Business Innovative Solutions in the Workplace
Overview
In this Assessment you will assume the role of an internal consultant, in your organization or an organization of interest to you, to demonstrate your ability to generate a viable, innovative solution to a workplace problem.
Professional Skills: Written Communication and Critical Thinking and Problem Solving are assessed in this Competency. You are strongly encouraged to use the Academic Writing Expectations Checklist when completing this Assessment.
This Assessment requires submission of one (1) document that includes your responses to all six parts. Save this file as IG004_firstinitial_lastname (for example, IG004_J_Smith).
When you are ready to upload your completed Assessment, use the Assessment tab on the top navigation menu.
Create your Internal Consultant Project by completing the six sections below.
Before you begin, imagine that senior management in the organization where you work, or in an organization with which you are familiar, has asked you to take the role of an internal consultant whose job it is to use creative thinking to determine an innovative solution to a challenge in the workplace. Consider the problems and challenges that the organization is experiencing, particularly in an area that is familiar to you. For example, if you are in information technology (IT) maintenance, the problem might have to do with network reliability issues. If you are involved with a call center, the problem might relate to poor performance on an important performance metric, such as, average call handling time or customer satisfaction. You will identify the history leading up to the present alarming situation and justify why this problem is important to the organization’s bottom line.
With this problem in mind, you must devise three possible solutions that are creative and viable. For example, recommending that a call center should simply be outsourced is not a viable or innovative solution. The solution should be based on use of the organization’s internal resources only.
Your Internal Consultant Project must be 8–10 pages in length, excluding the title page, reference page, and appendices.
Access the following to complete this Assessment:
• Mind Tools. (2014). Mind Maps: A powerful approach to note-taking.
• Academic Writing Expectations Checklist
Instructions
Before submitting your Assessment, carefully review the rubric. This is the same rubric the assessor will use to evaluate your submission and it provides detailed criteria describing how to achieve or master the Competency. Many students find that understanding the requirements of the Assessment and the rubric criteria help them direct their focus and use their time most productively.
Rubric
Your response to this Assessment should:
• Reflect the criteria provided in the Rubric.
• Adhere to the required length.
• Conform to APA style guidelines. You may use Walden Writing Center's APA Course Paper Template.
This assessment has six-parts. Click each of the items below to complete this assessment.
Part I: Myths, Misconceptions, and Barriers
Provide a short history and description of the workplace problem, including a justification of why the problem is important to the company’s bottom line. With this workplace problem in mind, complete the following:
Identify three myths and misconceptions in the workplace concerning creativity and innovative thinking that are directly related to sustaining the problem you identified.
Address how the lack of foresight and/or creativity is interrelated with lack of innovation in this context.
Identify at least three barriers that stymie creativity and limit productivity in the organization and make the assumption that you will be using an internal team to help solve the problem.
• Identify three myths and misconceptions in the workplace concerning creativity and innovative thinking that are directly related to sustaining the problem you identified.
• Address how the lack of foresight and/or creativity is interrelated with lack of innovation in this context.
• Identify at least three barriers that stymie creativity and limit productivity in the organization and make the assumption that you will be using an internal team to help solve the problem.
Part II: Divergent and Convergent Thinking
All effective teams will feature varying thinking styles. Some will be “ideators” or developers. Others will be implementers or clarifiers. You will face the task of harnessing several different thinking styles which will produce many divergent ideas on how to solve the workplace problem.
• Devise three strategies you will use to ensure divergent and convergent thinking styles can be accommodated.
• Present rationales for why you think your strategies will be effective.
Part III: Mind Mapping
Use a mind map to create a mind map for your workplace problem. You can refer to a MindTool mind map resource, for an example.
• Your mind map should be as expansive as you can make it.
• Your problem should branch into at least four related components and/or issues.
• Expand on each of these branches using as many sub-branches as needed (at least four sub-branches for each branch) to explore the complexity and connective possibilities available to each question.
• To create your mind map, you may use Microsoft Word or another format of your choice. However, if you are planning to use a non-standard piece of software, be sure you can save the file in a format that you can insert into a Word document. Insert your mind maps into your Word document as an appendix.
• Explain how you mind map accurately structures the business problem you identified.
