8600-305 Contributing to Innovation and Creativity in the Workplace

Unit Overview

8600-305 Contributing to Innovation and Creativity in the Workplace is a unit within the ILM Level 3 module which focuses on understanding the need for innovation and creativity within the organisational context. Organisations in the modern context are facing significant challenges that require team members and leaders to be creative and innovative in developing solutions to challenges that the organisations face. The leaders must be able to make contributions to innovation and creativity as well as influence the members within their teams or individuals in their areas of responsibility to pursue innovative and creative solutions to the problems that they are required to solve and the tasks they are expected to accomplish.

8600-305 Contributing to Innovation and Creativity in the Workplaces is a unit that is aimed at building an understanding on the principles of creativity and innovativeness hence ensuring that they are in a position to influence those individuals under them. They are guided to further understand the alignment of the innovative and creative processes to organisational goals and objectives hence setting constraints that guide the process.

The main purpose and aim of this unit s to build an understanding of the principles of innovation and identify environments that promote or limit innovation within the workplace. It further helps the leaders to appreciate the role that creative thinking plays within the workplace. The unit is taught in 9 hours of guided learning and makes a contribution of 2 credit values in the completion of the ILM Level 3 module.

Suitability of the Unit

The unit is important for the leaders within organisations. The current corporate and organisational setting and context require the managers to be able to effectively facilitate the change that is being experienced within the environment. This involves allowing the team members or employees in their areas of operation to ensure that they are innovative and creative to pursue the different tasks that they are assigned professionals. However, it is the duty of the managers to ensure that they facilitate such environments. This involves providing the necessary support and diversity to innovative environments that are experiencing significant change within the organisational context and environment.

As such,8600-305 Contributing to Innovation and Creativity in the Workplace is a unit that focuses on ensuring the leaders have the capabilities and skills that are required to create a diverse, autonomous and innovative environment for the employees to thrive in providing creative solutions to challenges that are faced within the organisation. This unit is suited to the first-line managers, junior managers and supervisors who have the duty of directly impacting the members of their organisation to facilitate success in different areas of professional practice.

The unit is also suited to the middle managers and executive managers hence facilitating success within the organisations by focusing on an innovative and creative work environment. It can also be used by the employees to build personal and professional ability that is geared at achieving the desired levels of performance as well as preparing them for future leadership positions.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Understand the concept of innovation

• Identify the most recent forms of innovation within their organisations and specifically in their areas of responsibility

• Identify the differences between innovation and creativity

• Identify different types of innovation

• Identify the context where each type of innovation can be applied within the organisations

• Understand the external factors that act as drivers or limiters of innovation within the organisation

• Identify the role of the first-line managers and supervisors in promoting innovation within their areas of responsibility

• Show understanding of the influence that organisational culture could have on the innovative process within the organisations

• Identify barriers within the organisation to innovation

• Show an understanding g of the innovation process, including the role that creative thinking plays in the process

• Show understanding of the function of creative thinking techniques on innovative practices and processes

• Understand the role of record keeping in overseeing the success of implementation of innovative ideas within the organisation

Key Learning Areas

8600-305 Contributing to Innovation and Creativity in the Workplace is a wide unit that covers modern approaches to leading teams which involves being flexible and allowing the employees to be creative in handling various operational areas. Some of the main areas of focus within this unit include:

Introduction to Innovation and Critical Thinking

This area of learning sets the foundation for pursuing training in innovative and creative practices, environments and processes within the organisations. The area focuses on understanding the significance of innovative ideas in the organisation and ensuring that the organisational culture is designed to meet the levels of performance for the organisation. It also helps to identify the barriers to innovation and creativity hence achieving success in implementing innovative ideas.

The Innovation Process

This area of learning helps to understand the creative thinking techniques and their role in influencing the innovation process. It involves techniques such as Six Hats, Assumption Reversal, Brainstorming and Random World as creative thinking techniques and their contributions to the organisation.

Additionally, this area of learning focuses on understanding the different steps that can be followed to develop innovative ideas and the role of the managers in ensuring that the process of innovation is supported both by the leadership techniques and the organisation culture.

Implementation of Innovative and Creative Ideas within Areas of Responsibility

This area builds the ability of the learners to understand different techniques of creative thinking and be able to effectively implement the ideas that have been established. It involves identifying the validity of the ideas that have been developed and their ability to contribute to meeting the SMART objectives that have been put up to guide the activities of the team. The area of learning further helps to evaluate the success of an innovation by setting standards that can be used to measure the levels of success of the idea.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are required to provide an evaluation that involves a written assessment to determine the accomplishment of the learning goals and objectives. Supervised practice and simulated exercises are used as a means to measure the practical application of the content that has been learned within the unit.