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November 17, 2009

Challenge Tips 1: The body of the proposal

I know it is still early in the proposal submission period (at least from a student perspective) but I’m sure a number of teams have landed on very innovative ideas and are beginning to wonder how to describe them. And more importantly, how to describe them in such a way that will WIN a spot in the finals. It has been my experience that it can be helpful to understand the framework that the narrative (the story of your idea) needs to be presented in early- not to bias your writing but to balance it. I thought I would tackle the proposal template for you to make sure you can spend more time on your idea and have less to worry about in the write up. Unfortunately we can’t post the contents of prior years’ proposals, but I can go through the template section by section in the next few posts, giving you some insight into what should appear there.


My first recommendation is please follow the format. In order to be consistent as a judge the format has to be uniform across all submissions, thus enabling us to really look at the content. Every year a few teams invent sections while it may have great content it doesn’t track with the judging criteria.

Let’s look at each main section:

Proposed Innovation

“Suggest innovative methods or tactics to transform the workplace to match the needs of an evolving and increasingly diverse workforce.”

You can tease us in the executive summary, but in this section you have to give details! Bring in the context of your idea, why you feel it has value and for whom and start fleshing it out. Use tight conclusions on the “whys” and results, but don’t provide every shred of evidence here; use the appendixes to hold your evidence and back up your proposed results.

You can describe:
- Describe the target of your innovation and their value structure. Who are they? Give us their characteristics and the conclusions on what will need to change and why they will benefit.
- The description of the innovation itself: why is it, what does it do, for whom, when, where, where it’s coming from, why you think it’s important, what supports it etc.
- The unmet need or opportunity your innovation targets, or the risk it mitigates.
- Interim conclusions, summaries of results and proposed outcomes; make the reader want to continue on to find out more.
- Why your innovation is something Financial Services providers don’t know or do but should!
- Anything you feel really introduces your innovation to us and sets the Canadian Financial Services context.


Implementation Plan

“Describe, at a high level, the key things that should be considered for development and implementation of this idea.”

This is the real meat of your proposal. Here you answer the implied part of the Challenge; that is HOW Financial Services providers actually would use your idea to create a different workplace or way to work. A great idea without a plan attached is not yet an innovation. Here you add the plan and really start to create an innovation. Mastering this is what makes our team APPLIED Innovation.

We know you’ll have made assumptions about the sector, and costs and even lines of business and that’s OK. Just be sure to clearly state what assumptions (also fits nicely in the appendix) you made. It’s the framework that you are setting out to make your innovation fly that we really want to see. Remember this is another section to expand on your idea. Give us the key elements, tactics, capabilities and steps here and any conclusions justifying them, but put the detailed evidence in your appendix.

We want to know that you have a vision on how your innovation will work!


Impact of your Innovation

“Describe the area (who or what) your innovation will impact and the outcome. What implications does this have for the future of Canadian Financial Services?”

This is a fantastic area to really give us the “sell”. Show us who your innovation will add value for. Tell us your insights into those employees, managers, leaders, clients or stakeholders,. Tell us how this will change the workplace in Canadian Financial Services for the portion of the workforce you have concentrated on, and how that relates to customers, other parts of a Financial Services provider or the shareholders. For example: does you innovation allow us to work differently, therefore allowing more talented employees to do more for the client? Or perhaps it streamlines some work function using technology and allows a better work life balance for all employees? Or is it a connection between groups which preserves or creates knowledge and makes the business unit more effective and competitive? How does it make this workplace THE workplace of the future? And the real fun of innovation is taking us into the realm of the possible; make a call on how your innovation will shape the future.


Appendixes

I love appendices. By putting evidence and information in the appendices you can write a very nimble proposal which focuses on the key elements, conclusions and RESULTS while referring the reader to your appendices for the evidence. And since we do not limit the word count on the appendices or in fact the format you can really beef up your argument here. You can use just about any sort of content; we’ve had financials of course, and research, but we’ve also had resumes, storyboards, charts, prototypes, mock ups and even strategic analysis in innovative frameworks (Blue Ocean, VRIO- some of my favorites!)

Next post- the Executive Summary!

