Student workbook

BSBSTR501
Establish innovative work environments
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Version: 20220314

Date created: 14 March 2022

Date modified: 05 April 2022

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 Contents
Getting started....................................................................................................................4
What will I learn by completing this workbook?...................................................................5
Icon legends..........................................................................................................................6
Topic 1: Establish work practices.........................................................................................7
Overview.............................................................................................................................. 8
Identify relevant stakeholders..............................................................................................8
Identify organisational objectives and practices.................................................................17
Evaluate current work conditions.......................................................................................22
Determine working conditions...........................................................................................25
Lead team and maximise opportunities.............................................................................29
Topic 2: Create an innovative environment........................................................................39
Overview............................................................................................................................ 40
Evaluate the impacts of changing work environment.........................................................40
Impact of changes in work environment............................................................................43
Collaborate with stakeholders and develop ideas..............................................................46
Identify and select resources..............................................................................................49
Assess the ability of the workspace to support innovation................................................52
Assist team members to adapt and perform......................................................................54
Topic 3: Implement innovative work environment.............................................................60
Overview............................................................................................................................ 61
Creative thinking and mindsets..........................................................................................62
Reinforce the value of innovation.......................................................................................66
Take risks to open opportunities for innovation.................................................................70
Select ways of celebrating and encouraging innovation.....................................................74
Encourage and support evaluation of innovative ideas......................................................76
Topic 4: Share and evaluate innovative ideas and work environment................................82
Overview............................................................................................................................ 83
Create opportunities where individuals can learn..............................................................87
Seek and respond to suggestions, improvements, and innovations...................................88
Answers and feedback for practice activities.....................................................................95
Image attributions...........................................................................................................107

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 Getting started

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 What will I learn by completing this workbook?
This workbook covers the unit of competency BSBSTR501 – Establish innovative work
environments.

Successfully completing this unit will give you the skills and knowledge required to create an
environment that enables and supports practice that focuses on a comprehensive approach
to the integration of innovation across all areas of work practice.

In this workbook, you will learn how to:

 identify relevant stakeholders

 evaluate current work conditions
 identify organisational resources relating to innovation
 evaluate the impacts of changing work environment
 assess the ability of the workspace to support innovation
 reinforce the value of innovation according to organisational vision and objectives
 create opportunities where individuals can learn from the experience of others.

Each topic includes opportunities to check your progress and understanding and activities
that will prepare you to complete the formal assessments.

There are four topics to complete within this workbook. They are:

1. Establish work practices.

2. Create an innovative environment.
3. Implement innovative work environment.
4. Share and evaluate innovative ideas and work environment.

Alright, let’s get started!

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 Icon legends
Table 1 – Icon legends

Icon Description

Practice activity

Learning activities help you to gain a clear understanding of the

content in this resource. It is important for you to complete these
activities, as they will enhance your learning. The activities will
prepare you for assessments.

Collaboration

You will have opportunities to collaborate with others during your

study. This could involve group activities such as mini-projects or
discussions that will enable you to explore and expand your
understanding of the content.

Self-check

An activity that allows you to check your learning progress. The

self-check activity gives you the opportunity to identify areas of
learning where you could improve. If you identify these, you could
review the relevant content or activities.

Resources (required and suggested)

Additional resources throughout this workbook, such as chapters

from textbooks, online articles, videos, diagrams and infographics.
These are supplementary resources, which will enhance your
learning experience and may help you complete the unit.

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 Topic 1: Establish work practices

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 Overview
Innovation and change are two pillars that enable organisational growth. Today's rapidly
changing environment can be described with the acronym VUCA, which stands for, Volatile,
Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous; in such an environment, organisations may face survival
issues if they do not involve innovation and continuous improvement into their core
innovative systems, processes, and culture. Organisations are constantly aiming for
continuous improvement in the quality of their products, services, or processes so that their
reputation for satisfying customers is enhanced over time.

will also discuss how to identify relevant stakeholders who can help you in your goal of
establishing innovative work practices and how to evaluate existing and potential working
conditions. To become a successful leader and maximise opportunities for innovation in your
organisation, you must also know how to build and lead a team. Coach and mentor your
team members to develop their capacity to contribute to innovation and model the desired
behaviour.

In this topic you will learn how to:

 identify relevant stakeholders

 evaluate current work conditions
 determine working conditions that allow innovative practices
 identify organisational resources relating to innovation
 build and lead team and maximise opportunities for innovation.

The activities throughout this resource will assist you in your learning. These activities do not
form a part of your final assessment however they will contribute to your understanding of
the topic area. Answers and feedback for the practice activities are provided at the end of
this document.

Identify relevant stakeholders

In any organisation, knowing the key people who can help or make decisions or provide
information is key to delivering your responsibilities. Having the relevant stakeholders
involved can bring in more ideas for innovation and increase chances of success.
Stakeholders can provide multiple informed perspectives on the feasibility and impacts of
executing innovative ideas. However, to achieve the overall goal of establishing innovative
environments at your workplace, it is necessary to first understand in depth what innovation
really means.

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 This sub-chapter expounds on the key concepts and theories of innovation and discusses
types of stakeholders and how to identify the stakeholders relevant to your needs and
objectives.

Define innovation
Innovation generates changes in processes, creating more effective processes, products, and
ideas.

For businesses, this could mean implementing innovative ideas, creating dynamic products,
or improving your existing services. Innovation can be a catalyst for the growth and success
of your business and can help you to adapt and grow in the marketplace.

Being innovative does not only mean inventing. Innovation can mean changing your business
model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or services.
Successful innovation should be an in-built part of your business strategy, where you create
a culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem-solving.

Innovation can increase the likelihood of your business succeeding. Businesses that innovate
create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and performance.

Key steps towards business innovation

Find areas and ways to innovate in your business through research and planning such as:

 analysing the trends in the market environment relating to your customers' wants
and needs, and your competitor’s actions
 consulting with customers and employees for ideas on improving processes,
products, and services
 seeking advice by using available resources such as business advisors, grants, and
assistance to drive innovation in your business; this may include seeking Intellectual
Property (IP) protection to commercialise your ideas and learn more about local and
international collaboration with researchers
 being open to innovative ideas and adaptive to change
 developing a strategic, responsive plan, which promotes innovation as a key business
process across the entire business and learning about creating an innovative business
culture and developing a strategy for innovation
 training and empowering all your employees to think innovatively.

Remember, innovation is the key to a competitive advantage for your business.

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 Resources

Additional resources
Refer to Business.gov.au to understand the change and growth in innovation. (Long URL:
https://www.business.gov.au/change-and-growth/innovation) © Commonwealth of
Australia 2018 (CC BY 3.0 AU) to find out more on innovation.

Areas of organisational innovation

Innovation in the organisation addresses improvements or changes needed in one of five key
areas:

1. Product innovation.
2. Process innovation.
3. People innovation.
4. Technology innovation.
5. Business model innovation.

Product innovation
Product innovation refers to new products and services or significant changes in existing
products and services. This may be aiming to win more customers and improve the
organisation’s competitive position in the industry or may sometimes attempt to create a
new market or consumer base altogether. Product innovation may sometimes be referred to
as customer innovation or competitor innovation and is focused on meeting the needs of the
market to increase revenues. An example of product innovation is Airbnb, which disrupted
the hospitality industry by bringing together, on a common platform, hosts who offer their
homes for rent and guests who wish to rent these properties instead of hotels or similar
accommodation.

Process innovation
It refers to innovative ideas and solutions for improving the organisation’s internal processes
and is aimed at reducing costs. It may involve changing existing policies, procedures or
methods, tools and techniques, or even physical equipment. One of the most famous
examples of process innovation is the moving assembly line in the automobile
manufacturing process that was offered by Henry Ford in 1913, which brought in significant
savings in time and effort.

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 People innovation
It focuses specifically on the organisation’s workforce to bring in improvements in human
resource practices, ways of working, work culture, and increasing employee satisfaction and
engagement to improve the employer branding of the organisation and be known as an
employer of choice. For example, Intuit, a business and financial software company, offers a
‘Well-being for Life’ programme, which provides their employees annual cost
reimbursements for physical, emotional, or financial well-being.

Technology or technological innovation

It refers to ideas, changes, and improvements where the key source of innovation lies in the
use of innovative technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Robotics,
Virtual Reality and other rapidly emerging technological advances. Examples of technology
innovation are continuously changing, in tandem with the evolution of technologies. For
instance, the innovative Virtual Private Assistants are now a familiar concept with Apple’s
Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Microsoft’s Cortana.

Business model innovation

It is innovation in regards to the way an organisation creates and provides value. A great
example is Amazon, which started as an online bookstore and is now the world’s largest
online marketplace for a huge range of products and a leader in cloud computing services,
digital entertainment, and AI.

Definition and context of relevant stakeholders

To identify an innovation, one must be able to first discover a problem that must be solved.
The best source of problem discovery lies in the people who are either owners,
administrators, or users of a given product, process, system, or service. They may be internal
to the organisation or external for customers and other users. The best ways to identify
opportunities for innovation, therefore, are to have regular connect sessions with your
colleagues and customers to understand their key pain areas. They are the key stakeholders,
and it is imperative to identify and communicate with them.

A stakeholder is anybody who will be impacted by your activities, either positively or

negatively, or whose job roles and responsibilities directly and indirectly impact the
achievement of your objectives. Stakeholders can be grouped into direct or indirect,
depending on how they are impacted by the improvement of project activities. Direct
stakeholders will include team members whose daily schedules and actions are affected,
whereas indirect stakeholders would be primarily concerned with the result.

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 Stakeholders may also be categorised into internal or external, depending on whether they
are members of your organisation or participants from outside the organisation.

Relevant stakeholders are a subset of the complete list of stakeholders and specifically those
who can impact your work by work role, authority, or power. In the context of innovation,
relevant stakeholders may be internal or external to the organisation. The table provides a
list of relevant stakeholders and how they can impact your innovation efforts:

Table 2 – Context for impact on innovation efforts

Stakeholder Context for impact on innovation efforts

Colleagues They are people you work with within the

organisation and can be comprised of your
peers, team members and supervisors. For
all your innovation efforts, colleagues would
be relevant in terms of supporting, guiding,
influencing, approving, and implementing
your plans and tasks.

Governance personnel They provide oversight for strategic

planning and decision-making and occupy
positions of power and authority in the
organisation. It is critical to identify these
stakeholders as they can have a significant
impact in terms of approval and backing for
your strategic and financial goals for
innovation.

They are especially relevant to your efforts

to establish new, or change existing, work
practices to foster an innovative
environment. They are the owners of all
Human resources (HR) officers employee-related policies and procedures
in the organisation and must approve any
ideas that you need to implement, which
can impact other employees within the
organisation.

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 Stakeholder Context for impact on innovation efforts

They have the primary focus of ensuring the

organisation’s actions and efforts follow the
applicable laws. They are also the
stakeholders who will review and sign-off
Legal teams
any contractual agreements between the
organisation and any third parties who you
may need to work with for implementing
innovative changes.

They include individuals at different levels

of the organisational hierarchy who oversee
managing day to day operations. They
ensure that planning is done properly, the
required resources are provided for tasks to
Management
be completed and that personnel are
performing their roles as expected so that
the team, the department and the
organisation can achieve their key
objectives and outcomes for innovation.

Regulators are appointed by the

government and may be for an area of
business (for example, financial regulators)
or to your industry. When planning for
innovation in your organisation, for
instance, you must be aware of and abide
Regulators
by legislation such as the Age
Discrimination Act 2004, Disability
Discrimination Act 1992, Racial
Discrimination Act 1975, Sex Discrimination
Act 1984 and Privacy Act 1988, as well as
codes of practice.

Work health and safety (WHS) officers To establish new work practices or change
the existing work environment, you must
consider the impact of these changes on
the health and safety of the organisation’s
employees along with any potential
hazards, which is what WHS officers
oversee. They have the authority to
disapprove or disallow your decisions
where there may be health and safety

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 Stakeholder Context for impact on innovation efforts

hazards involved.

Identify relevant stakeholders

Figure 1 – © Getty Images copied under licence Stakeholders meeting by Gradyreese

Stakeholders can be identified by determining whether they are involved in the achievement
of objectives, or have interests that may be affected by the achievement of the objectives.
Brainstorming is a valuable tool to identify relevant stakeholders.

Try to find answers to the following questions during brainstorming:

 Who are the groups or individuals internal to the organisation whose roles and
responsibilities have an impact on decisions for making required changes and
establishing work practices for innovation?
 Who are the groups or individuals internal to the organisation who will be
impacted by the changes or new work practices and innovative environment?
 Who are the groups or individuals external to the organisation whose roles and
responsibilities have an impact on decisions for making required changes and
establishing work practices for innovation?

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  Who are the groups or individuals external to the organisation who will be
impacted by the changes or new work practices and innovative environment?

Here is a framework with specific criteria to identify relevant stakeholders:

 this person will provide the inputs and information about the current state
 this person will be most benefitted from the changes
 this person may be affected in a bad way if the practice changes
 this person needs to change their schedule or scope of daily activities
 this person will measure the sustainability impact and risk to the organisation
 this person will be using the new process and will require to be trained
 this person can impact the changes because of their role
 this person is powerful and has interest in the changes.

