Innovation
Address critical IT and business challenges with targeted innovation techniques.
RETIRED CONTENT
Please note that the content on this page is retired. This content is not maintained and may contain information or links that are out of date.Common challenges include:
- IT being viewed as a barrier to innovation
- Business units going around IT for technology services
- Process inefficiencies leading to longer than necessary project completion time
- Lack of an innovative culture within IT
Targeted idea generation and innovation will help:
- Identify critical areas your IT department needs to innovate around
- Structure how to create innovative solutions
- Foster collaboration, creativity, and knowledge sharing between employees
Book Your Workshop
Onsite Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn’t enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our Project Workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a road map in place to complete your project successfully.
Case Studies and Deliverables
Innovation Case Study of a Fast-Growing Municipality
A fast-growing municipal region serving a population of over one million sought to move the current organizational culture towards innovation through better-supported idea generation, collaboration, and testing. Info-Tech conducted a one-week Innovation workshop to pinpoint opportunities and develop sustainable innovation growth practices.
Module 1: Explore Innovation
The Purpose
- Assess the current innovation maturity of your IT department.
- Define your current innovation ecosystem (drivers, barriers, enablers, etc.).
- Define disruptive technologies with respect to innovation.
- Determine appetite for leveraging disruptive technologies.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand where your IT department stands today with respect to innovation.
- Highlight the current barriers to innovation that need to be addressed.
- Reach group consensus on innovation goals and priorities.
| Activities: | Outputs: | |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | Introduce innovation. |
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| 1.2 | Assess current state innovation maturity. |
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| 1.3 | Outline ideation. |
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| 1.4 | Understand disruptive technologies. |
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Module 2: Innovate IT Processes
The Purpose
This module is about getting IT ready to innovate with the business by addressing its own pain points first:
- Determine which IT processes (e.g. service desk escalation, service requests, etc.) to innovate around through current health checks and business satisfaction with outputs.
- Construct the current processes.
- Generate ideas to relieve critical pain points.
Prioritize ideas based on business alignment, value, urgency, risk, and difficulty to address.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A list of IT processes with sub-optimal outputs.
- Documentation of processes yielding transparency into current activities.
- Group collaboration to addressing IT process challenges, as well as generating and prioritizing ideas.
| Activities: | Outputs: | |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | Assess IT processes. |
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| 2.2 | Define internal IT process challenges. |
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| 2.3 | Generate and assess ideas. |
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| 2.4 | Validate and prioritize ideas. |
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Module 3: Innovate Around Business Processes
The Purpose
This module is about getting IT involved with business challenges by leveraging technology or IT expertise.
- Determine which business processes (e.g. sales, customer service, etc.) to innovate around through current health checks and customer satisfaction with outputs.
- Construct the current processes.
- Generate ideas to relieve critical pain points.
Prioritize ideas based on business alignment, value, urgency, risk, and difficulty to address.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Work with the business to prioritize business process challenges where IT can be of most value.
- Documentation of current processes and IT involvement, yielding transparency into current activities as well as technology capability gaps.
- Group collaboration in addressing business process challenges, as well as generating and prioritizing ideas.
| Activities: | Outputs: | |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Assess business processes. |
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| 3.2 | Business process pain points and health checks. |
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| 3.3 | Generate and assess ideas. |
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| 3.4 | Validate and prioritize ideas. |
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Module 4: Establish an Innovation Program
The Purpose
- Craft the mandate and goals of the innovation program to foster collaboration and idea generation among staff.
- Determine the most appropriate components of your innovation program (e.g. innovation days, case competitions).
- Determine workflows, processes, and applicable governance for the innovation program.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Customized innovation program components reached through group consensus.
- Establish timelines and recurrence of innovation program components.
- Create and assign critical roles, responsibilities, and support groups.
- Determine how to best measure innovation program success.
| Activities: | Outputs: | |
|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | Develop innovation program components. |
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| 4.2 | Manage ideation. |
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| 4.3 | Measure program success. |
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Module 5: Communicate the Innovation Plan
The Purpose
- Determine key stakeholders to involve.
- Craft the key messages and communication mediums.
- Summarize findings.
- Create follow-on activities.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A strategy for moving forward with activities to ensure that innovation is an ongoing practice.
| Activities: | Outputs: | |
|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | Open communication channels with the business. |
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| 5.2 | Review workshop goals. |
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