The title of my research is The need to balance Acquisition, Organic and Geographical Growth Sources: A sustainable growth strategy for Pinnacle Technology Holdings Limited. Pinnacle Technology Holdings Limite4d is a South African Company, focussed on the assembly and distribution of ICT hardware. It focusses on the channel, small to medium corporates and the public sector. Pinnacle Technology Holdings Limited was established in 1993 and listed on the JSE in 1997.
The continually expanding product range spans the complete breadth of ICT hardware and related peripherals, including (however, not limited to) high powered enterprise servers, switches and storage devices in addition to notebooks and computers. This range includes the vast majority of the most notable international tier -one brands, such as Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, Dell and IBM, as well as its mainstay make of Proline computers, notebooks and servers (Pinnacle Annual Report: 2010).
Pinnacle Africa has branches in Midrand, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London, and Cape Town. These branches are all in South Africa. Only three branches are outside of South Africa and these are Windhoek and Gaborone and Zambia.
I will focus on the study topic in this article module assignment.
Creative Myths
Creativity is the generation of ideas that cause the improved efficiency or effectiveness of something. The people are the resources that determine the solution. The process remains the same. The process is goal-oriented: it was created to attain a solution to a problem. However, the approach employed by people will change (http:notendur. hi. is/joner/eaps/cq_cr04. htm).
Creativity originates from epiphany
An epiphany (manifestation, striking appearance") is the sudden realisation or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something. The term is utilized in the philosophical or literal sense to signify that the claimant has "found the last little bit of the puzzle and today sees the complete picture, " or has new information or experience, often insignificant by itself, that illuminates a deeper or numinous foundational frame of reference. This concept is studied by psychologists and other scholars, particularly those attempting to study the procedure of innovation.
Although epiphanies are only a rare occurrence, following process of significant labour, there's a common myth that epiphanies of sudden comprehension have also permitted leaps in technology and the sciences. Though famous individuals like Archimedes and Isaac Newton may have had epiphanies, they were almost certainly the outcome of an extended and intensive amount of study those individuals have undertaken, not a sudden, out-of-the-blue, flash of inspiration on an issue they may have not considered previously (http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Epiphany).
Creativity comes from creative types
The fact is, nearly all the study in this field demonstrates a person with normal intelligence is with the capacity of doing some creative work. Creativity depends on lots of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to believe in new ways; and the capability to push through uncreative dry spells. Intrinsic motivation - people who are turned on by their work often work creatively - is especially critical.
Money is an innovative motivator
Research shows that folks put a lot more value over a work place where creativeness is supported, valued, and recognised. People want the opportunity to deeply take part in their work and make real progress. It is therefore critical for managers to complement visitors to projects not only on the basis of their experience but also in conditions of where their interests lie. Folks are most creative when they care about their work and they're being stretched.
Time pressure fuels creativity
People are least creative when they are racing the clock. Actually, you may find that there are 'after effects' - when people will work under great pressure, their creativity is likely to go down not only on that day but the following day or two days also. Time pressure stifles creative imagination because people can't deeply engage with the situation. Creativity requires an incubation period; people need a chance to soak in a problem and let the ideas bubble up. (http://www. associatedcontent. com/article/7736944)
"I am not creative"
The simple truth is we are all creative. And while some people are naturally more creative than others, we can all have very creative ideas. 60, as we get older, almost all of us learn to inhibit our imagination for reasons relating to work, acceptable behaviour and simply the idea of being truly a grown-up.
"That's a stupid [or daft, or silly, or ridiculous] idea"
People say this kind of thing to colleagues, family and even to themselves. Indeed, this is one reason why people believe they aren't creative: they have into such a habit of censoring their strategies, by telling themselves that their idea s are stupid, that they no longer feel creative. The next time you have a good idea you think is stupid, don't censor it. Rather, consider how you could improve the idea.
"Creative people always have great ideas"
Creative people will have ideas. If they enjoy it or not they are having ideas and sharing those ideas (often with people who tell them their ideas are stupid, believe it or not!) every waking hour of your day. Of these ideas, a precious few are great. Most are good, many are mediocre and a valuable few are stupid ideas. As time passes, we have a tendency to forget creative people's weak ideas please remember the great ideas.
"Constructive criticism can help my colleague improve her idea"
Criticism whether constructive or destructive (as most criticism truly is) squelches creative thinking and teaches your colleague to keep her suggestions to herself. Likewise, other colleagues will dsicover what happens when ideas are shared and can also figure out how to keep their ideas to themselves. Fresh ideas are fragile. They need nurturing, not kicking. Instead of criticising a colleague's new idea, challenge her to increase the idea by asking her how she could easily get above the idea's weakness.
"We need some new marketing ideas for the upcoming product launch. Let's find the marketing people together and brainstorm ideas"
This is a sure recipe for coming up with the same kind of marketing ideas you experienced in the past: i. e. uncreative. Brainstorming, as well as ideas campaigns and other group ideation events get the most creative results with the widest variety of participants. Want marketing ideas? Then bring in sales, accounting, recruiting, financial, administrative, production, design, research, legal and other people into the brainstorming event. Such a variety of knowledge, experience and backgrounds will encourage a variety of ideas. And this brings about more creative ideas.
"For our innovation strategy to be considered a success, we need a system of review processes for screening ideas and identifying which suggestions to implement"
In fact, the review process is very often about eroding creativity by detatching risk from ideas. The most important component for corporate innovation is a way of soliciting and capturing focussed business ideas. The ideas campaign approach - where you challenge employees to submit ideas on specific business issues, such as "in what ways might we improve product X?" is the best way to focus innovation. A transparent tool which allows employees to submit, read and collaborate on ideas is the ultimate way to focus creative thinking. And, framing your challenges effectively is arguably one of the most crucial aspects of successful corporate innovation. Yes, reviewing ideas is important. But first you need to be generating the strategies in order that they may be reviewed.