For example, when a paper manufacturing company began an innovation initiative to bring
down its warehouse costs, it used the framework shown to identify the relevant
stakeholders.

The table lists one stakeholder role for each criterion in the framework, explaining their
responsibility or impact and whether they were direct or indirect, internal, or external:

Table 3 – Stakeholder role

Stakeholder
responsibility or Internal or
Stakeholder role impact Direct or indirect external

Warehouse manager Provide the key inputs Direct Internal

and data about current
processes, challenges
and areas of
improvement

Employee All employees of the Indirect Internal

organisation would be
benefitted as the
organisation would
save costs and improve
their profitability

Real estate owner The owner of the real Direct External

estate from whom the
warehouse space has
been leased may be

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 Stakeholder
responsibility or Internal or
Stakeholder role impact Direct or indirect external

affected in a bad way if

the location is changed
to a lower-cost area

All warehouse personnel

may need to change
Warehouse personnel Direct Internal
their schedule or daily
activities

The improvement
project manager needs
Improvement project
to measure the Direct Internal
manager
sustainability impact and
risk to the organisation

All warehouse personnel

will be using the new
Warehouse personnel Direct Internal
process and must be
trained

The WHS officer must

certify that the new
WHS officer Direct Internal
process will be safe to
use.

They are customers of

CEO (Chief Executive this manufacturer will
Officer) of a paper benefit significantly Indirect External
product company from any reduced prices,
due to the lower costs.

It is important that you remember to identify all your stakeholders, including those
outside of your organisation, for example — customers, vendors, technology partners, and
consultants.

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 Resources

Additional resources
Here is the article for insights on how to focus on stakeholders that matter most Five
Questions to Identify Key Stakeholders. (Long URL: https://hbr.org/2014/03/five-questions-to-
identify-key-stakeholders)

Identify organisational objectives and

practices
An organisation is created to achieve a purpose or goal, such as providing certain products or
services to a set of individuals or other organisations. It consists primarily of people,
practices, processes, and resources that are brought together for the attainment of the
purpose or goal.

However, there are many different elements that get defined to ensure that all stakeholders
of the organisation can align their focus to achieving this purpose and do so in a manner that
is acceptable to the organisation and to society.

This sub-chapter discusses these various elements, including:

 organisation’s mission and purpose

 organisational objectives
 core business values
 organisational practices.

You will also learn the steps to identify organisational objectives and practices about the
broader environmental context and innovation for sustainability.

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 Figure 2 – © Getty Images copied under licence Organisational objectives and practices by Richard Drury

Organisational objectives and innovation

While purpose, mission and vision provide long-term goals for the organisation,
organisational objectives provide specific milestones for the business to achieve with specific
timelines, keeping in mind the current economic scenarios and market trends.

The table shows the three different categories of organisational objectives.

Table 4 – Different categories of organisational objectives

Category Description

Economic  Economic objectives are the main

objectives of a business as most
businesses are started with the goal
of profit-making.
 Apart from profits, economic
objectives can also include revenue,
customers, market standing,
productivity and growth of the
business.

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 Category Description

Social  Social objectives are goals to be

accomplished for the welfare of
society.
 Since businesses make use of
resources from society, they have an
obligation to return something.

Human or individual  Human or individual objectives are

goals related to the needs of the
individual employees.
 Since an organisation’s employees
are one of its most important
resources, their satisfaction is vital.

Organisation’s Practices for Innovation

Once the organisation’s objectives have been defined, the next step in organisational
management is planning. A plan lists out the prioritised activities, with corresponding
timelines, activity owners and expected outcomes and thus, helps ensure that organisations
are on the right path to achieving their strategic objectives.

There are four categories of organisational plans, as explained:

 strategic plans
 tactical plans
 operational plans
 contingency plans.

Strategic plans
Strategic plans have a high-level focus on the organisation mission and goals. They are
designed to meet long term objectives for two to five years and are owned by the
organisation’s senior management.

Tactical plans
Tactical plans are aligned to the organisation’s strategic focus but are specific to each
department. They are created to meet short term objectives and are owned by the
organisation’s middle management, including department leads, who are responsible for the
specific department.

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 Operational plans
Operational plans are focused on specific processes, systems, and tasks within the
department or organisation. These plans may be created for a one-time project need or on
an ongoing basis. Operational plans are owned and driven by the individual front-line
managers, project, or system managers and team leads.

Contingency plans
Contingency plans are a part of the organisation’s risk management strategy. They are
created across the various levels of the organisation and are specifically designed to address
short-term and long-term risks. Contingency plans are a backup in case of failure of strategic,
operational, and tactical plans.

When these plans are put into execution within the boundaries of the organisation’s culture
and business values, they become practices in the organisation. In other words, to achieve
organisational objectives and plans, the behaviours, activities, processes and methods of
working that are adopted and followed routinely are together referred to as the
organisation’s practices.

Identify organisational objectives for innovation

To identify the organisational objectives for innovation, the first step is to know your
organisation’s strategic long-term goals, from which the specific objectives should be
derived. One of the most popular and effective frameworks that you can use to identify or
set objectives is the SMART approach. It was first introduced by Peter Drucker as part of his
Management by Objectives strategic management model in his book The Practice of
Management in 1954.

SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-
bound. To understand how to set SMART goals, you can refer to the characteristics of each
of the five aspects:

 specific
 measurable
 attainable
 relevant
 time bound.

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 Specific
 define the boundaries and focus of your goal
 does it include details on what will be the exact outcomes?

Measurable
 set a quantitative target or progress that can be measured and compared.

Attainable
 ensure it will be feasible to achieve this goal within the organisational budgets, skills
and focus
 can the goal be accomplished within a certain timeline?

Relevant
 is the goal aligned with the values and long-term mission for the organisation?

Time-bound
 determine an end date by which the goal must be achieved.

For instance, an organisation’s goal may be to enhance customer experience and aligned to
this, the following SMART objective of a system improvement initiative can be identified:

 reduce the downtime of our customer portal (Specific)

 to no more than 0.01% (Measurable)
 by having faster incident responses and resolutions (Attainable)
 to support our ‘superior customer experience’ strategic goal (Relevant)
 by the end of the current quarter (Time-bound).

A second step in identifying innovation objectives is to seek feedback and ideas from
relevant internal and external stakeholders of your organisation, such as employees,
customers, partners, and suppliers. For example, analysis of customer feedback may
generate ideas for a product feature enhancement or new product development, which can
then be translated into a SMART objective.

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 Evaluate current work conditions
Working conditions refer to all the elements that make up the physical, cultural, and social
environment in the organisation.

Physical work conditions

Physical work conditions refer to the tangible elements at the workplace, which can impact
day to day working and productivity of the employees. Physical work conditions include the
aspects listed:

 size and movements

 layout
 workstations and other fixtures
 lighting
 manual handling and safety
 ventilation
 temperature
 facilities
 external environment and location.

Size and movements

The physical, usable area of the office space in square feet as well height, within which the
employees must perform their tasks and responsibilities

Layout
The design and division of the work areas, such as having individual cubicles or an open plan
without any enclosed rooms for individuals, or a combination of the two.

Workstations and other fixtures

Individual work desks and chairs, personal and shared computers, telephones, and individual
storage drawers at the desk.

Lighting
The amount of natural and artificial light that reaches each point in the work area. This can
be through windows, individual lights for each desk and common overhead illumination, and
backup lighting where power failures occur.

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 Manual handling and safety
Activities at work that require lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying, holding, restraining and
throwing. This includes activities such as stacking shelves, working on a conveyor line—
entering data into a computer, packing items, and operating machinery.

Ventilation
The circulation of air through open windows or ventilation systems, which remove stale air
and allow a constant flow of fresh and purified air into the work areas.

Temperature
Ability to maintain a constant, optimal temperature inside the workspace and availability of
thermometers to monitor and adjust the heat or cold levels.

Facilities
Facilities, such as clean and well-maintained restrooms, access to drinking water, common
recreation areas, convenient parking facilities and food and beverages.

External environment and location

The neighbourhood or area where the office is physically located, accessibility provided and
conditions to perform any outdoor work.

Evaluating work conditions

Evaluation is the process of assessing or examining something, in this case, the existing
physical, social, and cultural work conditions in your organisation. Evaluation follows a
systematic approach to establish whether the subject being assessed meets the required
criteria or standards. Your objective is to evaluate the current working conditions in the
organisation to foster innovation. Here are the four steps for evaluating work conditions:

 establish standards
 understand current state
 analyse variance
 recommend changes.

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 Establish standards
The first step involves identifying the criteria or the standards for innovation to evaluate
whether the existing work conditions will meet these criteria and allow or foster innovative
practices in the organisation. Some of the key standards and criteria are listed in the table:

Table 5 – Innovation standards and criteria to evaluate working conditions

Innovation standards Criteria Evaluate working conditions

Encourage creative thinking Allow cross-organisational Support new idea capture

communication and management

Enable idea generation Appreciate risk-taking Stimulate learning

Facilitate collaboration at Inspire activity and Celebrate performance and

work flexibility failures to innovate

Understand Current State

This involves a discovery or fact-finding exercise to identify and understand existing physical,
cultural and social work conditions in the organisation. Some of this information may be
available by direct observation, for instance, physical elements such as layout or facilities.
For a few others, you may need to access the organisation's policies and procedures, such as
the Code of Conduct or Terms of Employment. Finally, there will be a few work conditions
that cannot be directly observed or will not be documented but must be understood
through your own experience or that of your colleagues.

Analyse Variance
In the context of evaluating work conditions for innovation, a qualitative assessment of the
difference between what is needed to meet the defined standards (in Step 1) and the
existing condition (in Step 2) will provide the variance analysis.

Recommend Changes
In the final step of any evaluation, you should be able to identify and recommend any
changes that will help to reduce or eliminate the variance.

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 Determine working conditions

Figure 3 – © Getty Images copied under licence Determine working conditions by Thomas Barwick

Depending on the industry, the organisation size and maturity, the culture, values, mission
and the leadership approach, companies can follow various methods to foster a mindset of
innovation within the workplace. The key considerations should be that your employees
should feel safe, interested, and supported to try new things.

You are now versed with the types and examples of work conditions in an organisation and
have also learnt how to evaluate these conditions with innovation as the basis of your
evaluation. The logical next task is to determine which of the current working conditions will
allow innovative practices in the organisation and which may need changes or
enhancements.

This sub-chapter will cover the first part, which is to decide which working conditions will
allow innovative practices. In subsequent chapters, you will learn about what is needed to
change the work environment and enhance the conditions that do not currently encourage
innovation.

From the discussions in this sub-chapter, you will also get insights into how to establish
procedures and practices that foster innovation in the workplace, with various examples.

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 The last part of this sub-chapter will introduce you to organisational policies and procedures
that you need to access when performing the various tasks to evaluate and determine
working conditions for innovation.

Working conditions that allow innovative practices

There is a lot of research and trialling being done about innovative workspaces. The primary
underlying assumption is that collaboration is the key to innovation. Companies such as
Google, who are known as successful innovators, ensure that physical working conditions
such as the workspaces are conducive to the idea of casual collision. Casual collision refers to
employees unintentionally ‘bumping into each other’ by virtue of their regular movements
at work, creating opportunities to connect and encouraging collaboration.

Some of the key elements that foster innovation include:

 space
 recreation
 nature and light.

Space
Open work area layouts tend to promote collaboration and interaction between employees
but can sometimes impinge on an individual’s productivity or thinking processes. Therefore,
it is helpful to have dedicated ‘thinking areas’ for individuals as well as common spaces for
groups to connect. Common spaces should encourage people to connect, such as by
including a café and collective seating.

Recreation
Several companies have understood the benefits of providing free recreational facilities such
as a game room where employees can actively participate and connect with each other and
even brainstorm innovative ideas over a game.

Nature and light

It is well-known that nature can provide inspiration and that is why organisations are now
more frequently including natural elements such as greenery within and outside the office
space. Further, allowing natural light where possible into the work area or providing
adequate artificial lighting is a necessary factor. In fact, some organisations are now using
circadian lighting, which follows the natural light patterns of the day and night, therefore,
aligning with the human circadian system.

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 Some interesting examples of physical work conditions designed for innovation can be
discovered at the various offices of Google across the world, such as putting green, beach
volleyball and rock-climbing walls. Google even designed secret private rooms that could be
discovered behind swivelling bookcases in their New York office.

Apart from the physical conditions, the cultural and social conditions that impact innovation
at the workplace have been discussed previously. The standards and criteria listed for the
evaluation of work conditions must be fully met for a company to foster an innovative work
environment.

Organisational policies and procedures

Organisational policies are generic statements of how an organisation wants to act.
Organisational procedures outline exactly how an activity is to be performed step by step.
Organisational procedures may also specify who in the organisation is responsible for tasks.

Together, organisational policies and procedures offer guidelines for the way decisions need
to be taken and activities need to be performed in an organisation. Well-designed
organisational policies and procedures are important to ensure accountability, consistency
and transparency in the organisation.

