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October Update- Too many Challenges or Just Enough?

It’s been a hustle this year running the new Mini Challenge at the same time as preparing the Main Next Great Innovator Challenge. Double the work some days and of course there’s keeping the names straight; but Innovation Mini Challenge (as in smaller version of) and Main Next Great Innovator Challenge (as in the Main event) seemed to keep us straight.

Today we are at an interesting midpoint; the Next Great Innovator Challenge is now up and open for team registration and the Mini Challenge voting is about to close. We’ll have a winner next week for the MC, so if you haven’t read the proposals have a look here before midnight and chime in with your rating. The voting isn’t the only judging criteria, but it is important to share the public opinion with the RBC judging panel.

I’ve noticed some of the MC teams have stuck together and already registered for the Main Innovator Challenge, which I think is great- they’ve had a warm up, now are primed to jump into the bigger challenge!

Some students have been asking where to start. I’d recommend having a look at our Innovation in Action presentation to give you our perspective on how we do what we do at RBC Applied Innovation. I’d then have a look at some of the links to external sites about innovation to get a feel for the approach. Next step would be to get your team together for your first brainstorm session on the topic. I would suggest you get each team member to do some back ground reading on workforce and workplace of the future in general terms, with perhaps some focus on the Financial Services industry but keep it non-specific. Ask them to read what they want (on topic of course), and share a summary or the articles before the brainstorming session. But more importantly at this stage find things that are interesting and inspiring. Then get together and let that inspiration flow.

A few brainstorming tips:- Have some background research done, but don’t constrain the research sources or approach too much. Research from a concept point of view; don’t get to tactical at this point.

- Do a little warm up to get everyone thinking; show off a good example, watch a funny YouTube video connected to the topic ("The Office" anyone?), tell a personal story, have a word association; anything to get the brain out of day-to-day linear thinking mode.
- Have a facilitator who keeps things moving, makes sure all ideas are heard and helps clarify points. The facilitator sacrifices the ability to input, but it’s a very important job.
- Be sure to group the ideas that support each other or relate. Look for novel connections too. Often a group of tactics will illuminate a bigger concept, or a group of issues will link up to expose a real root cause of a problem.
- White boards, flip charts, sticky notes and your digital camera (to capture the notes) are tools of the trade.
- Circulate the summary to everyone and see if there is a round of after-the-fact thoughts. The French call this "l'esprit d'escalier", meaning "that perfect thought you had after the meeting as you walked down the stairs".

And keep an eye on the website and here on the blog. We’ll start introducing resources and perspectives we think might help you form your ideas into the winning proposal!


Posted by Tim on October 6, 2009 5:34 PM

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