Improving Creativity and Innovation in an Organization

Objective

It is important that you have the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge you have gained throughout this module to a real-world organizational problem. For this reason, we would like you to choose an organisation or firm to which you have access, or which you know well, and develop a plan for improving creativity and innovation within the organization. It may help to consider yourself a “Creativity and Innovation Consultant.” You have two main tasks, both of which will require a thorough analysis of the organization, the application of information from the module, and additional outside research specific to the problems your organization faces. 

1.Analyse their strengths and weaknesses in their creative and innovative processes

2.Propose an action plan, based on what you have learned in the module, to improve their creativity and innovation 

1.Choose an organisation you know personally. Case study based assignments usually do not work as well. Medium sized organisations are ideal.

2.If possible use some primary evidence in your assignment – interviews or surveys are ideal. You may also use existing survey data or internal documents as primary evidence.

3.Use the toolkit you have developed in the module and draw on other academic literature to support your arguments

1.Do not choose a very small (micro) organisation – the scope for strategy development here is usually too limited for an in-depth analysis. Page 1 of 4 

2.Do not focus on a single problem within the organization (that is the focus of the group assessment, not this one) – this should focus on a variety of organizational factors that influence innovation within the organization. 

3.Do not rely on anecdotes and unsupported statements – you should provide evidence for your analysis and suggestions, either from your primary organizational evidence or from the available research. The suggested readings and further readings from the module are a good place to start. 

4.Do not use tables as a way around the word limit – they should be used as a concise way to illustrate the relationship between categories of information