Organisational policies and procedures should reflect the mission and values of the
organisation. Policies connect an organisation’s mission and values to its on-the-ground
operations. Procedures explain specific activities to be undertaken by employees when
carrying out a policy and how to deal with situations that arise during work activities.
Typically, there will be organisational policies and procedures for each aspect of the business
such as finance, marketing, human resources, administrative, quality, WHS (Work Health and
Safety) and emergency situations.

Examples of organisational policies and procedures relevant to working conditions and

fostering innovative practices may include:

 organisational vision, mission, and values

 code of conduct
 equal employment opportunity (EEO) and anti-discrimination policy and procedures
 environmental management policy and procedures
 workplace safety policy and procedures
 internal communication policy and procedures
 external communication policy and procedures
 operational plans
 project plans.

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 Identify organisational resources relating to innovation
Organisational resources are essential to innovate and create value for your customers as
well as employees. The resources required for innovation can be classified into four broad
categories:

 human resources
- team members
- consultants
- contractors
 physical resources
- workspaces
- furnishings
- IT infrastructure
- digital tools
 information resources
- policies and procedures
- manuals and templates
- knowledge management systems
 financial resources
- capital budget
- operational budget
- external funding.

In this sub-chapter, you will learn more about these types of organisational resources that
are relevant to innovation. While organisations may have many resources to run and grow a
business, you should be able to identify and select the appropriate resources for innovation.
The best way to identify the resources necessary for innovation is to use the following steps:

- Step 1: Determine the physical, social, and cultural working conditions in the
organisation which are relevant to innovation, as discussed in the previous sub-
chapter.
- Step 2a: Identify the organisational employees and other human resources who may
be necessary for these working conditions—for example, trainers, team leads,
leadership team and change managers.
- Step 2b: Identify the physical resources, including technology/hardware that are used
for these working conditions—for example, furniture, lighting, computers, floor area,
décor.
- Step 2c: Identify the information resources such as relevant organisational manuals,
policies and procedures and systems for idea management and knowledge
management.

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 - Step 2d: Identify the financial resources, which is the one-time and ongoing
expenditure of the organisation on these working conditions. For example,
infrastructure costs, tool licences and so on.

Lead team and maximise opportunities

Figure 4 – © Getty Images copied under licence, Lead team by Unknown

A team can be defined as a group of individuals that are brought together as a workgroup,
driven by shared goals and commitment. Apart from a common goal, the five other major
factors required for a team to successfully work are:

 well-defined roles with responsibilities

 unambiguous governance and decision-making model
 clear communication processes
 shared commitment
 mutually accepted group rules.

In any organisation, there can be several different team structures, depending primarily on
the objectives that the team has been formed to achieve. Some of the common team
structures include:

 functional team

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  project team
 support team
 task force
 pods.

Functional team
This includes employees belonging to the same department or functional business unit, for
example, a payroll team or information security team.

Project team
Managed and supervised by an individual project lead; these teams typically get dispersed
once the project is completed.

Support team
Focused on providing various levels of service to resolve issues and queries of external and
internal customers.

Task force
Time-bound and mission-driven teams; usually comprising senior leaders from across the
organisation formed to deal with some form of emergency or firefighting business situations.

Pods
These are smaller, self-managed, cross-functional teams bringing complementary skills and
experience required to deliver a common outcome and may include both internal and
external stakeholders.

Which team structure is most suitable for innovation and continuous improvement
initiatives?

Under ideal conditions, the Pod would best support the innovation objectives of a company
since the best innovation teams across industries include a multi-functional team and can
include external stakeholders such as customers. However, it must be kept in mind that this
decision would also be a function of the organisation’s size, culture, strategy, and financial
status.

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 Having defined teams and team structures, this sub-chapter will focus on discussions on how
you can build and lead your team and maximise opportunities for innovation together as a
team.

Resources

Additional resources
Read the transcript of a podcast on how to bring together a successful team for innovation of
creating high-performance innovation teams at scale. (Long URL:
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/
creating-high-performance-innovation-teams-at-scale)

Build a Team
For you to work effectively and achieve your objective of establishing innovative
environments, it is key to build a team that can support and enable your efforts. To build a
team, you must first identify suitable individuals.

There are several characteristics that determine whether a potential team member is
suitable for an innovation effort. To build the team for innovation successfully, you should
carefully consider the traits of the individuals and map them to the planned roles.

Here are some of the key factors that determine the suitability of potential team members
for innovation:

 problem solving
 curiosity
 connecting the dots
 collaboration
 outcome driven.

Problem solving
Improvements and innovations are most successful when they address specific problems,
whether in the existing processes and systems of the organisation or relating to unmet
customer needs.

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 Curiosity
Individuals who are inherently inquisitive tend to question the status quo and look deeper to
understand the underlying elements. This trait should go together with strong analytical
skills.

Connecting the dots

To make something better or create something new, one of the key abilities is to understand
the bigger picture and identify how various moving parts can be best put together.

Collaboration
Creative and innovative individuals who operate best on their own will not be suitable for
teamwork and may end up disrupting the team's efforts, making success more difficult to
achieve.

Outcome-driven
Individuals focusing on new and creative ideas for improvement or innovation must also
focus on delivering demonstrable outcomes.

For example, Your Style, a leading apparel company, analysed their employee profiles and
culture to understand the suitability for innovation. They found their employees to be
methodical and oriented towards problem-solving and individually driven to achieve the
results. Therefore, they could identify the gaps in the existing skills and traits and hired new
personnel to focus on their improvement and innovation objectives.

The new hires were selected using various technical and non-technical factors. The technical
factors were related to work responsibilities. The key non-technical factors that the
organisation focused on included a demonstrated interest in learning, a collaborative
working style and for the senior people, experience in analysing the big picture and being
able to break down a solution into smaller components and then bringing the pieces back
together to achieve the larger goals.

Good teams are built up as a mix of thinkers and doers and include people at different levels
of the organisation. One of the main contributors to the success of a project is a mix of
perspectives that promotes out-of-the-box thinking and encourages innovation.

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 Lead the Team
Your team members are your most powerful asset to discover and implement the changes
that you aim to make. It is imperative that as the leader, you can communicate clearly to and
with your team and give constructive advice. You must also:

 model desired behaviours to overcome barriers to innovation

 mentor and coach the members to get the best results
 build team capacity to contribute to innovation.

Modelling desired behaviours

When team members do not work as a cohesive unit or individual members of the team are
unwilling to cross-pollinate ideas, take risks, or upgrade their skills and knowledge, these
become significant barriers to the success of innovation. To overcome these, you should be
able to lead your team by modelling the conduct that is expected from them.

Mentor and coach team members

Mentoring is a long-term relationship that can be mutually beneficial and focuses on the
holistic professional development of the mentee, irrespective of the current job. Coaching
refers to a more structured relationship that focuses primarily on building the necessary
skills to succeed in the current and, at most, next role.

The mentor-mentee relationship should be built on certain principles to be successful. It

works as a two-way relationship, but usually, the mentor is somebody with far more
professional experience who can help the inexperienced, younger mentees navigate their
way more successfully through the corporate world.

Coaching is the process of training or instructing about the skills needed to perform the tasks
and functions assigned.

Build team capacity to contribute to innovation

To get maximum output from your team members with respect to their contributions to
innovation, you must be able to develop the capacity and capability of the team. this can be
done in two ways:

 identifying individual team members with complementary skills that, when put
together, cover the entire gamut of skills needed for innovation
 training and skilling up the team members to develop their capacity to take on newer
and additional responsibilities relevant to innovation.

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 Maximise opportunities for innovation
There are different ways by which your team members can maximise opportunities for
innovation. The key to maximisation of opportunities is to seek and identify as many ideas as
possible and then evaluate whether they are opportunities for innovation. Therefore, the
first step is opportunity identification, followed by analysis. One way for teams to do this is
to follow the Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity, suggested by Peter Drucker.

You must guide your team members on knowing the relevant stakeholders, both within and
outside the organisation. Innovation opportunities can be identified by discussing problems
and challenges faced by users of systems in the workplace and reaching out to customers,
partners, and target users to understand their needs and identifying gaps in current
offerings. They can also be identified by analysing competitor services and products to
discover new solutions and following market trends and changes in the environment that
can lead to innovative opportunities for products and services.

Here are the seven sources of innovative opportunity and by focusing on these areas, you
and your team members can discover and maximise new prospects for innovation.

Innovation opportunities:
 internal sources
- unexpected successes and failures
- incongruities
- process needs
- structural changes
 external sources
- demographics
- perception changes
- new knowledge

Internal sources include occurrences or situations from within the organisation or the
industry, from which you can learn lessons in innovation and use them to identify
opportunities. External sources refer to changes in the external markets and environment
and can provide opportunities for disruptive and breakthrough innovations.

Organisational case studies of successes that were not intended, anticipated failed projects
in the organisation and known issues and challenges in existing processes and systems
should be studied and analysed carefully as they can present learnings and opportunities to
innovate. Incongruities refer to the dissonance or incompatibility between expected and
actual results or between assumptions and realities. When incongruities exist, opportunities
for innovation are created. Changing industry structures include the emergence of new

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 entities whose innovative offerings can disrupt the traditional services and products offered,
for instance, the changes brought about by digital applications for taxi services such as Uber.

External sources that open innovative opportunities include market demography, such as
the rise of the millennial generation impacting the way decisions and choices are made.
Perception changes refer to the trends in general thinking, which are often driven by
effective communication and marketing and lead to decision-making based on notions that
may not always be based on facts. For example, perceptions change all the time within the
health industry, thereby providing newer opportunities for innovative diets and related
products and services. New knowledge is another source of opportunities, and the frequent
disruptive innovations cause by new technologies and expertise is a good example of this.

To maximise opportunities for innovation, team members must also brainstorm and
collaborate on ideas and issues. You must encourage them to understand and evaluate the
risks involved and then take calculated risks, connect, and discuss with internal and external
stakeholders who can provide insights and inputs. It is also necessary to understand the
external environment and trends.

Resources

Additional resources
Read this article on Sources of Innovation from the Drucker Institute. (Long URL:
https://drucker.institute/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/reading_source-of-innovation.pdf)

Here are some great 10 Genius Examples Of How To Encourage Employee Innovation. (Long URL:
https://medium.com/frontira-collection/10-genius-examples-of-how-to-encourage-
employee-innovation-8794d2bec5ad)

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 Practice activity

Activity 1: List activity

1. List at least two practices for innovation in your organisation.

Check your knowledge

Activity: Check your knowledge

1. Which of the following refers to new products and services or significant changes in
existing products and services?

Table 6 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Product innovation ☐

B. Process innovation ☐

C. People innovation ☐

D. Technology innovation ☐

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 2. Choose the four steps for evaluating work conditions.

Table 7 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Establish standards ☐

B. Layout ☐

C. Size and movements ☐

D. Understand current state ☐

E. Analyse variance ☐

F. Recommended changes ☐

3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Table 8 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Physical workspaces designed for a casual collision can foster

innovation

2. A key factor that determines the suitability of potential team

members for innovation is ‘outcome-driven’

3. Open work area layouts tend to promote collaboration and

interaction between employees and always have a positive impact on
an individual’s productivity or thinking processes

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 Questions True or False

4. Organisational policies and procedures relevant to innovation include

policies and procedures for business-related travel

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 Self-check

How did you go?

You have completed the topic on Establish work practices. Check the boxes for the tasks you
feel confident you can complete.

I can identify relevant stakeholders.

I can evaluate current work conditions.

I can determine working conditions that allow innovative practices.

I can identify organisational resources relating to innovation.

I can build and lead team and maximise opportunities for innovation.

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 Topic 2: Create an innovative
environment

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 Overview
To begin with, you must be aware of the changes to the current work environment, which
may be internal or external to the organisation, and be able to evaluate the possible impacts
of these changes on individual employees as well as on the organisation. You will also learn
about stakeholder communication and collaboration, and you must leverage the experience
and expertise of relevant stakeholders to produce practical and feasible ideas to enhance
the current work environment.

To put these ideas into action, you must develop your knowledge from the previous chapter
on resources for innovation. While some of the required resources may be available in the
organisation, you must also be able to identify and select additional resources that you will
need to implement the ideas for improving the work environment.

Finally, in this chapter, you will also learn to assess that the new workspace can indeed
support innovation and how to lead and assist your team members in working effectively
and achieving their objectives in the changed work environment.

In this topic you will learn how to:

 evaluate the impacts of changing work environment

 develop ideas for enhancing work environment
 identify and select resources required for enhancing work environment
 assess the ability of the workspace to support innovation
 assist team members to adapt and perform in new work environment.

The activities throughout this resource will assist you in your learning. These activities do not
form a part of your final assessment however they will contribute to your understanding of
the topic area. Answers and feedback for the practice activities are provided at the end of
this document.

Evaluate the impacts of changing work

environment

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 Figure 5 – © Getty Images copied under licence, Evaluate the impacts of changing work environment by Unknown

This topic will discuss the various types of changes that can take place in the current work
environment. These changes may be internal or external to the organisation and can include:

 physical changes to a work environment

 changes in employees’ roles and responsibilities and relationships with their co-
workers
 external changes impacting stability in the work environment

Further, the possible impacts of each of these changes are also discussed. You will learn
about how the changes may affect the ways of working, the efforts and outcomes, both with
respect to individual employees and the impact on the organisation.

