Task 1 – Initiate, lead and sustain innovative thinking and practices – Case Study and Research Project
This assessment task requires you to to generate, lead and sustain innovative organisational thinking and practice within an organisation. In order to complete this assessment task, you will need to access a current business, or where one is not available access a simulated business. Each organisation’s thinking and practice will be different depending on its core business, purpose, size, complexity and broader operating context. You must commence by evaluating the organisation’s current culture and take this into account throughout the process.
Your role is to, for the nominated organisation, generate innovative thinking and creativity by either a team or throughout the organisation and to the benefit of the team and organisation. A range of recommendations for creating a culture of creative and innovative thinking must be presented such that they can be integrated into the organisation’s current practices.
The final product of this assessment will be a senior management report that outlines an organisational approach to ongoing and sustainable innovative thinking and practice. You will need to apply a comprehensive understanding and application of key concepts, current theories and processes for promoting innovative thinking and practices in an organisational context and this must be demonstrated in the completed report.
Ensure you undertake a critical examination of trends in thinking and emerging practices as they relate to the organisation's current thinking and practices and in doing so develop a range of strategies to implement and/or increase innovative thinking within the team or organisation. The developed strategies will include the utilisation of a range of tools which may include:
• brainstorming
• concept maps
• creative thinking matrix
• DeBono tools (e.g. six hats)
• foresight tools
• Kirton Adaptation Innovation Inventory
• mindmapping (Buzan)
• nominal group technique
• scenario analysis.
Each of these tools selected to your researched organisation should be described in full and a rationale for their selection must be provided.
Throughout the report you must demonstrate knowledge of social, political, economic and technological developments that determine the broad context for innovation in the relevant workplace context.
Include discussion related to relevant drivers, such as:
• customer expectations
• globalisation
• market shifts
• new legislation (such as compliance)
• policies (such as environmental protection)
• price and profitability
• technology change
and enablers, such as:
• breakthroughs
• collaboration
• culture
• development
• intellectual property
• inventions
• management support
• profitability
• research
• resources
• responsiveness
• skilled workforce
• technology
as relevant to the particular organisation.
Any recommendations you make must take into account relevant risks and provide mitigation strategies and must be specific enough that they are provide mechanisms at system and process level to support innovation.
Note: This assessment task is a substantive research, analysis and reporting task. It must be presented as a comprehensive paper that is type written on A4 paper using a wordprocessor.