Future Readiness - Generating Innovation & Creativity

Question 1

Innovation vs. creativity

Answer 1

Innovation is the act of translating a new method, product, or idea into a service or good that creates value.

Innovation satisfies customers’ needs/expectations.

Creativity is the act of producing original ideas.

It’s possible to be creative without innovating, if you do nothing meaningful with the idea. It’s possible to be innovative without being creative, by implementing others’ ideas.

Question 2

What is the value of creativity and innovation

Answer 2

• inventing new businesses or lines of business
• do more with less by increasing productivity and reducing cost
• fueling problem-solving and process improvement
• creating new products and services to meet new customer needs and preferences
• attracting employees who want to work in innovative environments

Question 3

What are 6 ways TD can promote/support innovation and creativity?

Answer 3

• Promoting and supporting an innovative culture
• Helping leaders champion creativity and innovation
• Making creativity and innovation part of the culture
• Organizing for creativity and innovation
• Benchmarking
• Creating a common language

Question 4

How can TD promote and support an innovative culture?

Answer 4

• build skills aligned with innovation, such as communication, collaboration, teaming, and problem-solving
• Encourage behaviors such as delivering feedback, celebrating ideas, and valuing diversity

Question 5

How can TD help leaders champion creativity and innovation?

Answer 5

• help leaders develop skills to model them
• provide tools and training to recognize and reward creativity, risk-taking, and productive failure, engage in open communication, and provide frequent feedback

Question 6

How can TD make creativity and innovation part of the culture?

Answer 6

• sponsoring brainstorming sessions, hackathons, and idea competitions
• setting aside times dedicated to creative thinking
• introducing innovation as a formal part of every job description
• making collaboration tools universally available
• developing and managing innovation labs
• encouraging creativity and innovative social networks
• creating virtual and live forums for suggestions

Question 7

How can TD organize for creativity and innovation?

Answer 7

• happens most often in teams, so TD can help promote, train, and empower teams
• Embrace flatter structure, implement flexible work schedules, spread decision-making authority
• Develop people to serve as innovation champions
• adopt AAR as standard step in any project
• Create physical spaces that encourage creativity and the exchange of ideas and collaboration

Question 8

How can TD benchmark?

Answer 8

study other orgs that are best at creativity and innovation and bring those lessons to the org they serve; ensures best practice and next practice

can be especially useful when adopting new technologies or finding ways to expand markets

Question 9

How can TD create a common language?

Answer 9

• design thinking
• Lean approach

Both can provide discipline of common language

Question 10

2 broad categories of creativity categories

Answer 10

Divergence
Convergence

Question 11

Divergence

Answer 11

generating a maximum number of ideas from which to choose

Question 12

Convergence

Answer 12

starting with many ideas and then analyzing, filtering, and combining them to get more new and better ideas

crucial in converting creativity into innovation because they help narrow ideas into something that can produce innovation

Question 13

4 divergence strategies

Answer 13

Brainstorming -
Lateral thinking/perspective shifting
Analogy thinking
Benchmarking

Question 14

6 convergence strategies

Answer 14

Mind mapping
Six Thinking Hats
Idea shopping
Clustering
Using paired comparison
Evaluation matrices

Question 15

2 unique variations on brainstorming

Answer 15

reverse brainstorming - trying to accomplish the opposite of the current goal
random adjective brainstorming - applying random adjectives to ideas to spark more ideas

Divergence

Question 16

Lateral thinking or perspective shifting

Answer 16

considering the problem or opportunity from an unusual point of view; for example, “How would a five-year-old view this?”

Divergence

Question 17

Analogy thinking

Answer 17

takes concepts from other industries or organizations and applies their best practices in a new context

Divergence

Question 18

Mind mapping

Answer 18

starts by placing the objective into the center of a diagram and then organizing thoughts and ideas into branching subcategories, connections, and trends

Question 19

Six Thinking Hats

Answer 19

used to generate and analyze ideas from multiple perspectives to get convergence

Question 20

Idea shopping

Answer 20

uses voting to sort ideas by a group.

Each individual gets currency and can spend whatever amount they choose to “buy” the ideas they like best.

Question 21

Clustering

Answer 21

Cluster ideas to see if they can be combined

Question 22

Paired comparisons

Answer 22

Use this to select ideas

Question 23

What is design thinking?

Answer 23

a human-centered approach to innovation or problem solving that integrates the needs of people with the needs of the organization

Fosters creativity and innovation

Focuses on finding the right solution rather than solving a problem

Iterative

Question 24

5 phases of design thinking

Answer 24

Empathize - clear, empathetic understanding of problem
Define - compiling and synthesizing what was learned in the first phase to define the problem
Ideate - Begins once there is a clear understanding of the users, their needs, and a solid b/g; get as many ideas as possible and then start investigating and test the best ideas
Prototype - experimental phase where the team produces a scaled down version of the solution
Test - final eval phase; results generated are often used to redefine the problem and inform users

Question 25

Lean approach

Answer 25

uses creativity techniques to focus on eliminating waste while improving quality

goal is to cut costs by making the organization more efficient and responsive to the marketplace

began in manufacturing with Six Sigma but was then applied to high-tech start-ups; is now a way for companies to emulate the nimbleness and innovation of start-ups

Question 26

5 steps of Lean approach

Answer 26

Define the value - establish customer-based objectives for every development; produces only those elements that meet the objectives
Map the value stream - process mapping describes each process step/activity that produces customer value; non-value-added activities are identified and unnecessary activities are eliminated
Create the flow - Reduce cycle time and expense; increase quality and satisfaction; activities help streamline through cross-training, workload leveling, changing job responsibilities, and reconfiguring the process
Establish pull - work is done in time to meet customer needs and no sooner; may mean creating learning experiences in small chunks according to the greatest need rather than based on a full curriculum design
Pursuit of perfection - challenging but most important to innovation; working to make continuous improvement a part of the culture; demand the org learn to be better

Question 27

Pull-based system

Answer 27

used in supply-chain management and logistics to represent production occurring after requests so that work is completed just in time to meet customers’ requirements.