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Creating Space for Customer-Driven Innovation at Cisco
Creating Space for Customer-Driven Innovation at Cisco
Business Need
For Cisco Systems, sustaining leadership in enterprise technology required a continuous pipeline of customer-driven innovation. A Senior Director of Engineering invited me to design and facilitate Cisco’s first cross-functional ideation workshop, bringing together technical experts to explore new product opportunities.
Key Challenges
Connecting technology to customer needs: Engineering teams brought deep technical expertise, but the session needed to translate technical possibilities into solutions grounded in customer challenges.
Making the most of limited time: With engineers stepping away from core responsibilities, the half-day workshop needed to generate actionable ideas efficiently.
Enabling cross-functional collaboration: Bringing together Product Managers, Technical Marketing Engineers, and Software and Field Engineers across Wireless, Switching, Routing, and IoT required intentional group composition to encourage diverse perspectives.
Encouraging broader participation: Established, leadership-driven planning processes made it important to create an environment where participants could contribute ideas, challenge assumptions, and collaborate beyond traditional roles.
Approach
I designed and facilitated a structured, customer-centered workshop that combined practical innovation techniques with collaborative group work:
Ground ideation in customer needs: Guided each group in developing fictional customer personas to frame discussions around real-world needs and challenges.
Apply Lean and Kanban methods: Incorporated visual workflows, dot voting, work-in-progress limits, and a retrospective to focus effort, prioritize ideas, and minimize wasted time.
Build balanced teams: Partnered with VPs and directors to select groups of three to five participants, balancing roles and technical disciplines to encourage meaningful collaboration.
Facilitate collaborative problem-solving: Created a structured yet flexible environment that encouraged participants to self-organize, challenge assumptions, and develop ideas across functional boundaries.
Results
Generated 40 customer-centered product ideas in a single half-day workshop.
Reached cross-functional consensus on the top three concepts among 20 participants, connecting emerging ideas with organizational priorities.
Documented concepts in Cisco’s Innovation Portal to support proofs of concept, hackathons, and future R&D initiatives.
Established a repeatable innovation model that encouraged broader participation and provided a foundation for future cross-functional ideation workshops.
Key Takeaway
This initiative demonstrated how structured facilitation can connect technical expertise, customer insight, and organizational priorities—turning diverse perspectives into actionable ideas and building momentum for future innovation.
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