Lastly, this sub-chapter discusses how to evaluate the impact — the steps you need to follow
to perform an impact assessment.

Changing work environment

An organisation is a dynamic entity that is continually undergoing changes. A work
environment may be changing in various ways, such as:

 organic changes
 inorganic changes.

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 Organic changes
These are transformations in the organisation’s processes, structure, policies, and workings
that are a result of the regular activities in the organisation to survive and grow. For
example, hiring new employees who will bring in necessary skills to fulfil the organisation’s
plans for growth can lead to potential changes in organisation structure or on boarding
processes (due to increased volumes) and so on.

Inorganic changes
When a company decides to grow by merging with or acquiring another company or getting
bought out by a larger company, there are several resultant changes that can impact both
the organisations going through the process. This is due to the need for integration and over
time, forms a single way of working.

A changing work environment includes:

 physical changes to the work environment

 people-related changes
 external changes impacting stability in the work environment.

Physical changes to the work environment

It may include gradual or minor changes, such as bringing in a new plant to the workspace or
changing the lighting for individual workstations, or major transformations such as the office
shifting to a new location.

People-related changes
It refers to the softer aspects of change in an organisation resulting in changes to
relationships between co-workers. This can be due to organisational restructuring, change of
individual’s role, HR (human resources) initiatives such as structured team-building activities
or outings and by virtue of certain physical changes such as introducing a recreation space in
the common areas.

External changes
External changes refer to the concept of the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex,
Ambiguous) environment in which organisations operate today.

 Volatility refers to the rate of change or the speed at which the current situation or
value of something changes. A highly volatile environment implies that external

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 factors affecting your work are changing very quickly, for example, rapid changes in
the cost of the material.
 Uncertainty deals with the unpredictable way things are changing, making it harder
for organisations to plan for longer terms. One example of the uncertainty that is
impacting organisations across industries relates to the longevity of skills acquired;
that is, how long your current skills will be useful for your work.
 Complexity deals with the increasing number of inter-related variables that impact
work decisions. One of the biggest complexity factors that organisations must deal
with today is related to technology changes and disruptions, which can sometimes
require a complete overhaul of internal processes. For example, digital streaming has
global industry leaders such as Disney and Viacom, transforming the way they
operate.
 Ambiguity is when something is not clearly understood. Lack of clarity about the
external environment can get translated to doubtful organisational strategies and
uncertain objectives. This will cause employees to underperform since they will not
be clear about their roles and expectations. Leaders must be careful when dealing
with ambiguity to try to break down the issues at hand and define, quantify, and
structure their plans.

Just as the business environment is changing, markets are also transforming. For an
organisation to grow, sustain and succeed, it is essential that the leaders and managers
understand the market changes, which can be across various dimensions such as technology,
regulatory, supply chain, financial, customer, and workforce. For example, market changes
and trends can include rapid evolution of technology, transformations in employees’
demography, increased reach into global markets, the emergence of new digital currencies,
or efficient logistics management.

Impact of changes in work environment

In general, there are two broad types of impact that any change in the internal or external
work environment can have on an organisation and its employees:

 positive or negative
 intentional or unplanned.

Positive or negative
 Positive impacts include providing opportunities for new business offerings,
enhanced employee experience, improved productivity at work, expanded customer
base, better sourcing opportunity and so on.

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  Negative impacts posing as threats to the organisation’s ability to sustain and grow,
especially if competitors can adapt to these changes and trends faster and more
efficiently, or by imposing constraints on employees and creating adverse working
experiences.

Intentional or unplanned
 Intentional impacts refer to the expected or desired consequences of the actions
taken, for example, when employees take advantage of new learning opportunities
to upgrade their skills
 Unplanned or unintended impacts are unforeseen outcomes of the changes made
and may be positive or negative. Unplanned impacts can be minimised through
effective risk analysis and contingency planning.

The following table highlights some of the key impacts of changing work environments:

Table 9 – The key impacts of changing work environments

Key impact on Key impact on individual

Type of change organisation employees

Physical changes  increase in spend  superior working

or expenses conditions
 lower long-term  mental or physical
costs well being
 brand associations  experience
 customer growth  productivity
or decline

Employee roles and  increased or  learning and growth

relationships reduced  recognition and
collaboration rewards
 work culture and
politics

External changes  new products and  work and

services communication
 threat from methods (such as
competitors remote working)
 regulatory  skill development
compliance
 supplier costs

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 A case example of physical changes in the workspace inspiring innovation is of a North
American consulting firm, which introduced ‘treadmill desks’ for workstations. Employees
then had the option of walking while working, which helped them lose weight and improve
their physical and mental health. Furthermore, when the employees were asked for
feedback on the new treadmill desks, several commented that this was beneficial for
thinking creatively and they would use the desks when they felt blocked from developing
innovative ideas.

Resources

Additional resources
Here is the article for insights into how changes in workspace design can foster innovation in
the organisation. (Long URL:
https://www.steelcase.com/research/articles/topics/innovation/how-place-fosters-
innovation/)

Evaluate the impact

Impact assessment is a way to systematically identify and evaluate how an action or an
event such as a change in the work environment, or in certain cases, inaction such as not
making necessary enhancements to the workspace, will affect individual employees and the
organisation. To evaluate the impact of changes in the work environment, you can follow the
approach shown:

 identify changes
 determine stakeholders
 ascertain the impact on each stakeholder
 assess the nature and degree of impact
 consider potential consequences.

The first step is to identify and list all the changes in the work environment, including
changes in employee relationships and in the physical and external environments.

In the next step, you should identify all the relevant stakeholders, both internal and external,
to your organisation, such as employees, customers, and partners.

The third step requires you to map the impact of the changes on each stakeholder. Note that
not all changes will be relevant to all stakeholders.

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 In the fourth step, you must analyse the change impacts to understand whether the effect
will be positive or negative, along with the degree of impact, that is, the actual extent to
which it will affect the stakeholder.

Finally, the last step requires you to consider the potential consequences of the change.
Impact refers to the effect of the change; consequences refer to the actual outcomes that
result. In the context of changing work environments, it is critical to evaluate the impact on
and consider the consequences for both individual employees and other stakeholders, as
well as the organisation. In addition, it is important to also consider the consequences of
sustainability.

Resources

Additional resources
Here is the article on how companies need to adapt to the changes in their environment and
manage the impact of those changes on the workplace. (Long URL:
https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/sk-case-studies-successful-change-management)

Collaborate with stakeholders and develop

ideas
Innovation and improvement projects will have varying impacts on stakeholders and not all
stakeholders would be supportive of your initiatives, plans and ideas. You should be
prepared to face resistance when communicating and discussing changes with stakeholders
and have a strategy to work with it. This is where stakeholder communication and
collaboration become key.

This sub-chapter will discuss how to:

 collaborate with and communicate to stakeholders

 be receptive to ideas.

This sub-chapter will further explain how ideas for enhancing work environments can be
developed.

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 Stakeholder consulting, collaboration and communication
Consultation and collaboration with relevant stakeholders help develop long-term
relationships that are productive and constructive, resulting in mutual benefits. Stakeholder
consultation is useful when the individual you are interacting with is a subject matter expert
or can share necessary and specialised information by virtue of their overall experience as
well as role or position in the organisation. Collaboration refers to the process of working
together to achieve common objectives and outcomes.

Consultation and collaboration with relevant internal and external stakeholders can be
crucial for the effective allocation of resources, the success of initiatives and long-term
success of the organisation. There are three main methods for stakeholder consultation:

 meetings
 interviews
 brainstorming sessions.

Meetings
 specific meetings: to get feedback on desired outcomes, work environment elements
and confirm availability of resources
 regular meeting: to discuss current performance and issues
 meetings can be face-to-face or through audio or video conferencing.

Interviews
 face-to-face or telephone interviews or receiving answers on emails
 preparing a questionnaire with pre-defined questions is suggested.

Brainstorming sessions
 to get inputs, ideas, and solutions to issues on an open forum.

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 Idea development for enhancing work environments

Figure 6 – © Getty Images copied under licence, idea by Unknown

Your efforts to collaborate and consult with stakeholders are aimed at the objective of
developing ideas to improve the existing working environment. These ideas can include:

 collaborative work arrangements such as using a collaboration tool or creating

workspace setups where smaller groups can interact and work together
 building team capacity to contribute to innovation by selecting and hiring individuals
with suitable traits, by providing opportunities to upgrade their skills or setting
learning goals for each team member
 providing formal and informal learning opportunities such as professional training
programmes, webinars, and knowledge sharing sessions
 establishing the practice of evaluating ideas of innovation in the work environment
individually and through group discussions
 celebrating and encouraging innovation such as with rewards and recognition
programmes and conducting events such as hackathons
 changing physical work environment including designing, fitting-out and decorating
workspaces, such as including plants or changing the window designs to allow more
natural light, rearranging workspaces to allow more interaction between colleagues,
introducing private spaces where employees can reflect and think, and recreational
facilities

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  encouraging communication and sharing of ideas and feedback, such as by using idea
and knowledge management systems.

Identify and select resources

The resources will depend on the ideas that have been developed in collaboration with the
relevant stakeholders for the purpose of improving the current work environment in the
organisation.

Resources
Resources for enhancing the work environment may relate to the following:

 training, coaching, and mentoring

 digital tools
 human capital
 time
 working arrangements (for example, collaborative workspaces)
 physical work environment (including design, fit outs and decorations in workspaces).

The table lists examples of resource details required across the four categories:

Table 10 – Recourse categories

Physical Informational Financial

Human Resource Resource Resource Resource

Training, Number of Classrooms, Training Cost of external

coaching and trainers, coaches communication material, training and
mentoring and mentors tools, learning templates, certificates
applications procedures

Digital tools - Tool licenses - Cost of licenses

and required and supporting
hardware hardware

Human capital Number of skilled - - Cost of wages

employees and
consultants

Time Number of hours - - Opportunity

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 Physical Informational Financial
Human Resource Resource Resource Resource

to be dedicated cost

Working Consultant Collaborative Practices and -

arrangements workspaces, procedures
communication
tools

Physical work Architects, Facilities, food, Health and Cost of

environment designers and lighting, décor, safety materials,
workspace greenery. measures and building and
consultants policies maintenance

Identify and select required resources

To identify and select the necessary resources, it is first necessary to have developed and
selected the idea for improvement, along with an associated plan of action. Now, you can
pick up each activity or task associated with the implementation of the idea to identify what
you will need to complete the task. This is the first step to identifying the required resources.

A useful method for this initial stage is the work breakdown structure which breaks down
the overall activity into smaller units of work. Then, against each unit, you can list the
human, physical, informational, and financial resources that will be required, along with an
estimate of the quantity and the duration for which they will be needed, where applicable.

The second step is to look within the organisation and look for existing resources that can be
leveraged. Organisations often have a wealth of resources that can be reused or used with
some modification. For instance, you may identify that for a selected idea, such as
implementing competitions within the company with associated rewards aimed at
generating product improvement or new features ideas. In the work breakdown structure,
one of the tasks associated with this is to establish a rewards programme. For this, you may
discover that your organisation already has various rewards programmes planned and
budgeted for. It may be possible to leverage one of these available programmes with some
tweaks rather than create a whole new initiative where you may have to identify a rewards
partner, get funding, create the rules from scratch and so on.

The next step requires the identification of any other resources necessary for the completion
of the task, which may not be available in the organisation and must be procured. This may
include new training or certification programmes or raw materials for physical infrastructure
changes.

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 Remember that during each of these steps, try to list the resource details across the
categories discussed earlier. That will provide a structure and help you ensure that your list
is exhaustive.

Once you have identified the resources, you must choose the appropriate resources
required to implement the selected ideas for enhancing the work environment. Resource
selection typically follows set criteria, which depend on your organisation's policies and
procedures, the specific requirements, and overall context. For example, it may be the
company’s policy to tie up with a specific technology partner for procurement of IT
(information technology) tools and, therefore, that should be added to your resource
selection criteria.

Woolworths, a major Australian company with a widespread retail footprint throughout

Australia and New Zealand, has implemented a digital innovation hub, which is a separate
and focused workspace to increase collaboration at work. The idea was driven by a plan to
move all their digital businesses into one physical space, to allow team members from across
the digital businesses and brands to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Assess the ability of the workspace to support

innovation

Figure 7 – © Getty Images copied under licence, Assess the ability of the workspace by Klaus Vedfelt

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 This sub-chapter will discuss the approach to assess the abilities of the workspace to support
innovation, along with challenges and barriers to innovation that may exist in the
organisation and the corresponding ways of overcoming them.

Workspaces to support innovation

Working environments that foster innovation are designed to meet the following
requirements:

 encourage creative thinking

 allow cross-organisational communication
 support new idea capture and management
 enable idea generation
 appreciate risk-taking
 stimulate learning
 facilitate collaboration
 inspire activity and flexibility
 celebrate performance and failures to innovate.

Some examples of workspace features that can help to achieve these include:

 whiteboards and markers

 noise protection
 colours and artwork
 comfortable temperatures
 focused quiet areas
 use of plants indoors
 natural lighting
 idea boxes or systems
 books or online libraries
 gyms or activity areas
 posters with employee achievements
 badges, certificates, trophies
 dedicated teamwork areas
 knowledge systems and directories
 messaging systems and tools.