"That's a good notion. Let's run with it"
When we are looking for ideas, we've a tendency to stop looking and begin implementing with the first good idea that involves mind. Unfortunately, that means that any great ideas it's likely you have had, had you spent more time thinking, are lost. Moreover, good ideas can often be progressed into significantly better ideas with a little creative thought. So, don't think of a good idea as an end - rather think of it as a beginning of the second stage of creative thought.
"Drugs can help me be more creative"
The 1960s drug culture and glamour of musicians and artists getting high and being creative resulted in this myth. And, possibly a little bit of drugs or alcohol will loosen you inhibitions to the extent that you don't criticise your opinions approximately you might had your inhibitions not been loosened. A whole lot of drugs or alcohol, however, will alter your mind and may more than likely make you believe you are being more creative. But to people watching you, you will just seem like a person who is high.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Just last week I was at a workshop where some people were complaining in regards to a colleague who always had ideas. Worse, he wanted to use those suggestions to change processes that were working properly well. Sadly, too many of us (however, not you, of course) are like the complainers. If something is effective as it is, whether it is a machine or a process, we often feel there is no need to change the way it works. Fortunately, Dr. Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle didn't think like this - or we'd be flying in propeller airplanes. Bear in mind that propeller airplanes were working perfectly fine when both gentlemen in question individually invented the jet engine.
"I don't desire a notebook. I always remember my ideas"
Maybe. But I doubt it. Whenever we are inspired by a concept, that idea is very often out of context using what we live doing. Perhaps a dream we had after waking inspires us with the perfect solution is to an issue. But, then we wake up, get the children up, have breakfast, run through inside our minds an important presentation we'll be giving each day, panic that the kids will miss their bus, run for the train, flirt with a good young thing on the train etc. - until late afternoon when you finally have time to take into account the issue. How likely are you truly to remember the idea you had after wakening? (http://innovationexcellence. com/blog/2010/11/26/10
2. 15 Fear Forces Breakthroughs
There's this widespread notion that fear and sadness somehow spur creativity. There's even some psychological literature suggesting that the incidence of depression is higher in creative writers and artists - the de-pressed geniuses who are incredibly original in their thinking. But we don't see it in the population that we studied.
We coded all 12, 000 journal entries for the degree of fear, anxiety, sadness, anger, joy, and love that individuals were experiencing on confirmed day. And we discovered that creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety. The entries show that individuals are happiest when they think of a creative idea, but they're much more likely to truly have a breath through if indeed they were happy the day before. There's some sort of virtuous cycle. When people are excited about their work, there's a better chance that they can make a cognitive association that incubates overnight and shows up as an innovative idea the next day. One day's happiness often predicts another day's creativity.
Competition Beats Collaboration
There's a widespread belief, particularly in the finance and high-tech industries, that internal competition fosters innovation. Inside our surveys, we discovered that creativity takes a hit when people in a work group compete instead of collaborate. By far the most creative teams are those which have the confidence to talk about and debate ideas. But when people compete for recognition, they stop sharing information. And that's destructive because nobody in an organisation has all the information necessary to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
A Streamlined Organisation is a Creative Organisation
Maybe it's only the public-relations departments that believe downsizing and restructuring actually foster creativity. Unfortunately, I've seen way too many examples of this kind of spin. One of my favourite is a 1994 letter to shareholders from a significant US software company: "A downsizing such as this an example may be always difficult for employees, but out of a down economy will come strength, creativity, and teamwork. "
Of course, the opposite is true: Creativity suffers greatly throughout a downsizing. But it's a whole lot worse than most of us realised. We studied a 6, 000-person division in a global electronics company during the complete span of a 25% downsizing, which took an incredibly agonizing 18 months. Every single one of the stimulants to creative imagination in the task environment transpired significantly. Anticipation of the downsizing was a whole lot worse than the downsizing itself - people's concern with the unknown led these to basically disengage from the work. More troubling was the actual fact that even five months after the downsizing, creativeness was still down significantly.
Unfortunately, downsizing will remain a fact of life, meaning leaders need to focus on things that get hit. Communication and collaboration decline significantly. So too does people's sense of freedom and autonomy. Leaders must work hard and fast to stabilise the work environment so ideas can flourish.
Taken together, these operating principles for fostering creativity in the workplace might lead you to think that I'm advocating a soft management style. Incorrect. I'm pushing for a good management style. My 30 years of research and these 12, 0000 journal entries claim that when people are carrying out work that they love and they're allowed to deeply engage in it - and when the task itself is valued and recognised - then creative imagination will flourish. Even in tough times. (http://www. fastcompany. com/magazine/89/creativity. html)
2. 18 Other Myths
The following are other myths:
Being creative is a waste of time,
Creativity is not for adults or people with serious careers,
Creativity is the consequence of a lone innovator,
There is always a clear path to creativity,
Creativity always ends up in greatness.
2. 19 Myths surrounding business creativeness into Africa.
These are myths that have prevented many South African companies into expanding procedures into Africa.
We do not understand Africa
This is a myth as Africa is not hard to understand. Those people who have ventured into Africa did so by researching just how to conduct business in Africa. Apart from the research there a wide range of published articles on how to conduct business in Africa,
You might not get paid
There a wide range of arrangements that can be made to ensure payments. Letters of credit confirmed by foreign banks being one.
Difficult to repatriate profits
There are investment guidelines dealing with all African countries. Some may become more difficult than others but this will not mean that all countries in Africa should be painted with the same brush. MTN is doing roaring business in Nigeria and there has been no issue in profit repatriation.
