Questions
- What is innovation and why is it important to organisations?
Innovation is the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value for which, customers will pay. It is important because it improves the well-being of society, creates new wealth, makes things successful, finds new solution and helps develop the earth.
- Why is it important to identify and acknowledge what the team needs and wants to achieve?
It is important to identify and acknowledge what the team needs and wants to achieve as the management must make sure that:
- the goals and objectives are clear, understood and agreed upon
- the goals are S.M.A.R.T
- the skills and competencies of team members are identified
- the strength and weaknesses of teams are identified
- The team goals are aligned with organisational goals
- There is clarity on how the team intends to achieve the common goals within a specific timeframe
- A shared vision is formulated on what the teams intend to achieve.
- Why is it important to identify the benefits and limitations that your team members bring to the innovation team?
It is important to identify the benefits and limitations that team members bring to the innovation team because you can allocate tasks designed to utilise the team members’ strengths, skill and knowledge and discuss the best role to develop each person’s strength.
- List 5 different ways people may contribute to the team:
- Understanding the end goal
- Identification of clear roles
- Collaborating with everyone
- Recognising interdependencies
- Communicating effectively
- Why are ground-rules for teams important and what is their purpose?
The ground rules are important for teams because they provide a solid basis for the team to refer to as they embark on generating new ideas, thinking in a creative way and challenging each other’s idea.
- Why is communication important in an innovative team?
Communication, along with the rare art of listening, is quite important for innovation. Checking in with the team members is beyond ensuring that the team’s efficiency remains high. The effective communication is necessary as the innovative environment brings challenge and threat of businesses getting reduced overnight with the suddenly brought business models. It is significant the businesses develop strategies to innovate and partner with the partners and clients all over the globe for survival. If a business is attempting to be more innovative, communications play a key role in its whole attempt from beginning to end. It has to apply employee communications, human resources and business managers to support the significance of employee innovation to the business’ strategic direction. It is vital to accumulate key messages shared by executives at business meetings and occurrences, in the form of recordings, editorials and presentations.
- Why is it important to agree on and communicate team roles and responsibilities?
A team member should clearly understand what his fellow team members are equipped. He should be aware of his roles and responsibilities in the team. It is the responsibility of the team leader to assign responsibilities according to the interest and specialties of the team members with no imposition of things on them. The agreement on the roles and responsibilities reduces the risk of confusion among the team members.
- What strategies or tools would you use in the workplace to plan and organise team activities?
- Getting to know the team member
- Working towards a common goal
- Development of strong team skills
- Connecting with the virtual team
- Utilising the team building exercise
- As a team leader why is it important to support and guide your team members? Give a brief example of how you do/have done this in the workplace.
It is significant to support and guide the team members so that the team members get opportunities to learn. This can be done through training the team members, mentoring them, guiding them are providing with the job coaching. The team leader has to start with targeting the people who are lacking confidence. Cross training can be another useful way to spread skills and experience all over the team.
- List 3 different ways you could acknowledge and reward your team. Discuss why this is important.
- Certificate of achievement
- Recognition in front of all other peer groups and teams
iii. Points reward system, where points can be redeemed for goodies after accumulating a particular amount
It is important to acknowledge and reward the team because it provides team with exceptional high level of satisfaction and they get to know about ideal way of working. Others can also learn from such a workflow and get encouraged to share the best practices for benefiting the whole team’s performance. It helps in strengthening the team because it brings fulfilment and helps in boosting the self esteem. It shows gratitude and appreciation towards the accomplishments of the person and this motivation makes the team members to work harder and get inspired to contribute for the objectives of the team. Recognition of the team as well as individuals assists in building a sense of solidarity and identity for the entire team.
- Why is reflection on team activities and performance important?
Reflection on team activities and performance is important because this way the effective group skills can be developed, and the Bear group can come to know what worked and what did not work. The reviewing of performance of the pairs along with their strengths, weaknesses and areas of improvement, the understanding can be created with respect to the effective group procedures and behaviour. It helps in being able to work with people so that the right things take place in core managing skill. It helps in recognising the difference between the teams and groups and knowing when it is quite suitable along with the understanding of the procedures and ways of managing conflict. It helps in understanding the purpose of the team and makes the team work.