There are different methods you can use to assess the ability of whether your workspace
enhancements will support and foster innovation. One method is to follow established best
practices that have been tried and tested by other successful organisations. Many of the
examples have been adopted by innovative companies.

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 However, no two organisations are alike and depending on the purpose, the geography
where they operate, the nature of the business, and the dominant work culture, different
workspace elements may be better suited. For instance, creative workspaces that are apt for
a young technology start-up can be expected to be quite different from those on the floor of
a manufacturing company or a bank.

A second and more structured method to evaluate the ability of the workspace to support
innovation includes the five steps:

1. Define objectives.
2. Map features.
3. Identify elements.
4. Review features.
5. Confirm abilities.

Step 1: Define the objectives and desired end-state standards to be achieved for innovation

Step 2: Map these objectives to workspace features to identify the specific evaluation
criteria

Step 3: Identify the workspace elements existing in the work environment

Step 4: Review the features of the available workspace elements against the evaluation
criteria

Step 5: Confirm the ability of each workspace element to support innovation

It is important to remember a key point in this context: that is very difficult to prove or
demonstrate any direct correlation between the work environment and innovation. Most of
the evidence is empirical, which is based on observation of behaviours, rather than using any
statistical techniques. Nonetheless, it has been established across the world and across
industries that workspace designs and working conditions are critical to fostering innovation
in the organisation.

Assist team members to adapt and perform

When the work environment changes, it can create challenges for employees to adjust,
navigate and perform. As the leader of your team, you should proactively prepare them for
the changes and provide guidance on how to execute their responsibilities in the new
environment. Furthermore, you will need to support your team members to both adapt and
to perform in the new work environment.

For this, you must be familiar with the concepts of change management and transition
planning and how to assist your team members by modelling behaviour and giving

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 constructive advice, which will be discussed in this sub-chapter. Also, you will learn about
the four stages of adapting to new work environments and how to assist your team in
performing with new ways of working, coaching, training, goal setting and more.

The nature of the changes in the work environment will drive the level and type of guidance,
advice, and support that you need to provide your team members. For example, if there are
enhancements in the physical workspace, such as a new recreation facility, you may simply
have to inform your team about the change and encourage them to use the new facility by
either doing so yourself or providing some form of motivation. On the other hand, the
implementation of a new digital tool for improving a current process may require support in
the form of formal training.

Improvements to the work environment may be through policy or process changes as well.
For instance, the organisation may make remote working the norm and provide necessary
physical infrastructure to each employee to allow them to work from any location with ease.
In such a scenario, it will be important that you help your team members understand the
new ways of working from remote locations, in terms of new methods of communication
such as video conferences, availability of and access to resources and information, changed
outcomes and objectives for each team member, and so on.

Finally, the work environment may change in terms of the people in the workplace. This may
involve a change in leadership or at peer levels by bringing in new talent to the organisation
or replacing existing people. It may also involve resetting goals and targets and redefining
roles and responsibilities. Through all these changes, it is critical that you communicate the
changes and the impact on each team member and on the group. In the case of people
changes specifically, it is even more critical to be empathetic when assisting your team
members in adapting to the changes and perform in the new roles or with the new people.

Adapting to new work environment

To lead your team to success in the new working environment, you must be cognisant of
managing change and transitions and the four key stages of adapting to new work
environments. Knowing these, you will be able to model the desired behaviours that you
expect from your team members and advise and guide them on working in the new
environment.

Here are the four stages of adapting to new work environments:

 Discover
- learn about the new environment
 learn
- understand the changes and how they affect you
 accept

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 - accept your new way of working
 archive
- excel and perform in the new environment.

To help your team members adapt to the new work environment, you must provide the
necessary support through each of the stages. Remember that everyone in your team is
different; some may skip stages and different members can go through the stages at varying
times. At every stage, one of the key requirements is to be empathetic to their state of mind
and understanding of their situation and provide the necessary guidance.

It is also important to remember that most people are not conscious of the stages of
adapting to new environments and, therefore, it may be helpful to share these inputs as well
with your team members to help them realise that they are going through a change process.

You can assist them also by providing constructive advice. Constructive advice implies that
the advice or guidance provided has a positive impact on the team member and can benefit
them in working better, adjusting to, and performing in the new work environment.

Another aspect of assisting your team members is to provide them with the necessary
resources to achieve their objectives in the new work environment. Different types of
resources are needed by teams to carry out a task or project, or work activity. They can be
categorised as:

 people
 capital
 material goods, including:
- plant, equipment, and tools
- materials (consumables)
- software (systems and applications)
- IT hardware, devices, and technical infrastructure
- facilities (buildings or workspace or sites)

The steps to be followed to identify and provide resources to teams and individuals to allow
them to achieve their objectives are:

1. Divide the work into tasks.

2. Identify resources needed to complete the tasks.
3. Prepare a resource allocation plan.
4. Find and provide resources.
5. Know your resource dependencies.
6. Communicate resource allocation.
7. Track and monitor resource utilisation.

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 8. Reallocate, as necessary.

Performing in new work environments

The performing stage is the final stage of adapting to new work environments, where team
members are now fully aware of the changes, the impact on them, their new roles, and
objectives as applicable, and what they need to do to succeed.

To assist your team in performing in the new environment, you must guide them on the new
ways of working and set new goals and objectives, if necessary. Further, it may be required
to provide coaching or training to maximise their performance and get the best outcomes
from the team.

Check your knowledge

Activity: Check your knowledge

Read the following questions and select the correct answers.

1. Which of the following changes are transformations in the organisation’s processes,

structure, policies, and workings that are a result of the regular activities in the
organisation to survive and grow?

Table 11 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Direct changes ☐

B. Indirect changes ☐

C. Organic changes ☐

D. Inorganic changes ☐

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 2. Choose the main methods for stakeholder consultation.

Table 12 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Be respective to ideas ☐

B. Collaborate with stakeholder ☐

C. Meetings ☐

D. Communicate with stakeholders ☐

E. interviews ☐

F. Brainstorming sessions ☐

3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Table 13 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. An impact of physical changes in the work environment on the

organisation is growth in customers.

2. Innovative environments in the organisation are a function of creative

employees and do not require active leadership support.

3. One way to assist your team in performing in a new environment is to

set new goals and objectives.

4. One method to assess the ability of the workspace enhancements to

support and foster innovation is to follow established best practices

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 Questions True or False

that have been tried and tested by other successful organisations.

5. Volatility of the environment refers to the increasing number of inter-

related variables that impact work decisions.

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 Self-check

How did you go?

You have completed the topic on Create an innovative environment. Check the boxes for the
tasks you feel confident you can complete.

I can evaluate the impacts of changing work environment.

I can develop ideas for enhancing work environment.

I can identify and select resources required for enhancing work environment.

I can assess the ability of the workspace to support innovation.

I can assist team members to adapt and perform in new work environment.

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 Topic 3: Implement innovative work
environment

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 Overview
To implement an innovative work environment, you must be able to encourage creative
thinking and collaboration at work. Organisations that promote positive work culture and
relationships can address the behavioural aspects of collaboration, which, along with well-
designed workspaces and other physical features, can foster collaboration for innovation.

Other work practices that should be implemented include the ability and attitude to take
calculated risks, which can lead to innovative opportunities. You must be familiar with the
concepts of risk management and understand how to measure risks and maintain a risk
register, which will provide the basis for taking evaluated risks for innovation.

Innovative work environments also celebrate and recognise the efforts and ideas, successes,
and failures of employees. In this chapter, you will also learn how to implement practices for
evaluating ideas and the value of innovation.

In this topic you will learn how to:

 encourage creative mindsets

 reinforce the value of innovation
 take risks to open opportunities
 select ways of celebrating and encouraging
 encourage and support evaluation of innovative ideas.

The activities throughout this resource will assist you in your learning. These activities do not
form a part of your final assessment however they will contribute to your understanding of
the topic area. Answers and feedback for the practice activities are provided at the end of
this document.

Encourage creative mindsets

The meaning and importance of creative thinking, collaborative working, and positive
workplace relationships in the context of implementing innovative work environments. You
will learn to define each of these terms and how to encourage relevant behaviours and
activities. To understand better how to implement collaborative working in the organisation,
you will also learn about different interpersonal styles of individuals and how each of these
can be adapted for collaboration.

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 Lastly, this sub-chapter will discuss the definition and characteristics of positive
environments and methods to create and maintain them, including establishing and
maintaining relationships based on mutual respect and trust.

Creative thinking and mindsets

Creative thinking is defined as a way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh or
different perspective that suggests unusual solutions. It means to ‘think outside the box.’

There are three underlying implications for the term ‘creative,’ which are:

 ability to think of new and different things and ideas

 mindset of viewing change as positive
 method to approach ideation and innovation as a structured, repeatable process.

Creative thinking techniques

Some of the popular techniques for creative thinking include:

 brainstorming
 blue-sky thinking
 lateral thinking
 scenarios
 what-if.

Brainstorming
Brainstorming is when a group of people try to find a solution to a problem by sharing ideas
that come up during the discussion, with one idea leading to another.

Blue-sky thinking
This involves creative ideation through discussions in groups and teams, with no boundaries,
judgement, or limitations around the practicality of the idea itself. The approach is designed
to discover completely innovative ideas.

Lateral thinking
Lateral thinking is using a unique perspective to look at a problem to generate ideas or
solutions. It involves breaking away from established patterns and preconceived notions to
enable you to find creative solutions that you might not consider otherwise.

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 Scenarios
This involves trying to identify various alternate scenarios and situations based on which
ideas can be developed.

What-If
As in the case of scenarios, what-if can generate multiple perspectives by simply asking
‘what if’ and like blue-sky thinking, is used to produce ideas without judgement.

Encourage creative thinking

Team-building games and activities are a great way to improve critical thinking skills both for
groups and individuals. If your organisation employs these exercises, encourage your team
to participate. If your organisation does not currently employ them, consider introducing
your team to similar exercises during your team meetings. Set aside time for activities that
will require them to work together and tap into their critical and creative thinking skills.
These activities need not be elaborate and could be as simple as a short game before or after
a meeting.

For example, Google, a technology organisation with a strong focus on innovation,

implements several initiatives such as the Google 20% Project, where the leaders advise
their employees to dedicate a fifth of their working hours to innovative development and
problem solving. This system has proved extremely successful in encouraging creative
thinking. These ideas and thoughts often end up as products or product improvements. For
example, Google News, Gmail and AdSense — all key products of Google today — were the
result of this 20 percent system.

Collaborative working arrangements

Collaborative working arrangements can include the following elements:

 communication
 sharing of ideas and feedback
 knowledge of employees’ skills and strengths
 digital tools
 physical workspaces.

Communication
Communication is key to collaboration, and it is critical that employees can communicate
with each other using messaging tools, video chats, phones, or in-person.

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 Sharing of ideas and feedback
Sharing of ideas and feedback is another important element, which must be driven by the
company’s culture and leaders.

Knowledge of employees’ skills and strengths

Knowledge of employees’ skills and strengths can help in connecting with the right person to
collaborate, consult, and get feedback on ideas or seek help.

Digital Tools
Digital Tools such as Microsoft’s Teams that enable employees in the organisation to work
together and communicate with each other for knowledge sharing.

Physical workspaces
Physical workspaces for co-located employees, designed to promote access to and
interaction with each other.

Develop positive workplace relationships

People are fundamentally social beings and that holds true within an organisational
environment as well. Having friends at work, as in people you can trust and respect, can be
very beneficial to your productivity, intellectual and emotion growth, and overall mental
well-being. At an organisation level, it can lead to better employee morale, improved results
at work and lower attrition levels.

To develop positive workplace relationships and to help your team members do that as well,
you can inculcate and practice the following habits and behaviours:

 respect
 trust
 value time
 self-awareness
 respond
 be dependable.

Respect
Establish and maintain associations based on mutual respect by treating everybody as
equals, understanding and appreciating their value, communicating politely and

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 professionally, and requesting the same in return. Respect must be earned and therefore, it
is important to demonstrate your value and model behaviours that gain the respect of
others.

Trust
A relationship built on trust can be positive and productive. Trust can be gained by honest
actions, combined with clear communication. Workplaces and situations can be stressful,
and it is easy to distrust and blame your colleagues when something goes wrong. And the
best way to avoid this is by suspending judgement and communicating directly, openly and
honestly.

Value time
Time is one of the most limited resources in any organisation, but you should take out and
invest time specifically to build relationships. In doing so, you should also value others’ time,
so make sure that you are always punctual and appreciate the time that others are giving to
you.

Self-awareness
One of the biggest hurdles in maintaining good relationships at work is the lack of self-
awareness in many individuals. Knowing your own strengths and limitations and how you
can add value and what you seek to learn from others will help you establish more effective
relationships at work.

Respond
One of the biggest factors that goes a long way in fostering long-lasting relationships at work
is a simple habit of responding. There are two points to keep in mind here:

 Respond, do not react: Response has a positive connotation while react implies
negativity. When somebody reaches out to you for help, information, or feedback,
you should always respond even when you may not have the answer or disagree. You
can achieve this by using polite language and a positive tone.
 Respond fast: The other aspect of being responsive is to do it quickly. If you need
more time to gather information, respond to the person saying as much.

