Sample MBA613 Organizational Change and Innovation

MBA613 Organizational Change and Innovation Assignment Sample

Assignment Brief

Word Count: 1500 Words (+/-10%)
Weighting: 30 %
Total Marks: 30
Submission: Via Turnitin
Due Date: Week 6, Tuesday at 11.55pm

Your Task

During this subject so far, you have been exposed to various theories about innovation and creativity. Being able to apply these concepts in a practical manner is a key outcome of this subject. As part of a Group, you will work in-class to explore new solutions to a contemporary workplace problem, using techniques, concepts and theories discussed during the class and share ideas and information. You will be given time in class (Week 3-5) to work on your “creative” journey, share reflections with your group, conduct group-based activities and explore the use of a variety of tools. Based on your in-class participation, you will then write and submit an individual report. 

Assessment Description

Your task as a group is to identify a work-related problem you are currently experiencing at work or choose one below. You will need to develop new solutions by using techniques, concepts and theories discussed during your classes. You should research further to identify tools that will be most suitable for you. Some suggestions include: Fishbone diagrams, how to statements or levels of abstraction

The only problem is you are very limited with resources you can use. You have many paper clips, some paper (different sizes), and coloured pens and a coat hanger.

Some possible work problems:

1. How do you communicate effectively while maintaining social distance?
2. How to encourage people to recycle in their office?
3. How to improve overall workplace participation?
4. How to maintain workplace morale while “working from home”?

Assessment Instructions for assignment help

1. Form small groups/teams. There are a wide variety of creativity quizzes and tests online, have a look and see what you can find. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

a. Free online creativity test - TestMyCreativity (Week 1)
b. Test: What's your creative style? | Psychologies (Week 1)

2. Organize a “Genius Hour” with your team and discuss what will you do for this project? What will be your approach? Your creativity test results, your fears, passions, ideas etc. Some tools you can use include (but not limited to) Brainstorming, Mind mapping, Storyboarding, Visualization (Week 2/3)

3. Every week try to create and add to your team’s “creativity pool” (Week 1 to 4) During the lectures you were given some tools to force you for creative thinking. You may also want to do some further research and use any tool you like such as Synectic Pinball Machine, Six Thinking Hats or Checklists. Choose the best idea but do not waste the rest of the ideas – can these ideas be recycled somewhere?

4. Write an individual report about your creative journey. Make sure you include all the theory, concepts, tools that you have used. This is a reflective essay which requires you to reflect on your creative journey. Do not forget to integrate theoretical concepts and refer to at least 4 academic references to support your ideas.
Please refer to the assessment marking guide to assist you in completing all the assessment criteria.

Solution

Introduction

The workplace challenges increased during the Covid-19 situation and this affected the work culture and entire work environment of the society. I examined the situation in the IT sector environment with my team members to understand the problem that they faced during Covid-19 to maintain social distancing and how this affected the employee and the organizations (Lewnard and Lo 2020, pp. 631-633). This study focusing on the challenges identified through using some theories and techniques. The tools also used in this segment for delivering a reliable and innovative solution for the IT sector and these tools help to prepare the recommendation that will help the companies to develop the workplaces environment and situation that also improved the productivity of the workplace.

Reflective Problem Statement

The Covid-19 impacted the whole world through its negative impact on society. This situation was crucial that every organization faced when this pandemic took place within the world. Some of the organization need to stop their working to maintain the safety of their employee or for their business type. Many of the organization focusing on maintaining the social distancing within the organization. In the entire lockdown situation, many organizations need to provide the work from a home facility that required for maintaining that situation. Work from home also develops a problem as every employee did not have the system for delivering the work and for this reason, many IT organizations required to allow an employee in the workplace. This increased the risk for spreading Covid-19 into the workplace as maximum employee wanted to come to the office for delivering the work quantity and this was helping to run the work process within the organizations.

Challenges of Identified Situation

The challenges identified by examining the situation are,

• The organisations required to maintain social distance within the workplace and this was difficult while the employee working in the same environment and communicating with each other for work purpose. This was natural for human that they usually communicated for developing the operation with help of the other employees. This social distancing was difficult at the time of executing the business operation and this aspect also difficult for the organisation to maintain the safety of the employee.

• The HR team of the organisations were not able to handle the employees to maintain social distancing and for this reason, they allowed them to perform the business operation from their home (Crowley and Doran 2020, pp.1211-1234). Many of the employees not having the system in their home and this affected the organisation production. The HR also not able to manage the work from the situation as this also increased the understanding issues for disruption in communication faced by the employees and the management.

• This situation also affected the employee’s mental health and also they suffered from the threat for lost their jobs in this pandemic situation. This increased the mental stress of the employee and leads them to unable to work properly. Several organisations cut the payment of the employees as the organisations not deliver a huge amount of work to their client and they made a loss in their sectors. This also demotivated the employees and increased workplace conflict.