- What type of activities would you carry out to reflect on team performance and outcomes? List 3 different activities below.
- Reflection of the good: as a leader I will look for the good in whatever the team members are doing and find positive ways of reinforcing them. This will reflect the positive energy back to the team.
- Reflecting on what just happened: as the busy time comes, it is important to pause after important events and then reconsider what just happened. One effective approach to utilise the stop-start-continue method where one has to identify what went wrong so that such thing can be stopped, and the analysis has to be made on what will improve the performance so that those things can be started along with continuation of whatever is working well for the team.
iii. Reflection of trust: when the willingness of Trust is shown towards others then people usually try to be worthy of that trust. When an individual Minds the campaign consistently shows that there is no difference among what is said and what is done then that trust enhances, and the teamwork improves.
- Discuss the types of internal and external barriers to innovation that may impact on the performance/outcomes of your team?
Internal Factors
- Fear of individuals or team
- Lack of leadership: Innovation has to be led from the top.
- Short term thinking in terms of returns from innovation as it is expected that returns will be immediate and quick.
- Lack of capacity
- Lack of collaboration among team members
- Lots of ideas but inability to proceed
External Factors
- Lack of resources
- No delivery market
- Changing economic environment
- What are some strategies you would use to overcome some of the challenges outlined in the above question?
The efficient internal structure can be created by reviewing of Ideas in a timely way, effectively soliciting the ideas, deciding if or not to carry on the submission and communicating regularly with the innovator on status of submission. It is important that best ideas are pushed up the hierarchy and the intellectual property is managed effectively.
- What are the benefits of modelling behaviour that supports innovation to your team?
It takes lot of efforts to support innovation in the team and therefore modelling behaviour is a tool utilised by the smart leaders to make the workforce highly comfortable. In case one wants the workers to feel safe trying out the new ideas at the place of work then there has to be Assurance that any faults or mistakes they might make while testing the new ideas will not bring a backlash for them. When modelling behaviour is displayed then the team members will be more willing to take risks with ideas. Mistakes give opportunities to learn and making more informed decisions in the future. By modelling behaviour there is a chance to openly communicate that there should be no fear in making a mistake during innovation and this way and innovative mind set can be developed.
- What are the 5 key characteristics of innovative teams?
The five key characteristics of an innovative team are:
- Problem-solving and thinking capability
- Passion and inquisitiveness
- challenging the status quo,
- Collaboration and action orientation,
- Tendency to see the big picture
- Think about your current work team. Describe 2 different roles within the team and how they impact on the way the team works.
In my current team, the manager has a role of shaper and he has impact on the working of the team as he is dynamic, and he relishes challenges. He maintains a positive mental attitude and does not quit the challenging situations. He is an extrovert and has great interpersonal communicating capabilities. He works to motivate all others.
The other role is of implementer, as played by a team member who reports to this manager and contributes to change the plans of team to reality. As the individual he has conservative attitude and is quite rigid in accepting change in the team.
- What is meant by “group dynamics”?
Group dynamics is a set of attitudes and psychological procedures that take place in a social group or among different social groups. For a business leader, it is important to know the group dynamics to know the decision making attitude, calculating the spread of ailments in society, making useful therapy methods and understanding the new technologies and new ideas.
- Why is it important to have diversity in a team?
Diversity in a team is important because everyone can bring different skills, knowledge and talents. Hiring of different people with different personalities and at different stages of their career can help in fostering the creativity and provide with various viewpoints, perspectives and ideas.
- Describe how you would introduce external information and ideas to promote problem solving and innovative thinking within your team.
To encourage problem solving and innovative thinking in the team it is important that lot of information is gathered, and new ideas are brought to table. For this the stress has to be made on creativity. The external sources of information that would be put to use are co creation, research like searching, and enabling, acquiring and filtering knowledge of every category.
The potential of customer business model has to be unlocked along with promotion of outsourcing Technology commercialization. The innovation request can be linked with respective innovation suppliers and external markets can be explored for probable start-ups.