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 Be dependable
Reliability is one of the key pillars in any relationship. Employees who are steady in their
efforts and performance, display stable behaviour and are consistently available tend to
form more positive relationships at the workplace.

As a manager or leader of your team, you can help your team members to develop positive
relationships at work by carrying out team building activities and games, such as those based
on the “Yes and…” principle. For example, everyone draws an incomplete figure on a piece
of paper and passes it to another team member, who must then extend the drawing by
adding another incomplete piece and pass it again and so on. The idea is that each person
can develop on the previous pieces of the picture by accepting what is already drawn and
adding their bit and by the end of the exercise, there should be a complete picture drawn.

An example where negativity and mistrust affected the performance of individuals, teams,
and the overall business unit, is that of a large engineering firm. The prevailing work culture
was very competitive, and employees were given stiff targets to deliver, which all
contributed to a stressful environment. Employees usually worked in silos and were focused
on showcasing their individual accomplishments, which received recognition from their
leaders, while trying to ensure that any issues or failures could be pointed towards others.

As a result, a negative work environment had developed and soon, this had started affecting
the employees. When the leaders discovered that their business performance had declined
over the past two quarters, they hired an external consultant who recommended
enhancements to the working environment, including building positive work relationships.

The leaders communicated the new ways of working to their teams and focused on a few
initiatives such as offsite meets and team building activities. Over a period, the environment
and culture became more collaborative rather than competitive, which helped the
employees to build positive relationships. This helped improve the overall performance as
the stronger performers were able to pull up the other team members as well.

Reinforce the value of innovation

Innovation is one of the key pillars that enables organisational growth and survival in today’s
rapidly changing VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) external environment.
The value of innovation for any organisation cannot be over-emphasised and must be
reinforced to ensure that all internal and external stakeholders accept, participate and
contribute to innovative ideas and projects in the organisation.

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 This sub-chapter will discuss the value and benefits of innovation in organisations, with
examples of erstwhile market leaders and successful businesses that could not sustain and
survive due to their inability to innovate.

When reinforcing the value of innovation, you must be aligned to the organisational vision
and objectives. While some organisations envision and target innovation as a continuous
practice across their structure and functions, others may focus on building special centres of
innovation excellence. This sub-chapter will also discuss reinforcing the value of innovation
according to the organisational vision and objectives.

Resources

Additional resources
You can refer to the Importance of Innovation – What Does It Mean for Businesses and our
Society? to get a different perspective on the value of innovation. (Long URL:
https://www.viima.com/blog/importance-of-innovation)

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 Organisational vision and objectives for innovation

Figure 8 – © Getty Images copied under licence vision and objectives by Burtons

In addition to, or instead of, a purpose or mission statement, some organisations can also
have a vision statement. Organisational vision provides the direction for the company for the
future and a vision statement describes what your organisation will look like if you are
successful in achieving the mission to fulfil your purpose. Purpose, mission, and vision
together define the long-term organisational goals.

Organisations that focus on innovation may include it in their vision statement or certainly in
their objectives. While there will be specific organisational objectives related to innovative
outcomes, you can also approach other objectives of the company by incorporating
innovative practices into all aspects of generating and running the business.

Reinforce the value of innovation

Innovation in the organisation must be an integral part of the work culture and environment.
However, culture and environment are not constant or things that can be captured in a
structured procedure or policy document. As people in the organisation change, the work
culture and ways of working may also get impacted. This is one of the chief reasons why it is
necessary to reinforce the value of innovation in the organisation. Also, for innovative

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 practices such as collaboration, risk-taking and learning to become ingrained in the day to
day working, reinforcing its value becomes critical.

You can use the following methods to reinforce innovation according to the organisational
values, vision, and objectives:

 communicating frequently about innovation value and its relevance to the

organisational vision and objectives and, where applicable, the impact of the
organisation’s innovation work on customers, society, and environmental
sustainability
 modelling relevant behaviour such as making decisions that highlight the focus on
innovation, taking calculated risks, brainstorming, and thinking creatively
 rewarding and recognising innovative efforts for both successes and failures on a
regular basis
 establishing practices and opportunities that encourage innovative thinking and
working in the organisation
 discussing goals and performance with your team members periodically and
emphasise the need for them to focus on innovation
 enhancing work environment from time to time to foster innovation and broadcast
the changes along with the purpose and desired impact
 engaging with employees across the organisation by asking for their feedback and
ideas on how to become more innovative, in alignment with organisational values,
vision and objectives.

When using any of these methods to reinforce and emphasise innovation, you must be able
to highlight the value of innovation also by communicating the costs and benefits of any
innovative ideas and projects in the organisation.

One of the best examples of an innovative company that has sustained its competitive
success and market leadership over many decades is that of IKEA, a Swedish multinational
conglomerate that is known for its innovative and useful designs for assemble-and-use
furniture. IKEA follows several best practices for innovation and change, such as extensive
internal and external communication about innovation, accepting innovative ideas from and
involving all stakeholders in the process, applying innovative ideas across design,
development and marketing, top-driven innovation management, and measuring and
proactively managing innovation.

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 Resources

Additional resources
Refer to calculating the value of innovation to get a perspective on calculating a quantitative
value of innovation. (Long URL: https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/calculating-the-value-
of-innovation/)

Take risks to open opportunities for innovation

A risk defines the uncertainty of the expected outcome. There are many factors that may
impact the outcome and it may not be possible to predict how these factors will always
work. Any innovation inherently involves a risk element, as the results of the innovation
cannot always be predicted with full certainty. An example of risk is an unplanned roadblock
that delays the transport of raw material to your production facility. That can throw your
production cycle out of gear if you do not have stock of material available. Another example
is the threat of cybercriminals who may find a way to break your system's security and steal
confidential business or customer data.

Risks that open opportunities for innovation

There are broadly five categories of risks to the organisation

1. Financial risks.
2. Revenue risks.
3. Compliance risks.
4. Operational risks.
5. Natural risks.

Financial risks
Financial risks are related to the ability of the company to manage its internal cash flows,
earnings, liquidity, and debt properly. For multinational organisations, it may also depend on
the foreign exchange rates of conversion and related fluctuations.

 All innovative ideas will have some financial implication in terms of the costs or
expenses involved. For example, the organisation may need to take a financial risk
and approve a budgeted spend to develop and implement a new idea for change in
the work environment, which can foster innovation.

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 Revenue risks
Revenue risks, also called customer risks or market risks, can be due to the entry of new and
innovative competitors who create a disruption with their new products and services,
sudden customer attrition due to a change in product features or negative reviews,
dependency on few sources such as one or two very large customers, or change in customer
spending patterns during an economic recession.

 A revenue, customer, or market risk that opens an opportunity for innovation could
involve losing existing clients by introducing a new product feature or policies. For
example, when WhatsApp introduced revised terms relating to privacy, their intent
may have been to be more transparent to their customers, but instead, there was a
huge backlash, with many customers who switched over to a competitor product.

Compliance risks
Compliance risks involve incurring both penalties and reputational loss due to not following
the regulations that govern your organisation, both local and international.

 This is usually one type of risk that most organisations would not encourage to take
since it can involve severe penalties, loss of reputation and eventual loss of business.
Not being fully compliant with the law can also go against the organisation’s ethics
and values.

Operational risks
Operational risks pertain to any unforeseen issues in running your business, such as supply
chain blockages, labour protests, technology failures, or fires, which can hamper your day-
to-day operations.

 This is the most significant category of risks which will open opportunities for
innovation in the workplace. For example, by introducing improvements to a tried-
and-tested process for increasing efficiency, you may need to take the risk that the
new process change will not work as expected or may even create dissent amongst
the users of the process.

Natural risks
Natural risks resulting from environmental disasters such as tsunamis, floods, earthquakes,
and epidemics can impact organisations in various ways, from the loss of physical
infrastructure to the breakdown of the supply chain to the unavailability of key personnel.

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  You must be prepared for natural risks when changing your work environment, such
as moving to a location that brings you closer to your customers but has a high
probability of earthquakes.

Risk management and risk registers

Figure 9 – © Getty Images copied under licence, Risk Management by manusapon kasosod

To implement innovative ideas, organisations need to plan for the various types of risks
involved and how they can be managed. Risk management refers to the strategy and action
plan with which you can identify the sources and types of threat relevant to your
organisation, evaluate their impact and design approaches to reduce or eliminate the impact
of these risks. Before working on the risk management plan, you need to first identify and
prioritise the risks for your organisation. Remember that not all sources or types of risk will
be relevant. Risk management is an integral part of improvement and innovation.

Risk Measurement
Your organisation will usually have a standard Risk Rating Matrix that you can refer to for
measuring the risks. This Matrix lists the range of probabilities, such as rare, Unlikely,
Possibly, Likely and Almost Certain, along with the range of impact options, which can range

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 from Insignificant to Severe. Based on the intersection of the probability and the impact, the
risk can be measured from the matrix as critical, high, moderate, or low.

Risk Register
The key components of a risk register are:

 risk and probability

 potential impact
 priority or rank
 contingency or mitigation
 risk owner
 qualitative comments.

Risk and probability

Identify the events that can cause changes or failure of the project and describe the
likelihood of the event occurring. Remember that risks should also include any
dependencies, the absence or non-availability of which can also threaten the success of the
project.

Potential impact
Identify and state how the project outcomes will change if the risk occurs.

Priority and rank

Once all the risks have been listed, they must be prioritised in order of importance, which is
usually a product of the probability and the impact.

Contingency or mitigation
For each risk in the register, it is necessary to include the fall-back plan in case the risk takes
place.

Risk owner
A good plan will always assign an owner to monitor and manage the identified risks. While
the plan should be owned by the project manager, individual risks may be assigned to
specific individuals.

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 Qualitative comments
Certain risks may not be quantifiable or may need reference comments for clarity. This
component of the risk register can be used to capture those and is not mandatory to include.

Select ways of celebrating and encouraging

innovation
One of the methods to successfully create a culture of learning and innovation in the
organisation is through rewards and recognition of employees to celebrate their
achievements and accept failures as a necessary aspect of innovation. Every individual
human being wants appreciation from the people around them. This is a fundamental aspect
of human nature. When their efforts and achievements are recognised, people usually feel
happier and motivated to do more and do better.

Conversely, many of the challenges and barriers to innovation can be overcome by

celebrating innovation in the organisation. For example, in scenarios where leadership
support is inadequate, you can still create the necessary impact on your team members by
actively encouraging them to ideate, create and innovate. The lack of incentives, rewards, or
recognition is itself a barrier to an innovative work environment and celebrating innovative
efforts in the organisation, both successes and failures, can also create a culture where
employees are discouraged from trying new things or taking risks due to fear of failure.

This sub-chapter will discuss the main factors and tools that can motivate individuals to
make efforts and achieve outcomes in the desired direction, along with the different ways in
which innovation can be celebrated and encouraged at the workplace. You will also learn an
approach to select ways to celebrate and encourage innovation.

Ways of celebrating and encouraging innovation

The importance and need for celebrating and encouraging innovation in the organisation
have been discussed. Celebrating and encouraging both involve actions and methods that
can motivate or inspire others to do something, but there is a key difference between the
two — celebration involves an act that is more public in its scope and influence and can
impact and engage many individuals in one go, whereas encouraging implies a more
personal approach where your actions and methods may be limited to one or a few people
at a time. Note that any activity or approach that celebrates innovation will also be a way to
encourage (but the reverse does not hold true).

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 There are several different ways of celebrating and encouraging innovation:

 affirmation of contributions
 recognition
 link to goals
 encouraging collaboration
 competitions and ceremonies
 company and team get-togethers
 making it easy
 making it fun.

Each of these ways is briefly discussed:

 affirmation of contributions, by acknowledging the efforts of individuals and teams,

including both successes and failures and giving constructive feedback where
required
 recognition, by establishing a programme to reward and recognise your team
members publicly, which can inspire others in the organisation
 link to goals, such that rewards, and recognition planning is tied to individual
performance evaluation and metrics
 encouraging collaboration, for example, with team-building activities and games
 competitions and ceremonies, for example, hackathons or an innovation awards
night, where the related achievements of individuals and the company are
celebrated
 company and team get-togethers, for example, offsite events, picnics, and meetings
at different locations for the team members and depending on the culture and
practices, their families as well
 making it easy by reducing bureaucracy in the organisation and introducing simple
and effective policies, procedures, and practices
 making it fun, such as by conferring quirky job titles.

There are some key best practices that should be considered when implementing any of
these methods:

 It should be timely to ensure that employees get recognised or rewarded or the

relevant positive results without any delay and the link can be established between
behaviour or action and the organisation’s goals.
 Any programme will need to plan expenses and budgets since events, celebrations,
awards, also will require the organisation to incur costs.
 It must be commensurate with the activity and performance level of the employees.
 Communication is vital employees must be made fully aware of the opportunities
and any boundaries.

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 There are multiple examples of successful companies that have established practices and
methods to reward, recognise, and celebrate innovation. For example, Apple offered
extended paid time off to their employees during the regional holiday season as a reward,
which was provided to the entire organisation but customised to the needs of the specific
location in terms of timing and culture. Another example is where companies offer
employees a stake, where the individual earns a percentage of the returns that the company
makes by taking their innovative idea to market.

