Unit 2: Innovation in the Workplace
We are surrounded by innovations in our day-to-day lives, sometimes without even realizing it. How can we use and come up with them from the perspective of the workplace?
- Select and analyze a problem you are having in your workplace.
The first step is to select a problem in the workplace that would improve your environment. Observe your environment and look for gaps; what could be improved? What are the pain points? What areas are slowing down processes? Relationships?
The next part is to analyze and unpack the problem. This part is crucial and sets up the rest of the problem solving. Make sure to spend as much time as possible understanding the problem before trying to solve it; the more you know about the problem at hand, the better you can solve it. This is important because it can uncover pieces of the puzzle that you could be missing otherwise.
In this phase, we also need to consider what the necessary steps will be in order to outline the problem solving process. Consider how the creative process can be utilized within the outline of the process.
2. Generate at least 50 ideas of how to solve that problem in an innovative way.
Next is the ideation phase. This is where the brainstorming happens, where the solutions start forming and where you get to start putting your innovation skills to work. For me, mind mapping with all of the ideas that were generated was helpful to continue to generate more ideas because it created a space to draw connections between ideas and be inspired by other ideas, helping and improving the whole process.
It is important to generate as many ideas as possible, even if they aren’t fully fleshed out or if you aren’t sure that they would all work. This stage isn’t about judging ideas, but generating them. In fact, judging them prematurely will block creativity and you’ll risk missing out on your best idea because you shut it down before it had the chance to grow.
Additionally, you should complete this step and then revisit it at a later time and try to generate 25 more ideas. Walking away from a problem and coming it at it again later with a fresh perspective allows you to tap into more creative opportunities and you can really build on previous ideas here.
3. Rank your ideas to identify the best ideas to implement.
Once you have an extensive list of ideas started, you can start ranking them to decide which ones are better and are worth building upon. A precursor to this is to generate a list of criteria that will help you rank your ideas from best to worst. These criteria will most likely differ based on the problem, but in general should cover different ways that successfully solving the problem would look like.
With these criteria in mind, rank your ideas using them to guide your decision-making. Ranking your ideas will allow you to identify what innovations are worth diving deeper into and will solve your problem effectively and in a realistic manner.
4. Develop an innovative solution incorporating your best ideas to solve your problem.
This is where it all starts to come together. Choose one or a combination of your top ideas to create a unique, innovative solution. The best way to do this is often not a straight line and will require some mixing and combining of ideas to mesh them into one big plan. This solution can involve multiple ideas because there are no limits! Don’t constrain yourself by assuming that your idea has to be a singular course of action; a solution can have many different steps that cover different areas of the problem.
5. Plan an effective implementation of your innovative solution.
Now we must plan how we will implement our solutions. We need to detail a step by step process of what needs to be done to achieve success. Whether it’s a detailed budget of time, resources and money needed or a sketch before you start building upon it, laying down a foundation like this will help keep you on track and make for smoother execution of your plan. It is also helpful to create timeline of tasks to be completed so that you and your team stay on track.
6. Execute your implementation plan.
Next up — do it! After all of the effort put into creating a great solution, go and test it out.
7. Solve any setbacks or challenges that you encountered in implementing your plan.
After trying our your solution for the first time, you are bound to experience some sort of setback. Here are some methods that I used to overcome setback when they occurred:
- Making a plan to manage my time and sticking to it
- Making the most of the people who were here and being more collaborative within a smaller group
- Resetting myself in my school work groove and trying to immerse myself in a task
- Making more time for other creative tasks in your life
- Looking for middle ground in creating a solution between yourself and creative blockers
- Inspiring yourself by your surroundings
- Creating an environment for yourself that fosters creativity
- Trying new things and getting out of your comfort zone
8. Evaluate and assess how successfully your innovative solution helped you to move forward toward achieving your goals.
This is where we can take a step back and have a look at what went well and what can be improved. If there are still multiple gaps present, you can always go back to the drawing board and continue to repeat the creative process until you are satisfied with your solution and its’ execution.
9. Document the results of your project.
Now that you have created and tested a successful solution, take note and document the results for future reference.
I’ve learned to put into practice all of the concepts that we’ve been exploring so far because solving a problem using creativity is where the learnings really get a chance to shine. This whole module was a challenge for me to really push myself and continue to brainstorm and come up with more ideas than I normally would and I was pleasantly surprised with my own creative abilities. I also learned the importance of perseverance and the benefits of powering through because it greatly improves your idea and makes it applicable in more instances. Repeating the creative process makes for an innovative idea and challenges us to be more creative.