Myths of Nationalisation
Again, here there have been hardly any if any private companies which have been nationalised. The investment guidelines will prescribe certain standards to be observed but this does not amount to nationalisation.
Myths of being killed kidnapped etc.
African countries are poor markets. This is also incorrect as we mentioned regarding MTN. Again here it does not mean employing the complete continent of Africa, but only few selected countries.
Creative Roles
There are four distinct roles to be performed for the creative process to be as effective as possible. Each one requires that you play different characters, with different mind-sets and skills.
The roles are: Explorer, Artist, Judge and Warrior.
Learn that they help unleash your creativity and how to understand the skills each one requires.
The Explorer
Ideas do not emerge from the blue. To be able to build them you need to gather the recycleables: facts, concepts, experiences, knowledge, feelings - that's what ideas are constructed of. To get all of that, you will need an attitude of on-going curiosity and exploration.
The Explorer is often in search of new things. He's relentlessly curious and never limits himself to a particular area of experience and knowledge. To have ideas is to hook up dots. First of all you need lots of dots to hook up - you will need fuel for the forming of new ideas.
The Artist
The Artist has ideas. He takes the raw materials from the Explorer and combines them in novel ways.
When people say someone's "creative", they're usually discussing the Artist. The Artist has ideas mostly by trying new things. He applies his imagination by rearranging, turning things upside down, stirring things up. He pursues different approaches and finds unexpected connections. He's playful; he doesn't value what folks expect from him.
The Judge
The Judge is all about "getting real". His job is to analyse the Artist's wild ideas and evaluate if they're practical - in real life.
The Judge questions assumptions; he compares and analyses. He checks how feasible ideas are. No matter how much the Artist loves an idea, the Judge looks for counterarguments, checks evidence, and makes hard decisions. Combining gut feeling and analytical tools, the Judge must only let through feasible ideas.
The Judge gets an awful reputation - but only because people usually invoke him too early. Killing a concept before the Artist can play with it is a pity; killing it later is oftentimes a necessity.
The Warrior
As soon as you have an idea ready to be executed you'll realise the globe isn't create to accommodate every new proven fact that arrives. The enemies can be external: competition may be fierce, or people maybe just don't "get" your beautiful ideas. Even harder than those, there are plenty of enemies already within you: think resistance, excuses and fear of failure.
The Warrior's job is to make ideas happen. With the, you'll need not only a strategy and plan of action but to put in the hours - fight the daily fight.
That means remaining productive, developing the resilience and courage to overcome obstacles and, of course, having the ability to sell your ideas - whatever's necessary to materialise them. (http://litemind. com/creativity-roles)
Innovative Archetypes
An archetype can be an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype after which others are copied, patterned, or emulated; symbolic universally recognised by all. Archetypes put context to a predicament. We use archetypes, for example, in marketing. We create brand archetypes to assign a personality to the brand.
The innovation Archetypes are:
Innovation Doer: These are the practitioners of innovationpeople who innovate frequently. The Innovation Doer is on leading lines and feels both accountable and motivated to come up with new and useful ideas. They approach situations with an all natural inclination to improve the status quo rather than preserve it.
Innovation Watcher: They are people with a strong interest or obsession with innovation created by other people. They are fascinated with novelty. They consume it, find out about it, and report onto it. They marvel at what others create but stop in short supply of serious innovation themselves. They report useful insights about innovation and innovators. They add value by commenting on trends and milestones in the world of innovation. Entire websites such as Gizmodo and Engadget fit this archetype.
Innovation Preacher: They are the voices that inspire others of the necessity to innovate. They make the truth for innovation and change. They relate innovation to your everyday lives as well as to the global economy. They create both hope and fearhope in terms of what can be created through innovation, and fear from the consequences of not innovatingfrom being "disrupted. "
Innovation Teacher: They are the people who teach methods and processes of innovation. They infect others with tools to produce new ideas. Teachers are interventionalists. Their students become Doers (if they have taught them well). A number of university professors and innovation consultant fit this archetype.
Marketplace of ideas. In the marketplace archetype, employees are charged with creating new ideas, shopping them around to get support and implementing them rapidly to check feasibility and market acceptance. It really is an environment that is somewhat chaotic by design. Google, 3M, Best Buy typify this model.
Visionary leader. The visionary leader model revolves around a senior executive who understands the future better than customers, motivates employees to zealously pursue that vision and keeps producing ideas that are unexpected and profound. Steve Jobs of Apple is citied as the paragon. Other examples are Akio Morita of Sony and Henry Ford.
Systematic Innovation. These are firms that succeed through a variety of executive prioritization and team processes. Samsung, Proctor & Gamble and Goldman Sachs are cited as examples.
Collaborative Innovation. This archetype is more externally oriented, featuring companies that team with outside partners to evaluate a variety of opportunities, rapidly choose the ones to trial and often implement the ideas through these partners. Collaboration organisations gather "innovation intelligence" because they build formal relationships with other organizations that will help them not only form the progressive concept but also actively implement the perfect solution is. For instance, most movie studios are collaboration organisations, partnering with independent producers to create ideas, with technology companies to make special effects, and with advertising agencies to promote new releases. Another recent example is social networking site Facebook. (http://innovate. typepad. com/innovation/2009/04/four-kinds-of-innovation-dna. html)
Innovation through Rigor
An involved leadership oversees the development of many products and services by problem-solving, cross-functional teams who work systematically on internally made ideas using formal vetting processes. Typical of large enterprises with diffuse products; often with a culture of "perpetual crisis. " Samsung's large product catalogue is overseen by senior executive prioritisation and team processes that focus on the design facet of innovation.
It is likely there are more innovation archetypes than these four. Other could be defined around some of the brand archetypes displayed in the model above. Certainly there are people who display multiple archetypes, perhaps all four.
