The Schmidt Groupe Organizes Ideation with the Créativ’Café

The firm Schmidt Groupe is probably one of the most innovative in its business sector and has been over a long period. As with many family ETIs [French classification for medium-sized companies], it has driven its development with a long-term vision of its durability and it has known how to anticipate both technological developments in the processes of production, products and the uses of its products. For several years it has established a relatively structured process of innovation, with an organized sequence of precise and selective activities and a stage-gate process. However, two observations have been made: on the one hand, actors acting during the innovation process have little opportunity to interact apart from more or less formal meetings organized by the process, particularly in advance of this and, on the other hand, the sources of “inspiration” of the process, which supply it with new projects, are “monopolized” by a limited number of people belonging to “authorized” services to contribute to this process. The question posed is, then, not only that of the existence of an “inventor”, of their identity and intrinsic “genius”, but also that of their “localization” in the organization and, above all, sharing their idea with a group, a collective, to enable the idea to mature and be acceptable as a candidate to become a project in the innovation process…