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Jot down your answers to these questions on Managing Creativity and Innovation in the Workplace.
| Level | Level of inventiveness | Source of knowledge |
| 1 | Routine solution, no___________ | Personal knowledge |
| 2 | Minor improvement, some novelty | _________ ___________ |
| 3 | _________ ____________, quite novel | Within the industry |
| 4 | New concept, very novel | ___________ ____ ___________ |
| 5 | Discovery,________ _____ | ‘All that is knowable’ |
| Question 9 | List the four techniques for judging ideas that come out of the creative process 1 2 3 4 |
| Question 10 | Which kind of ability needed for innovation is described by these three statements? |
| ___________ | Develop new ways of working and new products or services |
| ___________ | Try out new ideas and take risks |
| ___________ | Use the experience of developing innovative ways of working, and new products or services (and, in the latter case, taking them to market) |
| Question 11 | According to Bill Coyne, what six characteristics did 3M have to encourage innovation 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
| Question 12 | What did Rosabeth Moss Kanter say were needed to enable innovations to be implemented successfully? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ |
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Read the following case study and then answer the questions that follow. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
Paula manages a large team of customer service agents in a call centre of an insurance company. Their role is to deal with customers calling up to make claims on their car and household policies. At the moment agents take details from customers and then send out claim forms for customers to check and sign. Once these are received back they are checked again, and allocated to the regional claims offices where they are then allocated to an individual claims adjuster.
In theory this whole process should take about five days, but it often takes two or three weeks, and it then takes up to six months to settle the claims. This is causing a lot of dissatisfaction amongst customers.
Paula persuades her manager to let her examine how the process and the service to customers could be improved. She manages to get two claims adjusters and an administrator from one of the regional offices to join some members of her team in a group to develop some creative ideas.
The group brainstorms the problems and they come up with a wide range of possible ways of addressing the problem. Some of these would involve very significant and innovative changes in the organization; others are less innovative. Paula is now unsure what to do next with all these ideas.
Advise Paula on:
1 The next steps she needs to take with all her creative ideas.
2 How she can judge how ready the organization is to accept the more innovative changes.
3 The importance of having information, support and resources to ensure the innovation is implemented successfully.
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The time guide for this assignment gives you an approximate idea of how long it is likely to take you to write up your findings. You will find you need to spend some additional time gathering information, perhaps talking to colleagues and thinking about the assignment. The result of your efforts should be presented on separate sheets of paper.
Your written response to this assignment may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio.
| What you have to do |
Identify an issue within your area of responsibility where your organization would benefit from innovation. This could be a quality problem or a possible product or service development to meet actual or potential customer needs. |
Discuss the issue with your manager and agree what constraints may exist on the limits of innovation.
Lead a group through a creative ideas generation process to develop a range of ideas. Sort these and evaluate them (close down) to decide which ones are viable, and select the most appropriate ideas, based on your assessment of the level of innovation that the organization is able to accept.
Prepare a plan to put the innovation into place, taking account of the characteristics needed for successful implementation.