What is “Start Smart”?
Therese Egeland, Professor in organizational psychology at NHH and one of the co-founders of Start Smart, explains the concept.
– Start Smart is a tool for starting and developing teams and groups. The tool can be used for the first time when a team meets or at any point in the team’s lifespan. It helps teams explore what the team wants to achieve, discover who they are, and how the team should work together.
Testing it on a new target group
This fall, we are organizing a number of innovation camps at high schools in collaboration with Ungt Entreprenørskap. Several seafood companies and the Norwegian Retailers’ Environmental Fund is also participating.
Every group at these innovation camps works on one of three tasks: reducing the use of plastics in the seafood industry, boosting seafood consumption or increasing value creation. The group then decides on a solution to the problem, and they make a presentation of their product/concept.
What motivates Egeland and her team to test Start Smart at innovation camps?
– Start Smart is a tool that can help all types of groups and teams, and we also want it to benefit high school students. Therefore, it can be a good opportunity for us to test the tool on younger individuals and adjust it to better suit this target audience, she says.
Egeland explains that they want to find out how the tool works for groups in this age group and whether it helps them solve their tasks and missions in a better way.
Building bridges between institutions
Fride Iversen, Senior Project Manager – Future Competence and Talent Attraction is very happy with the collaboration.
– We are very glad to cooperate with NHH and we are looking forward to seeing what they find out. It’s also rewarding to know that innovation camps can be used as an arena for research, Fride Iversen, Senior Project Manager at NCE Seafood Innovation, says and adds:
– Innovation camps is for connecting industry and students, and now we get to connect them to research as well! This project builds bridges between research, industry, and high school students.
In addition to conducting research at our innovation camps, NHH’s Case Club is participating as mentors for the students.
Top photo by Silje K. Robinson