessions have been held, and many more are planned for the next months.

The success of Tiger Team overall has not gone unnoticed. The City’s senior leadership is considering ways to adopt the Tiger Team model to accelerate and advance their work with an innovation focus. They are both utilising the existing Tiger Team, and also co-opting pieces of innovation methodology on their own.

Picking up on this signal, the Innovation Lab developed a new service called “Accelerators” that mimic Tiger Teams but are project-specific. As opposed to open invites, the sessions are still deliberately cross-corporate but more curated in terms of participants and topics. Accelerators have tackled everything, from operational records to the highly complex and controversial external contractor management.

Officials – These are the problem owners. In addition, they bring the skills, expertise and viewpoints of their own departments to guide the problem.

Citizens – Contribute with their thoughts, insights and lived experience on the problem which are used to form the solution. This creates a better city, designed for and by citizens, who then often implement the prototypes generated.

Organisations – Offer different perspectives and sometimes contribute to the solutions based on their expertise.

Officials – Have the opportunity to work across silos and challenge traditional problem-solving techniques. As problem owners, Tiger Team helps them move their projects forward in more informed, collaborative ways.

Citizens & Organisations – Their involvement builds trust and relationships, enabling Tiger Team to work through barriers more efficiently. As recipients of the solutions they are often directly impacted. From the proposed solutions, they can implement new programs that help further their mandate.

Tiger Team broke down silos - Enabled collaboration across an organisation of 15,000 people and 32 business units to create the permission space for developing creative solutions for problems.

The Team created connections between people – Leveraged skills, experiences and resources of staff to co-create impactful solutions. This subsequently builds a strong sense of trust and further support for cross-collaboration outside of the Tiger Team space.

Found efficiencies – Streamlined the process of soliciting diverse perspectives on an issue and exploring it in an unconventional manner to find unexpected solutions faster.

Provided a safe space – A place to be self-critical and solutions-focused, the Innovation Lab is allowing staff to reflect and improve the ways that the administration serves Calgary’s citizens.

Going forward a ripple effect to become more risk tolerant is expected – changing mindsets to think about risk in a positive way and changing mental models on how to apply risk assessment to projects.

Building Trust - No two Tiger Teams are ever the same. They hinge on the right combination of problem, participants and tools, despite a consistent use of format and methodologies. It takes a high degree of courage and vulnerability on the part of the client to open their problem up. Clients need to have trust in the process and the people involved before they will meaningfully allow for cross-corporate and community collaboration.

Following up for implementation – An improvement is to explore how follow-up or coaching could be deliberately built into the process. While the Innovation Lab is able to assist in interpreting the results of the sessions, the bulk of the action and implementation is still left to the problem owners. This means that sometimes the results of a Tiger Team aren’t acted upon as quickly or as fully as they could be. As Tiger Team continues to evolve the team behind it is working on developing resources to help take learnings to the next level.

Change Makers – Tiger Team has a unique opportunity and permission space for participation, attracting people in the organisation who are interested in making change in a collaborative manner. Their experience and subsequent sharing generates momentum and successful attendance.

Innovation Tools and Methods – Sessions are co-created with the problem owner.  Teams use innovation tools and methodologies including Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, service design, etc. These are proven methodologies that continue to prove effective in the Tiger Team environment. The sessions are part problem-solving and part professional learning.

The Space – Tiger Team is held at the Innovation Lab, which is a space that is creative, colourful, self-authoring and flexible: whiteboard walls, rolling chairs, and no boardroom tables. The spaces asks people to leave their titles at the door and come into a space where they are expected to bring their whole selves and be beginners, learners and experts equally.

The success of a Tiger Team or an Accelerator hinges on the development of a permission space for people to contribute outside of their normal workspace, and a vulnerability of problem owners to open their challenges to their non-immediate teams internal and external to the organization.

This can be replicated starting from the following formula:
1 problem + 20-25 diverse change makers (internal and external stakeholders) + 2.5 hours + creative space + permission space with support from leadership + innovation tools and methodologies.

Equates to: high-impact creative solutions + an innovation network + cross-corporate collaboration + courage to take on risks + organizational efficiencies.

The Innovation Lab has developed a new service called “Accelerators” that mimics the Tiger Team format but are project-specific and as opposed to being open corporate wide, participants are more intentionally curated from diverse business units throughout the corporation.

Problems, solutions, and actioning of outputs from Tiger Team work best when problem owners approach Tiger Team, as opposed to being targeted or “voluntold” by a colleague. Previous participation of the problem owner in a Tiger Team is also essential. They are then aware of the scope and impact of creative dialogue, and in a position where they are willing to be more vulnerable (in airing their challenges), with a strong likelihood to use the outputs in a significant way.

A Tiger Team model needs to be intentionally cross-corporate from its inception and maintain this focus. This extends from the problem selection through to the leadership of the Tiger Team. The project team is the combination of an Innovation Designer who brings professional learning, experience design, and innovation methodologies, and a community-minded engineer who brings strategic lens, a deep understanding of City culture and endless connections both within City staff and the broader community.

An example of direct participant feedback: “I just want to say how great that Tiger Team session was the other day! We have been dealing with big challenges with the status quo forever, and I honestly think there was more progress made in that 3 hour session than in the last few years of the standard format meetings.
It was just awesome to have all those minds in one room to freely discuss the issue. From that session, we discovered that two of our teams have been working in isolation on parallel solutions to solving the same problem, and now I have a meeting with them tomorrow to see if we can share our tools and start collaborating on the solution. This is a big step that is happening directly as a result of that session.”