In the organization domain, we need all archetypes. The ones that preach create the mandate for change. They mobilise the leadership and staff to concentrate on innovation as a way to obtain organic and natural growth. The Doers and Teachers have a tendency to put things into motion. Watchers will be the "sense makers". They may be trend spotters. They may have a distinctive perspective on external innovation to provide useful context to internal innovation. A lot of corporate mergers and acquisition departments belong to this category. They are really "hunters" of opportunity.
The Knowledge Economy
Introduction: The Knowledge Economy
The paradigm of the knowledge economy actually appeared as a consequence of new trends throughout the market and of new categories of statistical data on economic activity (Machlup, 1962). Within the mid-1990s, the idea evolved to refer to two presumed characteristics of the new economy: the increased relevance of abstract knowledge, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and the prevalence of applications of information and communication technologies as monetary drivers (David and Foray, 1995). The OECD (1996) defines knowledge-based economies as "economies, which are directly predicated on the production, distribution and use of knowledge and information. " Thus, the data economy is dependant on an efficient system of knowledge access and distribution, as a sine qua non condition for increasing the quantity of ground breaking opportunities (Godin, 2003).
This increasing importance of knowledge is changing just how organizations compete as well as the sources of competitive advantage between countries. For the main countries on the planet economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted very much into the former that knowledge is becoming one of the most crucial determinants of the standard of living (World Bank, 1998). Today's most technologically advanced economies are knowledge-based in the sense that knowledge is increasingly regarded as a commodity (Boulding, 1996), that advances in ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) have reduced the expense of many aspects of knowledge activity (Howells, 2000), and the amount of connectivity between knowledge agents has increased dramatically (Aridor et al. , 2000).
Knowledge workers in the current workforce are individuals who are valued for his or her ability to do something and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area. They will advance the overall knowledge of that subject through focused analysis, design and/or development. They use research skills to define problems also to identify alternatives. Fuelled by their expertise and insight, they work to resolve those problems, in order to influence company decisions, priorities and strategies. With differentiates knowledge work from other types of work is its primary task of "non-routine" problem solving that will require a blend of convergent, divergent, and creative thinking (Reinhart et al. , 2011). Also, regardless of the amount of research and literature on knowledge work there exists yet to be succinct definition of the term (Py¶ri, 2005).
Knowledge Worker Roles
Knowledge personnel bring benefits to organisations in a number of important ways. These include:
Analysing data to establish relationships
Assessing input to be able to evaluate complex or conflicting priorities
Identifying and understanding trends
Making connections
Understanding cause and effect
Ability to brainstorm, thinking broadly (divergent thinking)
Producing a new capability
Creating or modifying a strategy
These knowledge worker contributions are in contrast with activities that they would typically not be asked to execute, including:
Transaction processing
Routine tasks
Simple prioritisation of work
There is a couple of transitional tasks includes roles that are seemingly routine, but that require deep technology, product, or customer knowledge to fulfil the function. These include:
Providing technical or customer support
Handling unique customer issues
Addressing open-ended inquiries
Generally, if the data can be retained, knowledge worker contributions will serve to expand the data assets of any company. While it can be difficult to measure, this increases the overall value of its intellectual capital. Where the knowledge assets have commercial or monetary value, companies may create patents around their assets, of which point the material becomes restricted intellectual property. In these knowledge-intensive situations, knowledge employees play a direct, vital role in increasing the financial value of an company. They can do this by finding solutions how they will get new ways to make profits this may also be related to market and research. Davenport, (2005) says that even if knowledge workers are not a majority of all workers, they are doing possess the most influence on the economies. He adds that companies with a higher level of knowledge workers are the most successful and speediest growing in leading economies including the United States.
Reinhart et al. 's (2011) overview of current literature demonstrates the roles of knowledge workers over the workforce are incredibly diverse. In two empirical studies conducted by Reinhardt et al. (2011) they have got "proposed a fresh way of classifying the roles of knowledge personnel and the data actions they perform during their daily work" (Reinhardt et al. , p. 150). The typology of knowledge worker roles suggested by Reinhardt et al. are "controller, helper, learner, linker, networker, organiser, retriever, sharer, solver, and tracker (2011, p. 160).
Typology of knowledge worker roles
Role
Description
Typical knowledge actions (expected)
Existence of the role in literature
Controller
People who monitor the organisational performance based on raw information.
Analyse, dissemination, information organisation, monitoring.
(Moore and Rugullies, 2005)(Geisler, 2007)
Helper
People who transfers information to instruct others, once they passed a problem.
Authoring, analyse, dissemination, feedback, information search, learning, and networking.
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998)
Learner
People use information and practices to boost skills and competence.
Acquisition, analyse, expert search, information search, learning, service search.
Linker
People who associate and mash up information from different sources to create new information.
Analyse, dissemination, information search, information organisation, and networking.
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998)(Nonaka and Takeushi, 1995)(Geisler, 2007)
Networker
People who create personal or project related connections with people involved in the same kind of work, to talk about information and support each other.
Analyse, dissemination, expert search, monitoring, networking, service search.
(davenport and Prusak, 1998)(Nonaka and Takeushi, 1995)(Geisler, 2007)
Organiser
People who are involved in personal or organisational planning of activities, e. g. to-do lists and scheduling.
Analyse, information organisation, monitoring, and networking.
(Moore and Rugullies, 2005)
Retriever
People who search and collect information on a given topic.
Acquisition, analyse, expert search, information search, information organisation, monitoring.
(Snyder-Halpern et al. , 2001)
Sharer
People who disseminate information in a community.
Authoring, co-authoring, dissemination, networking.
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998)(Brown et al. , 2002)(Geisler, 2007)
Solver
People who find or provide a way to cope with a difficulty.
Acquisition, analyse, dissemination, information search, learning, service search.