Part IV: Design Thinking
By now, you have identified an issue or problem that can be treated in some tangible way. You have some ideas that could lead to a creative solution. It is now time to consider how design thinking can be applied to real-world business problems at your organization.
• Use Design Thinking principles to reflect on your mind map and narrow your potential solutions to the three best options for future prototyping or testing.
• Consider the possibility of integrating Design Thinking within the organization. Identify at least three ways that Design Thinking can be integrated into your organization. Identify and three barriers for such integration.
Part V: Testing Potential Solutions
As you think about your three potential solutions, it becomes necessary to devise a strategy to filter them down to one preferred solution. Design Thinking requires development of a testing protocol. For example, many prototypes were developed and tested before Apple released flagship products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. In the case of a service, Disney theme parks provide an excellent model of services that has been very thoughtfully designed and refined down to the smallest detail to maximize the customer’s experience. Many companies use Design Thinking to help redesign cumbersome procedures for streamlining customer service, reducing and eliminating unnecessary paperwork, etc.
• Describe a testing protocol for each of your three potential solutions. You may design a single testing protocol for all three solutions if appropriate or a different protocol for each of the solutions if needed. Be sure to list the criteria within your testing protocol descriptions by which solutions will be measured for effectiveness.
Part VI: Creativity and Ethics
In the world of business, it is important to test all solutions to business problems for potential ethical issues. For example, a creative solution may be considered to be costly given a tight budget. An ethical issue could arise from taking a short-cut on product quality to meet a budget constraint or vital steps could be removed from a critical inspection process in the name of increasing productivity through reduction of labor hours.
• Identify at least three major contemporary ethics issues plaguing your company’s industry and provide a perspective on how ethical your suggested problem solutions appear to be. Be sure to provide safeguards you intend to take to ensure ethics will not become an issue for any of your suggested solutions.
Innovative Solutions in the Workplace
Student’s Name
Name of Institution
Table of Contents
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………3
2. Workplace Problem for Creativity and Innovation……………………………………………3
2.1 Myths regarding Creativity and Innovation………………………………………………….3
2.2 Barriers for Creativity and Innovation……………………………………………………….4
3. Divergent and Convergent Thinking………………………………………………………….5
3.1. Strategies for Divergent and Convergent Environment…………………………………….5
3.2 Outcomes of Strategies Proposed……………………………………………………………6
4. Mind Map……………………………………………………………………………………..6
5. Design Thinking……………………………………………………………………………....8
5.1 Target On Procedures………………………………………………………………………..8
5.2 Low Risk Experiments………………………………………………………………………8
5.3 Lessen fear Factors…………………………………………………………………………..9
5.4 Barriers for Design Thinking………………………………………………………………..9
6. Testing Potential Solutions…………………………………………………………………...10
6.1 Importance of Testing Potential Solutions………………………………………………….11
6.2 Testing protocol for potential Solutions……………………………………………………12
7. Creativity and Ethics…………………………………………………………………………11
7.1 Ethics Issues in IT industry…………………………………………………………………11
8. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...12
Innovative Solutions in the Workplace
1. Introduction
The organizations which have progressed in today's era have one thing in common that they provide room for creativity and innovation in their business operations. They never look to copy the procedures of others instead they innovate new ideas to perform the difficult tasks. In other words, one can say that they leverage creativity and innovation to thrive in the market. However, each company has to go through a process where there are certain obstacles and problems that place hurdles for innovation. Therefore, organizations must focus on these problems which are having an impact on the performance of the organization.
2. Workplace Problem for Creativity and Innovation
The policy of playing by the rules and procedures in an inflexible organizational structure is a major problem for creativity and innovation. The rigid culture of our organization “ABC” where the executives force the employees to work according to the set patterns is always discouraging for developing new ideas. This brings an environment of status quo where the employees do not look to work wholeheartedly to benefit the organization (Patterson, 2019). Most of the times, organizations with set standards of doing the tasks manage to create a workforce with limited mental approach absurd mind. Apart from this, the status quo of standards and policies reduce the risk-taking approach of the employees which hinders the productivity of the company in the long run.
