Final Flagship Conference
On 17th March 2021 the NextGenPSF project held its final Flagship Conference associated with the core project to share and disseminate insights from the project. The event brought together leading practitioners and professionals from across legal and accounting firms and other stakeholders engaged with the professions. The event centred on the value of design sprints (derived from design thinking) as a very useful and practical way to re-think and resolve business challenges. A central aim of out multi-disciplinary research project funded under the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund was to discover the extent that innovation and AI readiness could be unlocked using design thinking, in particular design sprints.
The event was hosted by Richard Chaplin, Founder & Chief Executive Managing Partners' Forum and Co-Investigator of NextGenPSF, and showcased the outputs of the project. The research 'deep dives' have provided insight into the sector, and working with firms the project team has co-created a series of design sprints and futures workshops to support professional services firms on the journey to enable firms to explore current and future business challenges in a very practical way. The journey combines business model innovation, futures and scenarios, story boards and model-making, with an innovation roadmap as the primary output. Hence Fast-track Innovation™ is the Conference and Campaign theme.
Session 1 - Design sprint walk-through from the creators
The focus of Session 1 provided insights about the sprint journey from the project team. Design sprints (derived from design thinking) are a very useful and practical way to re-think and resolve business challenges. You can watch the session again, and the speakers were:
Session 2 - Design sprints - sector experts
The focus of Session 2 was on technology, management, innovation, and team composition, with presentations and reflections from leading experts in across the professions. The speakers explore and reflect on where design sprints can add most value to professional service firms looking to innovate. You can watch the session again, and the speakers were:
Professor, Queen Mary University of London
Partner, Lewis Silkin
Managing Director, The Innovation & Knowledge Agency
Partner, Moore Kingston Smith
Session 3 - Panel event - Strategy & policy implications
The focus of the panel discussion in Session 3 was the strategy and policy implications informed by a white paper. The NextGenPSF project has illuminated a series of issues demonstrating the importance of non-technical factors on the AI Readiness of firms and the continued need to focus on business challenges.
ISCF Challenge Director, Innovate UK
Director General, Institute of Directors