(Davenport and Prusak, 1998)(Nonaka and Takeushi, 1995)(Moore and Rugullies, 2005)
Tracker
People who monitor and react on personal and organisational actions that may become problems.
Analyse, information search, monitoring, and networking.
(Moore and Rugullies, 2005)
Note: From "Knowledge Worker Roles and Actions - Results of Two Empirical Studies, " by W. Reinhardt, B. Schmidt, P. Sloep, and H. Drachsler, 2011, Knowledge and Process Management, 18. 3, p. 160. Copyright by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Reprinted with permission.
5. 3 Knowledge Worker Roles
The following seven roles within which impressive managers apply their individual knowledge contribute significantly towards creating a sustainable competitive advantage for organisations:
Adventurers: managers contribute unusual answers to resolve customer and operational problems as they use practical applications of knowledge gained through personal experience.
Navigators: navigators adapt what other managers have previously established. They be capable of evaluate and analyse problems, and find the most profitable solution.
Explorers: these have the ability to recognise external patterns, trends and relationships. They initiate new business ventures and ideas that they communicate through inspiring ingenuity.
Visionaries: being a visionary suggests proactive questioning that challenges groups to find profound and unusual solutions to existing problems by working backwards from a desired outcome.
Pilots: they excel in clarifying goals and obligations regarding knowledge projects and change initiatives.
Inventors: these managers use unconventional theories and models for analysis and synthesis of factual information which is transformed into knowledge.
Harmonisers: harmonisers are highly energetic and results-driven. They search consistently for new solutions within team leadership structures.
5. 4 Individual Ratings of Leadership Dimensions
A framework for the data manager is given as a foundation for the creation of a knowledge organisation. Once the information becomes actionable it is transformed into knowledge. When knowledge is then learned and embedded into individual and organisational processes, the value of knowledge to the average person and the organisation increases in value. The environmental factors affecting this cycle relate with domain context, organisational culture and individual value system, management initiatives and benchmarking standards.
Knowledge must have a contextual framework if it's to be useful to an organisation. In addition the promotion of knowledge will be affected by the organisational culture, as well as the individual's knowledge base. How knowledge is internalised and then again externalised is related to the organisation's strategic intent. Management initiatives and standards will also affect the creation of knowledge within the organisation. The project innovation manager as innovation manager acts on all mind information through the critical testing of information had a need to resolve specific problems or even to innovate new systematic solutions. At this precise point the information is transformed into useable knowledge and is also shared through individual and team exchange which creates the enablement of knowledge for working processes to be utilized by future project teams and also to enhance the intellectual capital vault.
Figure 1. 1: Conceptual view of the knowledge management framework for innovation
Data
Information
Individual & organisational processes
Knowledge
Domain context
Management activities
Organisational culture & individual value system
Benchmarking/standards
INNOVATION
Source: Liebowitz, J. (2005) Conceptualizing and implementing knowledge management, from Management of Knowledge in Project Environments. P. 3. (Love, Fong and Irani (eds. ))
It is very important to the innovation manager to realise that knowledge is often gained through experience and on-the-job innovation as knowledge without context is futile. Knowledge can be distilled from successes as well as from failures especially as project management creates intellectual property when lessons are learned and guidelines are established.
The leadership dimension usually concerns senior people's role in developing the organisational processes where innovation is manufactured a typical, recognised and accepted activity (although leadership do not need to be limited to senior executives only). In fact, a key responsibility of leaders is to enable as many folks as you possibly can to lead positive change at all levels at work. The leadership dimension includes the symbolic gesturing of leaders and the role models, artefacts and symbols they create, articulate and "endure" as desired behaviours to others in the organisation and elsewhere. Leadership is a resource if it can help people see the direction and purpose of innovation; this can be a resource only once it makes innovation a generally accepted agenda in the organisation.
Even if a fresh idea sees the light of day, it still must gain wide acceptance and become spread to the many in the organisation which have to change for it to be real. Leadership is thus not only about creating an organisation conducive to innovation; additionally it is to champion innovation and select those ideas that to be implemented require cooperation from many within the organisation and frequently also beyond from suppliers and perhaps customers.
Leadership involves mediating the different assets that have to work in concert to make the innovation real.
Innovation is usually a strategic option for increasing organisational competitiveness, which is in this context, Llorens-Montez et al. (2005) through their empirical study, demonstrate the importance of leaders supporting innovation through teamwork cohesion, organisational learning, and technical and administrative innovation. A leader's role is to build up a suitable management style and also to inculcate a workplace environment that allows, allows and encourages innovation to occur.
Effective leaders whatsoever levels - executives, managers and entrepreneurs - want to optimize their personal performance and their team's performance to accomplish business success.
Intense competition and new technologies have led to flatter organisations emphasising new ways to deliver the winning customer experience.
Also impacting company objectives are employee expectations around quality of work, personal growth and professional recognition.
Today's leaders are challenged to provide business results while nurturing, inspiring and retaining company talent.
The key aspect in effective leadership is the ability to recognise business situations for what they are and employ the right leadership style to go towards the required objective:
Commanding. Take charge to gain team commitment for the crisis accessible.
Visioning. Point the way to the near future and engage your team in developing direction.
Enrolling. Get buy-in through eliciting and incorporating team input.
Relating. Connect to the average person contributors, mediate conflict and lead team development.
Coaching. Invest in developing your people through skills enhancement and providing stretch goals appropriate for company objectives and personnel development.
Characteristics and Pre-requisites for Effective Project Innovation Management in the data Economy
The characteristics of the data and innovation manager poses an attitude spectrum that an effective project innovation manager should acquire through management development and self-development. These three attributes are knowledge, skills and attitudes.
