On September 19 and 20, 2023, approximately 50 customers and interested parties traveled to Heidelberg and gathered at the arthotel in Heidelberg's old town for the target symposium 2023.
After introducing the current target team including its youngest offspring, Kai Axenath opened the conference program on behalf of the Zentrum Ideenmanagement by presenting the German Idea Management Report 2023. In his presentation, Kai Axenath went into more detail about current developments in idea management.
Robin Günther from Volkswagen AG and Michael Mulinski from Audi AG provided the following technical contribution to the symposium. They presented similarities, but also special features of target Idea Management with FIORI in their companies. They outlined the successful transition from WD4A to FIORI at VW and Audi.
For dinner, the participants of the conference met—almost according to tradition—at the "Wirtshaus zum Seppl" in Heidelberg's old town and enjoyed the evening in rustic surroundings.
The morning of the second day of the event was kicked off by the target employees Robin Müller-Cajar and René Austermühl with a demonstration of new features, improvements, and integration possibilities of target Idea Management. They not only showed the many further developments in target Idea Management on-premise that have been added to the software since the last symposium in 2022, but were also able to present target Idea Management Cloud as a standalone software on the SAP BTP for the first time.
Carmen Giese and Peter Stenzel from Fraport AG then presented use cases for target outside of ideas management. The focus of their presentation was on the work of the Konzern-Unterstützungsverein der Fraport AG e. V., which covers the costs of medical health services for employees. In a joint project, the entire process—from application to payment—was mapped using target Idea Management software. Applications can now be processed many times faster.
"Doing instead of talking" was the motto of the following agenda item. Professor Sven Poguntke from Sven Poguntke Business Development Consultants gave a clear introduction to the Lego® Serious Play® method. This is an innovative workshop, communication and problem-solving tool that can be used to address a wide range of topics (e.g. analysis, brainstorming, innovation, team development, vision, strategy). The Lego® Serious Play® method is based on the insight that creativity is particularly well released in a playful context. Questions from the hard "business world" are visualized in models and then discussed in a goal-oriented and at the same time profound way.
All participants of the meeting actively participated and tried out the Lego® Serious Play® method. Some presented their creations to the large group.
The professional program of the event was rounded off again this year by workshops. The topics "AI in (target) idea management" and "Deepening the Lego® Serious Play® method" were available for selection, as well as an exchange on development ideas.
In the workshop "AI in (target) idea management", the participants, led by Matthias Bauer from X-INTEGRATE and René Austermühl, gained a basic understanding of artificial intelligence and then worked together to find possible applications for AI in idea management. After intensive discussions, exciting new ideas emerged. Some ideas could be analyzed in more detail, provided with possible solutions and even illustrated with a prototype. The result: AI is not just a passing trend, but an effective means of optimizing idea management processes!
In the workshop on Lego® Serious Play®, the participants put their previously gained knowledge into practice. Under the guidance of Professor Sven Poguntke, creativity was combined with structured thinking. Amazing results came to light!
Robin Müller-Cajar received wishes for the next developments from his workshop participants, including, for example, wishes for the functionality and design of the new Fiori interface, but also an explicit wish to establish a community to promote exchange between users of target Idea Management.
The general feedback on the conference was again extremely positive, which makes us very happy. As in previous years, the exchange of ideas "among colleagues" and with the target team was highlighted by the participants as extremely enriching.
We would like to sincerely thank all speakers for their willingness to present their idea management and their activities to our participants!
And of course we thank all participants for this successful event!
Lego® Serious Play® are registered trademarks of the LEGO Group.