These challenges identified by examining the workplace as me and my team evaluated the workplace environment for better understanding the situation and problem of social distancing.

Tool and Techniques to Solve the Challenges

We use the Fish-Bone diagram to identify the challenges and also through this diagram we better understand the problem that appeared in the workplace during Covid-19 (Shinde, Ahirrao and Prasad 2018, pp.653-664).

The Fish-Bone Diagram Represents the Challenges below,

Workplace Information Findings

It is estimated that a total of 121 members of the organisation is still active today in the production process. To resolve the social distancing issues which arise due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus in the country employees related data is generated from the register of the organisation (Koren and Pet? 2020, p.e0239113). The separation of the individual is discussing below.

Table 1: Number of members in the workplace in alphabetic order

Chart 1: Number of members in the workplace in alphabetic order
(Source: Author)

It is difficult to separate a huge number of member to keep social distancing in the workplace. Hence, the separation is created based on the two-fold classification. The two-fold classification of the members is tabulated below.

Table 2: Separation of all members

Chart 2: Separation of all members
(Source: Author)

The above diagram is representing that, there has more or less equal representation is present between the members of the organisation. The total members whose names stated with vowels are almost 47% on the other hand the members whose name is started with the consonants are represented 53%.

Theory of Creativity and Innovation

The innovation and creativity come together and to mitigate the challenges in the work required to develop through using the Walls Creativity Model. This model has five stages for developing the idea and the concept which is my team and I used for preparing the solution for maintaining the social distance within the workplace and this also help to mitigate the other challenges.

This stage focusing on the problem that we identified through our study as these problems arise at the time of Covid-19 in the organizations. The problem identification is considered as the first stage of this model and this also helps to develop the creative idea for solving this problem.

Stage 2: Incubation

In this stage, the identified problem is evaluated for developing the proper concept of the social distance aspect within the organisation and this also required for developing the various aspect within the workplace. This stage also helps to evaluate the employee’s problem and also understand the employee perspective.

Stage 3: Intimation

After evaluating the facts, my team and discussed the possible recommendation for this situation that arise in the workplace and this recommendation will help the organisation mitigate the problems. This recommendation also enhances the process for developing several aspects within the organisation.

Stage 4: Illuminating

After proposing several recommendations, we chose the one that fit for maintaining social distance and also this effective for increasing the productivity of the organisation. This recommendation is stating that the division of the employees as per their names which start with the vowel or consonant and the suitable date is prepared for enhancing the productivity of the organisation.

Stage 5: Verification

This recommendation is identified through developing the organisation process evaluated by our team for understanding the importance and effectiveness within the organisation.

Recommendation

The entire study reflects that there has a huge representation of employees within the IT firm. That makes a serious problem to maintain social distancing within the workplace. To resolve those problem concerned authority need to take some serious decisions. The creative and innovative suggestions are given below to resolve the social distancing related challenge of the IT firm.

The selected firm can make a work portfolio for its employees. Hence, to minimize the number of employees within the workplace the below table is formulated for changing the workplace culture.
 

Table 3: Recommended work structure table of the business operation

The above-presented table is prepared to minimize the number of employees within the workplace. By using the recommended work chart, the firm can maintain social distancing without hampering its present business operation.

Conclusion

As a part of a group, we learn various techniques to explore a creative solution to resolve contemporary challenges in a workplace. Hence, the entire study is focused on the social distance-related challenges that are facing by an IT business firm during the Covid-19 situation. A fishbone diagram is created to identify the cause and effect of arising problem in the IT firm. Wall’s theory is also presented to generate a creative idea to resolve the problem of the selected workplace. To build a suggestion we extract member-related data from the register of the IT firm. Based on the gathered information the recommendation is created that can minimize the risk effect within the organisation.

Reference List

Crowley, F., & Doran, J 2020, COVID?19, occupational social distancing and remote working potential: An occupation, sector and regional perspective. Regional Science Policy & Practice, Vol. 12 no. 6, pp.1211-1234, retrieved 26 April 2021, <https://rsaiconnect.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/rsp3.12347>

Koren, M., & Pet?, R 2020, Business disruptions from social distancing, PloS one, Vol. 15 no. 9, p.e0239113, retrieved 26 April 2021, < https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239113>

Lewnard, J.A. & Lo, N.C 2020, Scientific and ethical basis for social-distancing interventions against COVID-19, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Vol. 20 no. 6, pp.631-633, retrieved 26 April 2021, <https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2820%2930190-0/fulltext>

Shinde, D. D., Ahirrao, S., & Prasad, R 2018, Fishbone diagram: Application to identify the root causes of student–staff problems in technical education. Wireless personal communications, Vol. 100 no. 2, pp.653-664, retrieved 26 April 2021, <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11277-018-5344-y>