The knowledge requirements of any project manager are organisational, structure and level as well as industry orientated. Knowledge is important to demonstrate project innovation managerial effectiveness as the inventory of knowledge must encapsulate the organisation's core competencies.
The skills of the project manager are transferable from management to tactical and operational levels. Once acquired, these skills represent a fundamental element of the personal armoury of the project innovation manager. The primary skills of a powerful project innovation manager should convey creative imagination into innovation and process it into practical implication.
These skills include, inter alia, observing, reflecting, fact-finding, analysing, diagnosing and the formulation of solutions. These skills are supported by the next additional components of management, viz. valuable decision making with innovation at heart, communicating ideas, and motivating human capital through delegation and organising.
The creative manager has distinct attributes and characteristics where he/she is determined as it significantly differentiates him/her form those who find themselves less creative. The kind and degree of creativity varies from person to person which is unlikely that anybody could possess all the characteristics to a uniformly high degree. The description therefore should be considered a composite profile of the ideal creative person. The following attributes are suggested to describe this particular profile for the ideal knowledge and innovation manager: sensitivity to problems, curiosity, motivation, persistence and concentration, ability to analyse and synthesise, discernment and selectivity, ability to tolerate isolation and creative memory.
The knowledge manager values his/her creative imagination as "real" creativity, which must bring into existence ideas and forms that are unexpected, new in the sense that nobody else has generated them and have a lasting impact on the earth.
Both a competence component and a self-determination component are highlighted, as the knowledge manager is intrinsically motivated and would seek situations that interest him/her and can require the use of heightened creative imagination and resourcefulness. The next characteristics are distinguished between effective and less effective project innovation managers:
Embracing change. Less effective project innovation managers dislike changes and prefer predictability, order and stability.
Attending to external realities. Less effective project innovation managers focus their time and attention on the routines of the internal organisation.
Creating power. Less effective project innovation managers consider their capacity to get things done severely limited, since they believe that real power resides with top management.
Promoting a coaching style. Less effective project innovation managers spend relatively little time coaching their people, plus they see coaching in conditions of delegation: assigning well-defined tasks and carefully following up.
Expanding job responsibilities. Less effective project innovation managers see their primary responsibility as meeting the demand of bosses, job descriptions and total annual goals.
Creating expertise. Less effective project innovation managers recognise the importance of expertise but are "too busy" to grow (or hire) it; often they see developing expertise as somebody else's job.
Driving out fear. Less effective project innovation managers work from a primitive philosophy of fear. They think fear is (with the possible exception of greed) the best motivator in business.
Exhibiting readiness for an entrepreneurial environment. Less effective and impressive project managers alike want initiative and creativeness from other work associates and they guard the processes for allocating resources.
The Eight Prerequisites for Innovation Managers
According to the three-facet style of creativeness of Sternberg, the innovation manager possesses the next eight key strengths to facilitate improved creativity at work in terms of his/her intellectual abilities, knowledge acquisition components and their ability to integrate:
Spontaneous
The project innovation manager is fresh and child-like sometimes. They are prepared to take risks and uses the creative way of thinking to analyse and differentiate between alternatives prior to making final decisions. He/she is curious, has a sense of humour and shares information through effective communication channels.
Persistent
This project innovation manager operates independently and is determined to get the most profitable solution. He/she is energetic and courageous and can use numerous avenues to demarcate and analyse an issue. His/her administrative style is assertive and handles information by systematically seeking intelligent options.
Inventive
This management style is very comfortable with ambiguity. He/she enjoys challenges and involves the complete team through proactive team dynamics. He/she talks about problems from various angles and implements a remedy through different strategies. Although sceptical at times, he/she uses a large information base to form new visions and creative solutions, using immense knowledge frameworks.
Rewarding
This management style thrives on participative decision making and it is willing to talk about credit with all team members. Personal satisfaction, peer recognition as well as team rewards are valued higher than remuneration. He/she is actively involved in educating and a shared vision with all associates, and recognises individual effort and diversity within the team.
Inner openness
This management style has the ability to switch from logical argumentation to fantasy, is open to emotional behaviour patterns, can think innovatively in different modes and levels of sophistication, and it is intuitive and highly expressive, integrating all segments of the implied forum.
Transcendent
This management style can see problematic situations realistically as they occur, and can project different options and solutions simultaneously, chooses growth over fear which is confident that the team effort can truly add value to the organisation's growth.
Evaluation
This management style uses analysis discernment and is also discriminating of conventional problem solving and decision-making methods, is judgemental at appropriate times and handles conflict well.
Democratic
This management style values and respects human capital as the most crucial asset within organisations and seeks stimulation from a variety of people and promotes the highest benefits for all those concerned.
Kelley (2002) is a superb advocate of the challenge solving process as a theoretical basis for creative management and describes problem solving as opening up the self to the fullest possible knowing of the storehouse of energy and resources within, and the capability to lead to innovation.
The process of idea generation brings about incubation and analysis, which bears on the tentative ideas and leads them to the eventual acceptance or rejection. Creative work is really as much an activity of problem finding or forming by problem solving. To improve new questions, new possibilities, to regard old questions from a new angle, requires creativity.
The following motivational principles are suggested to achieve greater flexibility of ideation and create a larger volume of original ideas:
Making the objective more visible to all or any members of the group
Rearranging all areas of the problem
Combining different components
Adapting
Looking at different aspects of the environment
Giving motion and activation to the situation
The knowledge and innovation project manager must evaluate him/herself firstly in line with the abovementioned criteria and, secondly, promote the organisation's curiosity about conditions of the same paradigm to find the optimum practice of inherent creativity within individuals and organisations.