To select the ways of celebrating and encouraging innovation in your organisation, you must
first identify the target behaviours and expected outcomes and then design your method
and communication, accordingly, keeping in mind organisational policies, procedures, and
culture, as well as associated expenses and budgets. Remember that your methods should
be commensurate to the efforts to be celebrated, should be flexible to encourage at the
individual, team and organisational levels and must be fair and sustainable in the long run.

Encourage and support evaluation of

innovative ideas
The value and the benefits of innovation and the differences between the two were also
discussed. Other than validating whether an idea fulfils the tenets of innovation, it is also
important to consider the innovative value of the idea and how it will benefit the
organisation.

This sub-chapter will discuss how to evaluate innovative ideas and ways to encourage and
support your team to do this.

Evaluate innovative ideas

As discussed previously, evaluation is the process of assessing or examining something; in
this case, the innovative ideas for innovation generated and shared by your employees or
team members. You have learnt that evaluation follows a systematic approach to establish
whether the subject being assessed meets the required criteria or standards. The steps in
the evaluation of innovative ideas are a little different from the steps to assess other
subjects such as working conditions or change impact, primarily because idea assessment
involves an iterative process, such that the idea can evolve based on the evaluation
feedback.

Here are the steps to evaluate innovative ideas:

1. Establish standards and criteria for innovative ideas.

2. Appraise idea.

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 - Determine changes.
- Modify and update.
3. Approve idea for testing and implementation.

Establish standards and criteria for innovative ideas

The first step involves identifying the parameters against which innovative ideas should be
assessed and measured.

Appraise the idea

The second step in the process involves a set of sub-steps that can be performed iteratively.
The key step is to assess the idea against the criteria from the previous step and identify and
seek feedback on the changes needed. Since this is a new idea that will be at various stages
of maturity or detail, it may be needed to update the idea with feedback, re-appraise and
make further changes until the idea is ready for implementation.

Approve for testing and implementation

In this final step, your innovative idea is ready to get executed, but before complete roll-out,
there should be a trialling and testing exercise to validate the market acceptability of the
idea as well.

Encourage and support evaluation

As an innovation leader in your organisation, one of the practices that you must establish
and follow to implement the innovative work environment is the evaluation of innovative
ideas. While you should know how to perform the evaluation, for instance, by using the
steps and criteria discussed earlier, you must also encourage and support your team
members and colleagues to do the same.

Encouragement versus Support

There are two elements that can be used as the basis to distinguish between encouragement
and support, which are pro-activeness and participation, as shown in the table:

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 Table 14 – Pro-activeness and participation

Pro-activeness Participation

Encouragement High Low

Support Low High

To encourage your team members and colleagues to evaluate entails a higher degree of pro-
activeness on your part. You can use various methods to encourage, such as role modelling,
setting goals, highlighting the need for evaluation, sharing examples and case studies, and
emphasising how it benefits both them and the organisation.

Providing support, in general, is less proactive and is triggered by the needs and tasks of your
team. You can follow different means to assist them by sharing information, guidance, and
coaching, as necessary. Another key area to provide support is during trialling and testing of
innovative ideas for innovation.

You must remember to communicate clearly, consistently, and frequently when providing
encouragement or support. Include in your communication best practices, success stories
and examples of what went wrong, along with the specific feedback from the evaluation for
ideas shared.

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 Practice activity

Activity 2: Identify activity

1. Identify two risks that will allow for innovation in your organisation.

Practice activity

Activity 3: Discussion activity

1. Discuss in your own words the considerations needed to take the risks that you have
identified in the previous activity.

Check Your Knowledge

Activity: Check your knowledge

Read the following questions and select the correct answers.

1. Choose the key components of risk register.

Table 15 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Risk and probability ☐

B. Potential impact ☐

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 # Choices Answer/s

C. Risk owner ☐

D. Establish standards ☐

E. Appraise the idea ☐

2. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Table 16 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Risks can be prioritised in order of importance, which is calculated by

the value of the impact.

2. To measure or realise the value of innovation, organisations often

calculate return on investment or perform a cost benefit analysis.

3. Money is not a significant motivation for individuals to innovate as

they are driven by challenges and recognition.

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 Self-check

How did you go?

You have completed the topic on Implement innovative work environment. Check the boxes
for the tasks you feel confident you can complete.

I can encourage creative mindsets.

I can reinforce the value of innovation.

I can take risks to open opportunities.

I can select ways of celebrating and encouraging.

I can encourage and support evaluation of innovative ideas.

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 Topic 4: Share and evaluate
innovative ideas and work
environment

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 Overview
A specific feature of an innovative organisation, which is a collaboration or sharing for
learning and innovation. Recall the discussion in the first chapter on identifying relevant
stakeholders and communicating with them; now, you will learn to share information,
knowledge, and skills on innovative practices with the stakeholders. This chapter will also
discuss formal and informal learning opportunities in the organisation, as well as the
prospects for learning from the experience of others and how you can provide and create
such opportunities to sustain the innovative environment you have created.

As the team leader, you must also encourage your team members to communicate their
ideas and suggestions on improvements and innovations by seeking and responding to their
feedback. Learning and collaboration are two pillars of a work environment that fosters
innovation, and this chapter will discuss different ways how you can achieve that.

In this topic you will learn how to:

 share relevant information, knowledge, and skills

 provide and encourage formal and informal learning opportunities
 create opportunities where individuals can learn from the experience
 seek and respond to suggestions, improvements, and innovations.

The activities throughout this resource will assist you in your learning. These activities do
not form a part of your final assessment however they will contribute to your understanding
of the topic area. Answers and feedback for the practice activities are provided at the end of
this document.

Share relevant information, knowledge, and

skills
A stakeholder has been defined as anybody who will be impacted by your activities, either
positively or negatively or whose job roles and responsibilities directly and indirectly impact
the achievement of your objectives. You have also studied the best practices and principles
for stakeholder communication in chapter 2. With these fundamentals in place, you will now
learn about information, knowledge and skills and the key differences between these three.
This sub-chapter will define and differentiate between information, knowledge, and skills
relevant to innovative practices in the organisation and how to communicate and share that
with stakeholders.

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 Information, knowledge and skills on innovative practices
Bare facts, which can include qualitative or quantitative characteristics, are called data.
When data is associated with a context or meaning, it is known as information. In other
words, information is processed data from which one can understand and learn something.

Knowledge refers to what has been learnt. Knowledge is theoretical in nature and can be
gained through various means and channels such as books, classrooms, and experience.

Skills are what it takes to apply what has been learnt. It refers to the practical capabilities of
a person to perform certain tasks using the knowledge they have gained. Skills may be
technical or behavioural, also known as hard and soft skills. Technical or hard skills can be
learnt and are measurable, for example, computer programming. Examples of soft skills
include communication, negotiation, collaboration and so on.

Innovative practices have been discussed throughout this unit and include physical working
conditions such as open spaces or recreation areas or the softer elements in the work
environment and culture, such as collaboration, learning and creative thinking. Examples of
information, knowledge, and skills relevant to innovative practices have been shown:

 information
- list of current innovative practices
- organisational policies and procedures in place to support innovation
- budgets and sources of funds for innovation
 knowledge
- theories of innovative practices based on books, courses and online articles
- understanding of characteristics of innovative people
 skills
- collaboration
- problem solving
- creative thinking
- communication
- decision making
- financial analysis.

Provide and encourage learning opportunities

Learning in an organisation can be defined as the process by which people and systems
acquire new and improved knowledge and skills by utilising a set of practices, methods, and
systems. Learning is essential for innovation, as it can equip the organisation with the
necessary skills and expertise related to creative thinking and problem solving.

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 Organisations need to promote learning as a core value and integrate it into their day-to-
day strategy, operations, and performance management. There are six key learning
principles in an organisation:

 Leadership: to integrate continuous learning across the organisation, the leaders and
senior executives need to lead by example and drive the overall vision for learning.
 Systematic approach: learning for improvements should imbibe a problem-solving
approach based on data and practical experience.
 Multiple channels: learning management tools and systems may not always be
necessary and various formal and informal channels such as classroom training or
coaching sessions can be used.
 360-degree integration: learning should be built into every function and level in the
organisation.
 Shared learning: the internal environment, policies and processes should encourage
cross-pollination of ideas and active knowledge sharing.
 Individual expertise: organisational learning must be designed to support specific
roles, experience, and personal interests.

Innovative work practices for learning

Most organisations that include innovation in their vision or mission and strategic objectives
will have established practices for learning and development. There are three levels or
stages for learning practices in organisations:

 innovative
 advanced
- for example, Learning Management Systems (LMS)
 foundational
- for example, Training and Certifications.

Foundation practices
Foundation practices focus on providing internal and external training sessions,
certifications, knowledge sharing sessions within teams and sometimes across different
parts of an organisation. Companies with advanced learning practices invest in learning
management tools and technologies, which help to track and bolster the learning activities
of individuals, map to specific goals and targets, etcetera. Another example of an advanced
practice is to create dedicated centres of innovation and learning.

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 Innovative work practices
Innovative work practices for learning may utilise new technologies such as gamification,
which applies the principles and design of games such as points, levels, badges and so on.
Another example of advanced technology in corporate training is the use of virtual reality,
which is a simulated environment created by technology. Innovation events such as
hackathons are another innovative practice that can bolster learning. Organisational
storytelling is another example of innovation in learning and this method can be used very
effectively to share successes, failures and lessons learnt from experience. Another practice
is the use of mobile technology to facilitate learning without constraints in location or
timing.

Resources

Additional resources
Learn about virtual reality technology is increasingly being used to train employees in this article.
(Long URL: https://hbr.org/2020/09/is-vr-the-future-of-corporate-training)

Formal and informal learning opportunities

Learning opportunities can be found across areas in the organisation, depending on the
organisation. They may be more formal or informal opportunities. Formal opportunities are
usually more structured, apply to larger groups, involve external participants or tools, and
will incur a cost to the company, for example:

 Professional development opportunities, such as management or leadership

development programmes, memberships and certificates awarded or recognised by
industry associations and degree or diploma training and certification.
 Training in new technologies and strategies, which can enhance innovative skills and
knowledge.
 Learning management systems, which can include e-learning portals, video-based
training, mobile learning tools, etcetera. which can be integrated with employee
goals and the performance management system in the organisation.
 Knowledge management systems, which are repositories of organised information
from across the organisation on various subjects that can be accessed to know,
understand, collaborate on, and share knowledge.

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 Create opportunities where individuals can
learn
To effectively learn from the experience of others, there are three key conditions that must
be fulfilled:

 the other person’s experience must be relevant to acquiring, enhancing, or using

skills related to innovation
 they must be willing to share their experience
 the learner must use active listening, reading and communication skills as applicable.

If these conditions are fulfilled, individuals can learn from the experience of others,
irrespective of whether they are from within the same organisation or from outside and
whether they are personally known to the individual or not. In fact, it may even be possible
for an individual to learn from somebody who is not alive at that time by reading books that
have captured these experiences.

Some of the ways by which an individual can learn from the experience of others are listed

 coaching
 interviews
 knowledge sessions
 buddy system
 books
 observation
 ted talks
 storytelling
 case studies
 mentoring.

You must create opportunities so that your individual team members and others in the
organisation can access and learn from the sources listed. For example:

 For coaching, mentoring and buddy systems, you must be able to establish the
corresponding practice and help the individual identify the appropriate person to
coach or mentor them or be their buddy. Coaching and mentoring have been
explained earlier. The buddy system involves two individuals who are paired and
work side-by-side for a defined period, where one person has more experience, and
the other individual can learn by shadowing their ‘buddy.’
 Books including biographies and autobiographies of innovative leaders, case studies
and experts’ videos such as Ted Talks are one-directional sources for individuals to
learn from, in that the learner can only read or listen and make their own

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 interpretations and conclusions. These are still rich and useful sources of information
for learning from others and you can create opportunities by providing memberships
to online libraries and repositories of such resources.
 Knowledge sharing sessions and storytelling are other ways to learn from others. You
can create periodic meetings where a specialist can be invited to share their
experience or tell their story about their work and learnings related to innovation.
 Another way to learn is by direct observation, where the learner is part of a team of
more experienced people and the expectation is that the individual will watch and
learn, as the others model the desired behaviours such as brainstorming, evaluating
ideas, identifying resources, assessing the change impact, trialling the new product
or service, and making decisions on how to innovate further. To create this
opportunity, you must be able to convince the relevant initiative leads to their
participation.
 Individuals can also learn by interviewing or asking questions to others. This can be
done as a group exercise as well, where a specialist will share their experience in
response to questions asked.

Many organisations already follow foundational practices such as coaching and knowledge
sharing sessions. While mentoring as a method for learning is not new, few organisations
have been able to successfully sustain a mentoring programme. Newer and innovative work
practices for learning from others can include professional reading, especially of biographies
and autobiographies and watching experts’ videos, from which it may be able to understand
the speaker’s perspectives and knowledge.