Posted by Tim on November 17, 2009 2:09 PM | Comments (0)

November 9, 2009

Thought starters for this year’s Challenge theme:

A lot of people have commented on the broad nature of this year’s challenge question. Lots of comments have been in favour, as that is what we face in the real world and particularly in innovation, and others who are a little pressed to figure out where to start. I’ll try to lay out some thought starters for you; by no means exhaustive, but perhaps I can get the creativity flowing.

First, we are asking about the workplace and workforce of the future. Of course it is nice to know what that looks like today, but to get your ideas on the board imagine what it COULD BE. What workplace do you want to have? What is the “art of the possible”? Then you can narrow down from there. We are looking for your idea in a financial services industry context, but not necessarily an explicitly as an RBC case.

If you are looking for inspiring materials check out the Innovation Center. We’ve just uploaded new links to some great blogs and reports on the Challenge theme and we’ve also chosen some interesting SlideShare presentations to start you off on the issues and opportunities in the workplace of the future. If you are interested in the diversity angle, have a look at the recent Canadian Immigrant interview with Zabeen Hirji, our Chief Human Resources Officer, and the executive sponsor of this year’s Challenge.

Here are some thought starters I’ve been sharing with students. When you are considering ideas ask yourself things like:

• How do you create collaboration and meaningful connections across a multi-generational and/or increasingly, diverse workforce?
• What technologies will be needed to navigate the evolution of the workplace? What cultural shifts must occur?
• How do those characteristics and needs relate to work as it is? As it will be?
• How will your proposal create value for employees, clients and the enterprise?
• Does your innovative idea and plan: target a specific portion of the workforce, a specific line of business or functional area?
• How does yout innovation create competitive advantage?

That should get you started on your path to innovation. Next blog I’ll talk about tackling the problem or hypothesis and how to get insight about the workplace(s) in the Canadian Financial Service industry.

Posted by Tim on November 9, 2009 1:30 PM | Comments (0)

November 3, 2009

Extension for team registration!

We’ve had a few requests and have decided to make sure everyone who wants a shot at submitting a proposal has a chance. We’ll extend team registration to midnight, local time, on Thursday November 5th. The online registration is closed, so to get a late team in you need to email all team details to nextgreatinnovator@rbc.com.

Be sure to include:
Team name
Contact information for each member
Name
Address with postal code
Email address
Phone number
School and area of study

We’ll update the database and send you your team profile ID and password.

Keep in mind we cannot extend the proposal deadline, so make sure you are ready to submit by Dec 6th.

Check in on my next blog on thought starters for this year’s challenge theme!

Posted by Tim on November 3, 2009 8:23 PM | Comments (0)

November 2, 2009

Registration is closed, on to the Proposals!

Team registration has closed for another year. We’re really happy with the registrations this year. We’ve had a strong showing from schools who have participated in the past like Ryerson (the 2008 and 2009 champs!) Schulich, University of Waterloo, UBC and Rotman. We’ve also had great uptake from some new schools this year. We’d like to welcome all the teams from Simon Fraser (who fielded the team that won our first ever Innovation Mini Challenge), Ivey at University of Western Ontario, Carleton, Royal Roads University, McMaster, and OCAD. We’re really looking forward to a diversity of approaches and thinking driving some great Innovations.

So far my favorite team name is a tie between “Black Swan” and “Tesla’s Revenge”. Both are great references to the history and theory of Innovation and worth looking up.

Now it’s onto really digging in on your ideas and innovations and forging them into a winning proposal. I’ll start blogging about approaches and tactics over the next few weeks. We have updated the Innovation Tool Box with some links to sources to get you thinking about the workplace/workforce of the future. We’ve also selected some new SlideShare presentations to give you some angles to think about. Finally, the secure idea share feature is running as part of your team profile. You can enter the kernel of your idea under the Share my Innovation option, and create a list of mentors/advisors to send the idea too. They’ll receive an invitation to log in, rate your idea and leave comments. You may have other ways to collaborate, but if you don’t we’ve added this for you to try.

Thanks for registering, welcome to the Innovator and happy Innovating!

Posted by Tim on November 2, 2009 11:35 AM | Comments (0)