Many organisations curently have considerable experience using strategic management to recognize, select and execute selections for their business scope, competitive differentiation and market goals. As an important addition to the strategic management technology scenario learning helps managers explore the real range of choices available involved in finding your way through the future, to test how well those choices will succeed in various possible scenarios and to prepare a rough time table for future events. For all those organisations committed to creating their own future scenario learning can be an invaluable tool as this preparation process assists managers to deal and design a variety of future scenarios and to outlive unexpected crises.
Scenario learning occurs mainly when organisations employ creativeness and innovation by making a learning culture where knowledge is shared, harvested and traded. Organisations who used scenarios to identify opportunities also needs to test their strategies in multiple scenarios in order to build the best practice. When an ground breaking organisation refines its strategy based on its new understanding of what knowledge is required to succeed in a variety of possible futures it requires heed to monitor the results of the strategy implementation and execution. That is precisely where you should familiarise yourself with the complete course content and assume the role of reconnoitre as they scan changes in the surroundings continuously to determine where the future strategic changes or adaptions will be required.
Scenario learning involves four elements for constructing or developing scenarios and integrating this content of scenarios into decision making and ground breaking implementation. Both elements are central to the actual process of scenario learning and a prerequisite is the producing and acquiring of explicit knowledge which is acted after to create the essential outcome. Secondly scenarios challenge the mindset of modern managers by developing plausible alternatives. To have decision makers into new substantive terrain and require them to be willing to suspend their judgement and traditional belief system, their assumptions and preconceptions of what should be done compel these to grapple and elaborate on questions that previously weren't raised or briefly considered and quickly shunted aside. Scenario learning therefore will not only emphasise the role of scenarios as a generator of thought and reflection, but also explicitly challenges conventional wisdom, historic means of thinking and operating and long held assumptions about important issues.
Thirdly learning implies discussion and dialogue which in the knowledge economy will include innovation and creative methods of thinking. Managers and their counterparts within the organisation as well as outside should engage one another in free ranging exchange of ideas, perceptions, concerns and new discoveries. Such exchanges will invariably provoke some extent of tension between individuals, between functions holding opposing ideas, and between corporate and business unit perspectives. Such tension is the essence of collective learning and the suspension of premature closure as individual exchange between managers enhances reflection after the new novel solution and challenges their own mind sets.
Fourthly progressive learning suggests that scenarios are a continual input to decision making and that actions and decisions in exchange spawn further reflection and new knowledge creation. Rightfully scenarios provide views into the future against which managers can monitor and evaluate the entire world as it unfolds around them as each distinct view into the future becomes a fresh focus for shared learning.
The creative learning perspective suggests that the various tools and techniques involved with scenario development aids the knowledge of how knowledge might unfold and how innovation can critically be incorporated into decision making. If this overall objective is to be achieved scenario methodologies should not be the pivotal point but should be intended and then serve the goal of augmenting understanding also to inform creative decision making.
Current world of knowledge.
Plot or Story
What must happen for the scenario end state to arise?
End State
The conditions and circumstances that prevail by the end of the scenario period.
Logics
The explanation or rationale for the content of the plot.
New sustainable competitive advantage through best practice.
Driving forces.
Organisational knowledge.
Key Scenario Elements in the data Economy
(Source: Fahey 2000)
The components of future scenario planning are recognized as the driving forces for competitive advantage, logistics, scenario plots and end mentioned and how they pertain to the competitive advantage. Although businesses, governmental and consulting organisations are suffering from particular approaches to crafting and using scenarios the methodologies should incorporate each one of these elements to reach your goals.
The Innovation Funnelling Process
8. 1 Introduction
Funnelling Ideas
The Funnel Mechanism is a well-known structure for dealing with innovation.
Innovation, ideas and conceived features for a product
Need to be sifted and vetted in a structured manner
In order to make a manageable development environment
For creating a successful product that will be adopted by the market
The key is to subject suggestions to a series of appropriate tests as they mature. Innovation ideas are managed through a series of gates from whence they can proceed to different stages.
"Innovation and ideas are funnelled to maturity"
Blue sky
Business analysis
Real world validation
Pilot product
Product
MARKET
Registration
8. 2 Registration
The first stage where projects are entered in to the process
Must pass good sense hurdles
Innovations and ideas start here and may jump to subsequent stages
8. 3 Blue Sky
No limits, mad brainstorming
Certain common sense questions must be passed concerning feasibility and the defined market.
8. 4 Business Analysis
Comprehensive market study and competitive analysis
Certain assumptions are created which is tested in subsequent stages
Conceptual development
8. 5 Real World Validation
Primary learning stage
Economic and technical feasibility accepted
Agile processes used to test assumptions with a prototype in the field
Results used to update market knowledge and refine the product
8. 6 Pilot Production
Limited field trials with production units in the market
Agile processes used to test concept and value proposition further with the market
Result fed back again to refine product
8. 7 Production
Exit from development process
Full-scale production with prepared product
Further innovation fed into the business analysis stage
(http://www. stonethree. com/services/methodology/funnel)
The Five Dimensions of Creativity for the Innovation Funnelling Process
This is the funnelling process used for searching new value propositions and it is very important to the group and individual innovation process.
The five dimensions of imagination according to Torrance (1984) are viz. fluency, originality, highlighting the essence, elaboration and resistance to premature closure. It is important for students to familiarise themselves with the five dimensions of creativity as these form the foundation for understanding the use of imagination and innovation as drivers in the new innovation economy and also to create the new sustainable competitive advantage.
Fluency
The production of fluency includes newness of ideas as a criterion and maintains that an act is creative if the thinker reaches the solution in a sudden closure that necessarily implies some novelty to the thinker. The theory might be artistic, mechanical, theoretical or administrative, particularly in its function of solving organisational problems or in decision making. The brainstorming processes may occur even although idea might have been produced by another person at a youthful time. By this definition, creative thinking may take place in the mind of the humblest person or the most distinguished statesman, artist or scientist.
