All posts by Andrew Asare-Marfo

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, creativity methods

Six Effective Ways to Foster Innovation

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Innovation within a company is a key tool in developing business solutions.  The article generally highlights the fact that employees who are engaged are more likely to make innovative contributions to a company. On a personal level, I find myself being more interested in my job functions once I understand the bigger picture and what my overall role in a specified task contributes to the entire puzzle. According to the article, a summary of the six effective ways to foster innovation are as follows:

1. Maintaining open dialogue

2. Organizing brainstorming sessions

3. Engaging employees by encouraging them to share creative ideas.

4. Not forcing people to be innovative

5.  Remaining flexible and forgiving

6. Keeping track of company innovations

I believe that maintaining open dialogue is probably the most important but perhaps the most challenging way to go about fostering innovation. It definitely sounds easier than it looks and I look to emphasize on this particular way of fostering innovation. It begins with management and their willingness to interact with subordinates they may not deal with on a regular basis. There are at least three major factors that companies may have to bear in mind when trying to create an open atmosphere.

First of all in many companies, certain parts of the fiscal year are a lot busier than others. During these seasons, managers tend to feel pressurized, sometimes moody and may not be in the best mental  capacity to deal with individuals they do not interact with on a regular basis. It thus becomes a challenge to create open channels of communication during certain stretches of the fiscal year.

Secondly, in a diverse work environment, there may be cultural barriers that make it a bit more of a challenge for individuals or minorities of a particular background to interact with others. Managers and team leaders should be mindful of this and should at times go the extra mile to ensure all workers feel comfortable enough to present ideas that might have been very effective in a completely different environment but may never be considered due to underlying barriers.

Thirdly, the architecture and set up of an office environment could be prohibitive in creating open dialogue. I once worked on a project with a major imposing deadline where all the stakeholders were located in different part of the office building. The project however took a dramatic turn when all key stakeholders were placed in the same room and were able to immediately communicate ideas throughout the course of the day.

I believe that maintaining open dialogue can be a prelude to the other five ways of fostering innovation as it encourages brainstorming and offers opportunity to reward innovation as well as track innovation. The article in full can be read from the link below:

http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/510/ways-to-foster-innovation/

03-Planning the work of a team, work plans

Three Pitfalls of Strategic Planning

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This article describes three areas that managers generally go wrong when trying to plan and execute strategies and deliverables: http://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2013/08/15/3-strategic-planning-pitfalls/

The one take-away I derive is a quote given by the author (Bill Conerly) in an associated link to the article that states, “The value of a goal is not the goal itself but the determination of the action steps most likely to lead to achieving the goal”.

In my line of work, where a lot of project management is involved, I find that a lot of goals are set by my department as well as other departments that oversee the work of my particular unit. However, there is usually a recurrence of problems particularly with managing vendors, deadlines and budgets. Most of these issues we face as a department can be avoided if the “Value of a Goal” defined above is properly adhered to. The three pitfalls in strategy go a long way into substantiating the “Value of a goal”.

The first pitfall, “Avoiding ‘No’ ” describes how a company’s strategy may start off with a well defined focus but would then allow a lot of scope creep to blur the overall vision. The article suggests that this is usually due to the unwillingness of corporate leaders to say ‘No’.

The second pitfall, “Not connecting to actions” is an embodiment of the old cliche, “talk is cheap”. Usually, employees get caught in the moment during a meeting and are excited about certain deliverables. However, the follow through and understanding of certain actionable items tend to lack.

Finally, the third pitfall, “Vague action steps”, which I found to be pretty similar to the second pitfall, also illustrates how lacking a sequential actionable plan could lead to the collapse of a well thought out strategy.

I subscribe to the fact that for a corporate goal to be successful, it should answer the SMART framework. In essence, a goal should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound (SMART). I strongly believe that a goal that meets the SMART framework essentially avoids the three pitfalls described in the article and completely captures the true definition of the ‘Value of a Goal’.