2.1.Myths regarding Creativity and Innovation
Organizational myths and concerns are always present in any environment regarding creativity and innovation. It requires individual and organizational interest and approach to take risks for creativity and innovation (Patterson, 2019). The most notable myths that are found in our organization include: creativity can lower down the efficiency of employees, innovation and creativity is a concern of the higher authorities and it can bring down the completion level among the employees. These myths are often found in organizations where there is a serious lack of foresightedness among the authorities that overlook the importance of innovation (Breen, 2017). This impacts the hiring of the employees too as the recruiters look to take in the talent that can adhere to the policies well enough.
2.2. Misconceptions for Creativity and Innovation
The top misconsptions for creativity and organization are as follow:
* No execution. Our company makes the mistake by focusing only on generating ideas. However, execution planning has utmost importance in this process (Westen, 2006) . Without this, the idea generation session can go invain as the feasibility of working on it cannot be determined by the company.
* Innovation requires new products. The common misconception around innovation is that it needs new products every time. In contrast, it is not the case in reality as innovation and creativity can be done on existing prodcuts (Westen, 2006). However, the newer versions of the existing products must bring in updated features with them
2.2.Barriers for Creativity and Innovation
The most significant barriers for creativity and organization are as follow:
* Fear of Uncertanity. The uncertainty regarding the future of a task is stressful for the organization. The new experiments to accomplish the tasks bring in ambiguity in the environment. This, in the end, results in organization avoiding creativity and innovation (Westen, 2006). Take a look at the top three barriers one by one.
* Chasing Perfection. The other reason that places hurdles in place of creativity and innovation is the policy of getting the perfect product before placing it into the market. However, the organization must provide a chance for new strategies that are not familiar with the market to bring in something new (Westen, 2006). It needs to be done in every department of the organization.
* Stereotyping. The pressure of being productive rather than creative in work is most impactful in reducing creative and innovative environment in an organization. Most of the companies refer successful employees as the one with the most productive background (Westen, 2006). This develops a negative attitude related to creativity among the employees.
There are number of examples in which orginaztions that lacked creativity and innovation according to the changing environment cause them to lose their market presence. For instance, Nokia, once a global leader of mobile companies, lacked the creative work when the era of internet arrived. CEO of the company, Stephen Elop, didn’t respond according to the situation regarding innovative work in software and mobile apps. Similalrly, George M. C. Fisher, CEO of Kodak also lost the customers attraction to its company due to their clinging to analog cameras instead of moving towards digital ones. The major reason behind the slow down of these two companies has been the lack of foresight regarding innovation and creativity in the business. Customer is always look for new changes in the existing products which needs to be done quickly in the era of innovative competition in the market (Walsha, 2015). Every company must develop a visionary approach to innovate the working sryle and bring in longterm policies for creativity and innovation.
3. Divergent and Convergent Thinking
As, problem of our company has been the adherence to the rules and standards while performing the tasks. Therefore, the workforce needs to get support from the company to think divergent and convergently (Jones, 2015). For this, our organization has to take remedial steps.
3.1.Strategies for Divergent and Convergent Environment
With the collaboration of the team, these three strategies are proposed to create such an atmosphere in the company which are: brainstorming, journal and mind mapping ("Anonymous", 2013). Take a look at them one be one below.
* BrainStorming. This is a technique in which new ideas are generating in a session under unstructured pattern. Its major goal is to find out the solutions or new ideas to perform the tasks in a quick way (Jones, 2015). The team members regarding any project must be gathered for planning and providing solutions to have divergent thinking environment.
* Keeping a Journal. The divergent thinking sessions and environment should include a journal for recording new ideas presented by the employees. The employees may have insights at unusual times regarding the working of operations (Jones, 2015) . Therefore, it needs to be kept in the record in a journal. The journals must be available in all the departments of the company and during the brainstorming session for having a formal record of new ideas.
* Mind or subject mapping. To present the ideas generated in the brainstorming session in the visual map form to present a relation among them. Normally, it begins with the main idea and then different branches of new suggestions are constructed from it (Gooding, 2017). The plannings of the projects should be done in this way to strategize future work.
The convergent and divergent thiking approach is beneficial for the company future projects as it involves the logical thinking to deduce the solutions to the problems. This brings innovative changes to the process to...
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