Mark Kline

My training was mostly on-the-job from my >30 years experience with Procter & Gamble (which was all in Research & Development. I learned from experts who had honed their skills for years prior to me joining P&G.

In my time at P&G, I led groups in problem solving, participated in problem solving sessions for others, and led the planning of problem solving sessions - designing the agenda to get the desired outcome. These groups typically included cross-functional experts (i.e., R&D, product supply, material, analytical, consumer research, etc.) and/or experts with experience across a broad range of product applications, production processes, materials development, and manufacturing. The sessions typically occurred several times a year. Most were aimed at identifying a new product design or technology to enable a new product design. Many were aimed at creating stronger IP.

I have also participated in 3 different Idea Connection challenges and served as facilitator for 2 of them. My colleagues were complimentary of my facilitating skills and also surprised that, as facilitator, that I brought significant technical depth to the team.

The nature of my work from 1995-2017 was global, and we could not always afford to fly resources from multiple countries to a common site. As such, many of my sessions were either fully on line or include a group of people in 1 location with others connected remotely. When this occurred, the remote connections were from people in Japan, China, Germany, or other non-US locations. With my immediate work team from 2010-2017, I was based in the US and my team was in Germany. To get out work done, we typically did on line problem solving sessions at least 1 time per month and I interacting 1:1 with several each week (with my role being helping them solve their specific problems).

See also comments about facilitating groups for Idea Connection challenges, above.