Seek and respond to suggestions,

improvements, and innovations
Knowledge sharing and learning should not be approached only as a one-way process,
where the person with higher qualifications or greater relevant experience transfers their
knowhow and shares inputs with others. All team members, irrespective of their skills or
expertise, have the potential to produce innovative ideas and suggestions, enhancements,
and innovations at any point in time.

Suggestions, improvement and innovation

The members of your team can provide you with different inputs and feedback, including:

 suggestions
 improvements
 innovations.

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 Suggestions
Suggestions can be defined as ideas or advice on a topic or a practice. Suggestions are
usually hypothetical for the current situation; that is, they consist of possibilities and
potential but have not been implemented in the present situation. They may be based on
experience of solutions or actions implemented in similar situations.

Improvements
Improvements refer to doing things in a better way, such as enhancements to procedures
and processes, upgrades to products and services, or usage of new features in systems. The
three main assumptions for improvements include:

 improvements are made to existing systems and processes

 improvements result in an incremental change rather than a complete overhaul
 improvements comprise positive changes where the existing system or process
becomes easier to use, more efficient, faster, more secure, requiring lower costs,
making users more productive, better for the environment, or more sustainable.

Innovations
Innovations refer to doing things in a new way or doing new things, such as establishing new
systems, procedures and processes and designing and building new products and services.

Seek and respond to team members

There are several ways to seek ideas and feedback from your team members, such as
surveys, questionnaires, interview, group discussions, scheduled meetings, informal
conversations, idea management systems and more. Some of the best practices to follow
when seeking suggestions, improvements and innovations include:

 Clearly define and communicate to your team members what you seek with
examples where possible.
 When using indirect techniques to seek inputs such as a survey or questionnaire,
design your questions to ensure that the responses will be specific and actionable.
Use closed-ended questions for the most part but provide at least one open-ended
option to understand the respondent’s thoughts in detail.
 Be ready with your questions when getting suggestions in meetings or conversations
but be prepared to glean the answers from open-ended conversations as well.
 Practise active listening during discussions. Ensure there are no distractions and that
you are not multi-tasking during a feedback session. Active listening involves paying

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 attention to the speaker, analysing what they are saying, paraphrasing their inputs to
confirm your understanding and responding appropriately.
 Make notes where applicable.
 Stop any attempts by yourself or others to evaluate or judge the suggestions,
improvements and innovations being discussed.

To effectively seek input from your team members, there are five techniques that you can
combine and use in your interactions with them. These include:

 contextualising the discussion

 framing question, the right way
 listening actively
 establishing rapport
 model behaviour such as being receptive to ideas.

Contextualising the discussion

Your discussions with your team members are driven by the key objective of identifying
opportunities for innovation. Keeping this in mind, it is important to set the context and
establish the scope of discussion to ensure you get the most relevant inputs and
suggestions.

Framing questions, the right way

There are three types of questions that you can use when seeking ideas from your team
members, as listed:

 Close-ended questions, which allow the individual very limited options to respond,
such as Yes/No. You should use these questions only, if necessary, as they limit the
information or ideas you can get in the replies. However, they can be very useful, for
example, when you want the team member to prioritise between multiple issues or
when discussing a metric or measure of performance.
 Open-ended questions allow the person to respond in free form, that is, with no
specific boundary on the answers. These questions can help you in seeking
innovative ideas and suggestions effectively.
 Visual questions, using a whiteboard or drawing board for a visual aid to describe
aspects of your question. This is especially effective to confirm your understanding or
rearticulate the discussion.

Listening actively
Active listening will require that you be able to process what you hear. This implies that
while the team member is providing their inputs or sharing advice, you must understand

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 clearly, analyse what you hear and be able to summarise the discussion points to confirm
your understanding. In general, you should refrain from interrupting the person speaking
and use non-verbal gestures such as nodding.

Establishing rapport
You should establish practices to engage your team members and build stronger
relationships in general. Establishing rapport or connection with them can improve the
quality of their responses and inputs.

Model behaviour such as being receptive to ideas

When seeking suggestions, improvements, and innovations from your team members, you
must demonstrate by your words and actions that you are receptive to their ideas and
thoughts. Take your time to really understand what your team members are saying and ask
questions to clarify. With the individual’s consent, you can also share their inputs with the
rest of the team, in meetings or by putting up a chart or poster in the workspace, where
others can add to the suggestions, improvements and innovative ideas.

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 Practice activity

Activity 4: Explain activity

1. In your own words, explain the importance of learning in innovation.

Practice activity

Activity 5: Identify activity

1. Identify two opportunities that you can create in your organisation where individuals
can learn from the experience of others.

Check your knowledge

Activity: Check your knowledge

Read the following questions and select the correct answers.

1. Which of the following will integrate continuous learning across the organisation, where
the leaders and senior executives need to lead by example and drive the overall vision
for learning?

Table 17 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Systematic approach ☐

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 # Choices Answer/s

B. Leadership ☐

C. Multiple channels ☐

D. Shared learning ☐

2. Which of the following learning management tools and systems may not always be
necessary, and various formal and informal channels such as classroom training or
coaching sessions can be used instead?

Table 18 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Systematic approach ☐

B. Leadership ☐

C. Multiple channels ☐

D. Shared learning ☐

3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Table 19 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Learning and collaboration are two pillars of a work environment that

fosters innovation.

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 Questions True or False

2. Learning in the organisation requires a dedicated function, separate

from other functions and departments.

3. Improvements refer to doing new things or doing things in a new

way.

4. Suggestions, improvements and innovations from your team members can

be solicited or unsolicited.

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 Self-check

How did you go?

You have completed the topic on Share and evaluate innovative ideas and work
environment. Check the boxes for the tasks you feel confident you can complete.

I can share relevant information, knowledge and skills.

I can provide and encourage formal and informal learning opportunities.

I can create opportunities where individuals can learn from the experience.

I can seek and respond to suggestions, improvements and innovations.

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 Answers and feedback for practice
activities
Practice activity: Page:
List activity 37

Question:
1. List at least two practices for innovation in your organisation.

Answer:
Responses may include any two of the following:
1. Leaders modelling behaviour
2. Conducive work environment
3. Rewarding creativity and innovative ideas
4. Celebrating risks and failures
5. Learning and development focus
6. Tools and technology for innovation such as idea management tools, knowledge
management systems, e-learning applications, collaboration and communication systems.

Feedback:
Student must list at least two practices for innovation in their organisation.

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 37

Question:
1. Which of the following refers to new products and services or significant changes in
existing products and services?

Answer:

Table 20 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Product innovation ☒

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 # Choices Answer/s

B. Process innovation ☐

C. People innovation ☐

D. Technology innovation ☐

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 38

Question:
2. Choose the four steps for evaluating work conditions.

Answer:

Table 21 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Establish standards ☒

B. Layout ☐

C. Size and movements ☐

D. Understand current state ☒

E. Analyse variance ☒

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 # Choices Answer/s

F. Recommended changes ☒

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 38

Question:
3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Answer:

Table 22 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Physical workspaces designed for a casual collision can foster True

innovation

2. A key factor that determines the suitability of potential team True

members for innovation is ‘outcome-driven’

3. Open work area layouts tend to promote collaboration and False

interaction between employees and always have a positive impact on
an individual’s productivity or thinking processes

4. Organisational policies and procedures relevant to innovation include False

policies and procedures for business-related travel

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 58

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 Question:
1. Which of the following changes are transformations in the organisation’s processes,
structure, policies and workings that are a result of the regular activities in the organisation
to survive and grow?

Answer:

Table 23 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Direct changes ☐

B. Indirect changes ☐

C. Organic changes ☒

D. Inorganic changes ☐

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 58

Question:
2. Choose the main methods for stakeholder consultation.

Answer:

Table 24 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Be respective to ideas ☐

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 # Choices Answer/s

B. Collaborate with stakeholder ☐

C. Meetings ☒

D. Communicate with stakeholders ☐

E. interviews ☒

F. Brainstorming sessions ☒

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 59

Question:
3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Answer:

Table 25 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. An impact of physical changes in the work environment on the True

organisation is growth in customers.

2. Innovative environments in the organisation are a function of False

creative employees and do not require active leadership support.

3. One way to assist your team in performing in a new environment is True

to set new goals and objectives.

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 Questions True or False

4. One method to assess the ability of the workspace enhancements to True

support and foster innovation is to follow established best practices
that have been tried and tested by other successful organisations.

5. Volatility of the environment refers to the increasing number of False

inter-related variables that impact work decisions.

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Identify activity 78

Question:
1. Identify two risks that will allow for innovation in your organisation.

Answer:

Sample responses are shared. Actual responses may vary.

1. Financial risks such as the expense to develop and implement a new idea for change
in the work environment.
2. Revenue risks such as losing existing clients by introducing a new product feature or
policies.
3. Operational risks such as introducing improvements to a tried-and-tested process for
increasing efficiency.
4. Natural risks such as changing your work environment by moving to a location that
brings you closer to your customers but has a high probability of earthquakes.

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Discussion activity 79

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 Question:
1. Discuss in your own words the considerations needed to take the risks that you have
identified in the previous activity.

Answer:

Sample responses are shared. Actual responses may vary.

1. Risk appetite of the organisation high for the risk identified in the previous questions.

2. Cost benefit analysis, where potential benefits outweigh the potential costs.

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 79

Question:
1. Choose the key components of risk register.

Answer:

Table 26 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Risk and probability ☒

B. Potential impact ☒

C. Risk owner ☒

D. Establish standards ☐

E. Appraise the idea ☐

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 Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 80

Question:
1. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Answer:

Table 27 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Risks can be prioritised in order of importance, which is calculated by False

the value of the impact.

2. To measure or realise the value of innovation, organisations often True

calculate return on investment or perform a cost benefit analysis.

3. Money is not a significant motivation for individuals to innovate as False

they are driven by challenges and recognition.

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Explain activity 92

Question:
1. In your own words, explain the importance of learning in innovation.

Answer:

Sample response is shared. Actual response may vary.

Learning is a practice that encourages innovation by enabling individuals to get the

knowledge and skills necessary.

It also enables creative thinking and idea generation.

Learning can support the career development and progress of the individual as well.

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 Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Identify activity 93

Question:
1. Identify two opportunities that you can create in your organisation where individuals can
learn from the experience of others.

Answer:

Responses may include any two of the following:

 coaching
 mentoring
 buddy system
 interviews
 knowledge sharing sessions
 books and seminars
 storytelling
 observation
 case studies.

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 93

Question:
1. Which of the following will integrate continuous learning across the organization, where
the leaders and senior executives need to lead by example and drive the overall vision for
learning?

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 Answer:

Table 28 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Systematic approach ☐

B. Leadership ☒

C. Multiple channels ☐

D. Shared learning ☐

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 94

Question:
2. Which of the following learning management tools and systems may not always be
necessary and various formal and informal channels such as classroom training or coaching
sessions can be used?

Answer:

Table 29 – Multiple choice

# Choices Answer/s

A. Systematic approach ☐

B. Leadership ☐

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 # Choices Answer/s

C. Multiple channels ☒

D. Shared learning ☐

Feedback:

Practice activity: Page:

Check your knowledge 94

Question:
3. Read the following questions then write true or false in the space provided.

Answer:

Table 30 – True or false

Questions True or False

1. Learning and collaboration are two pillars of a work environment that True
fosters innovation.

2. Learning in the organisation requires a dedicated function, separate False

from other functions and departments.

3. Improvements refer to doing new things or doing things in a new False

way.

4. Suggestions, improvements and innovations from your team members can True
be solicited or unsolicited.

Feedback:

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 References
Business.gov.au. (2019). Change and growth through innovation.

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 Image attributions
Table 31 – Image attributions

Title Page Creator Licence Modified/By

Cover image – Getty 1 Ezra Bailey © Getty Images N/A

image 550216251 copied under licence

Getting started - Getty 4 Ezra Bailey © Getty Images N/A

image 550216263 copied under licence

Topic 1: Establish work 7 Kate © Getty Images N/A

practices – Getty image copied under licence
1191982308

Figure 1 – Getty image 14 Gradyreese © Getty Images N/A

882163184 copied under licence

Figure 2 – Getty image 18 Richard Drury © Getty Images N/A

1211368784 copied under licence

Figure 3 – Getty image 25 Thomas Barwick © Getty Images N/A

680316205 copied under licence

Figure 4 – Getty image 29 Unknown © Getty Images N/A

1304457660 copied under licence

Topic 2 – Getty image 39 Thomas Barwick © Getty Images N/A

497069601 copied under licence

Figure 5 – Getty image 41 Unknown © Getty Images N/A

919438838 copied under licence

Figure 6 – Getty image 48 Unknown © Getty Images N/A

93186560 copied under licence

Figure 7 – Getty image 52 Klaus Vedfelt © Getty Images N/A

1210900789 copied under licence

Topic 3 – Getty image 60 Luis Alvarez © Getty Images N/A

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 Title Page Creator Licence Modified/By

1327494217 copied under licence

Figure 8 – Getty image 67 Burtons © Getty Images N/A

1207442906 copied under licence

Figure 9 – Getty image 72 manusapon © Getty Images N/A

1314736890 kasosod copied under licence

Topic 4 - Getty image 82 Thomas Barwick © Getty Images N/A

1213042830 copied under licence

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