Originality
The likelihood of higher productivity in project management is the consequence of the expertise of innovation managers who are able to react to leadership and new behaviours where leadership exemplifies openness to influence, commitment to the success of others, willingness to acknowledge their own contributions to problems, personal accountability, originality and trust. Originality is seen as creative potential versus conformity.
In general, imagination has been seen as contributing original ideas, different points of view and new means of considering problems. Conformity sometimes appears as doing what's expected, not disturbing or changing the status quo.
Highlighting the Essence
Although high quality ideas are produced, the dividing line in the creative thinker is the fact an unorthodox solution is reached by reacting impulsively to ideas as it triggers the inner imagination and fantasy. It is difficult to observe this technique as patterns of behaviour and thoughts are unconventional and the impulse acceptance enriches the grade of creative activities by aligning these thoughts with the problem and simultaneously analysing the best proposition. Spanning an immense amount of information, a rudimentary diagnostic skill is utilized and overall flexibility on computerized pilot that shifts the mental gears, to span through plenty of information and diverge problems, highlighting the three qualities: discovery, adventurous thinking and congruence. The creative environment provides for freedom to respond truthfully in highlighting the essence of the challenge.
Elaboration
The assumption that the knowledge and innovation manager identifies the solution to the condition through careful observation, understanding of the wider insight in to the environment as it is reflected in the analytical process through the elimination of non-important information. Continuous idea forming and elaboration of those ideas are transformed into a fully-fledged product, which adds value to the organisation's full embodiment of inventions, designs and scientific theories. The project innovation manager emphasises the capacity of thinking by analogy as the essential fundamental element to keep finding alternative responses and solutions and creating new innovations.
Resistance to Premature Closure
Ideas produced through the suspension of judgement are intuitive and look at different angles that can save each idea from premature rejection. Project innovation managers that can suspend judgement are more valuable during idea generation exercises, such as brainstorming or imagination workshops, as they promote the quality and quantity of the team's output, achieved by sensible selection of albeit unusual ideas and spontaneous commenting in group discussions. The group decides which ideas should be implemented and where suspended judgement should be practiced.
The Creative Process Includes the individual, the Product, the Process and the Situation
The most important common belief is the fact that creativeness in its essence can be an indication of a particular kind of person. In this particular context it is the knowledge manager.
Occasionally there is a product of bring about question, but a creative person, the truth is, is observed in isolation. A logical synergy between the person, the procedure, the merchandise and the environment is employed to clarify the implication of this theory in business practice.
The Person
Creativity relies implicitly on personality traits that are inherent to the average person and expressed through individual potential, ambition, emulating individual creativity as the entire human potential, including creative solution finding and the capability to exercise power and judgement in the creative process by incorporating the capability to invent by respecting he irrational and seeing the promising source of novelty as an invention of own thought. The individuals ability for original thinking and innovation optimises his/her ideas through observational and mental distribution of thoughts and is expressed to optimally self-actualise the innovation manager.
The creative manager's capacity to believe fluently, flexibly and originally is profoundly linked to his/her imaginative ability. To live on without answers, to question the unquestionable, means that the creative person will touch perplexing darkness but will also dream undreamable dreams. The ability to imagine is identical having the ability to detach from actual situations, and envisage situations that are non-actual - an ability to detach from the earth in order to think about certain objects in the world in a fresh way, as signifying another thing.
The creative innovation manager can be an original thinker who possesses in a high degree the powers of constructive imagination, and that the truly creative have more contact than most people do with the life span of the unconscious, with fantasy and with the world of imagination. Creative people do more than simply break from old patterns, finding alternatives within the old ways. Creative managers diverge from familiar patterns but they converge on new solutions, breaking laws to remake them and make hard decisions in what to add and what things to eliminate. Creative managers constantly innovate utilizing their knowledge resources.
The Process
This process theory means that products, achievements and discoveries are regarded as creative and can be traced back to prior actions that can be seen as procedural and that we now have deeper introspective processes interwoven in the "creative journey". This process is undoubtedly having seven recognisable phases. Throughout every phase the relationship between your manager and the creative phenomenon changes, and the knowledge of the innovation manager in every phase has a particular effect on the outcome. The seven phases are determined as (a) identification and formulation, (b) investigation, (c) exploration, (d) revelation, (e) confirmation, (f) reformulation and (g) realisation. He regarded imagination as an activity that leads to meaningful learning, insightful experience and the discovery of something new.
The different phases of the creative process never happen in isolation, but in interaction and facilitation with each other. These procedures do not necessarily always happen in the same sequence because the scientist's work is not always systematic, logical or orderly. If the idea of creativity is looked upon from an activity approach in the wider part of creativity, it becomes clear that the focus falls mostly on essential elements and ideas or thoughts that are discovered, connected and transformed during the creative process. Forming associations and the formulation of analogical connections are also often mentioned.
The Product
The creative product, as the innovations explored and implemented by the data team, relies on the assumption that the existence or absence of creative imagination can be determined by measuring the resultant product or achievement according to certain criteria: To set-up is to bring forth an entity that is both new and valuable intelligibility comes into being. Most product definitions focus on the qualities of the merchandise itself and incorporate qualities of uniqueness, novelty, value and appropriateness.
Amabile (2004) identifies creativeness as the generation of new applicable responses to daily challenges and it is basic to personal growth, personality integration and effective coping. Creativity is undoubtedly a product where the individual enjoys attention only in the sense that he/she is the facilitator resulting in creation of the merchandise. In essence, the average person is secondary to the creative product as the process enjoys hardly any attention and is mainly focused on the ability to create the new product.
The Creative Situation
Creative problem solving requires a nurturing climate and a facilitative attitude on the part of the organisation and the respective project innovation manager. The disposition for creative imagination is often facilitated expe
