2014 My innovation journey continues

Why i called innovation a journey? During a journey, I will face obstacle and hardship. There will be many milestones before I reach my goal. I started this year with a blast. With a committed team, we organized and conducted a Strategic Leadership Program. We applied Design Thinking approach. Throughout this program, we learned how to facilitate a Design Thinking workshop to design our strategy. The outcome of this workshop is a visual strategy. Our approach was thinking by doing. We prototyped our strategy by role playing, sketching and visualizing. We even built our strategy in 3D. It was fun. I have concluded the event in one visual map.

My Innovation Story Continues - 2012 - 2013

2012 - INNOVATION......DESIGN THINKING........ I was approached by my boss to continue our innovation using DESIGN THINKING. It is a good idea. But what is DESIGN THINKING? I kept the book somewhere in the rack, remember? Now I have to find this book again. Hmm I lost it I think since I moved from a new home. Easy way out -- get a copy from the hr team. Luckily we still have many more copies... Action plan, I must read this book end to end. My target - to create awareness on DESIGN THINKING. A challenge for someone who only study CHANGE BY DESIGN to understand. I did some research through reading and prepare a few slides on DESIGN THINKING. Understand the whole concept? 5% maybe. However I took the effort to prepare slides and launch Innovation Journey on 2012. Although I am pretty occupied with projects, I worked with team to organize and facilitate a workshop using Design Thinking Approach based on Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators developed by IDEO and Business Model Canvas (BMC). I have reached another milestone and I can called myself a Design Thinking Facilitator. My understanding in DESIGN THINKING increased to 15%. However, due to lack of knowledge on monitoring and implementing, some of the ideas remain as ideas. 2013 - One of the ideas contributed was targeted to be implemented. Together with a group of staff, we setup a product team to ensure our ideas is prototyped. We co created with clients. We invested in infrastructure and resoource to ensure we implemented and able to market. We reached another milestone. The product was implemented at two sites. It was a team effort. Looking back, we never have a product if we never have innovation day.And continous innovation is actually resulted in positive impact which can bring value to company. Although 2013 is not a year of innovation culture adoption at our workplace, I continuously increase my knowledge in Design Thinking. I manage to read a few books after Change By Design including Business Model Generation and Design Thinking for Managers. Innovation is an effort that should not only embrace by organization but also all individual. As for me, I innovate in my daily work and increase my knowledge in facilitation.

My Innovation Story - 2010 -2011

DESIGN THINKING...... 2010 - I first heard this word. It was mentioned in a Change by Design book written by Tim Brown. Frankly speaking, I have no idea what is this DESIGN THINKING, or method and how to use it in daily work. When the book was referred by my boss (he actually make a few copies and distribute it to staff for us to read), I did browse through but I have no interest to continue. Probably because of the photocopy version (black and white). I kept it nicely at home...till I forgot where I placed the book. Our office organized an INNOVATION DAY. The idea was originated from En Azman Hussin, our Chairman. We did a brainstorming session using World Cafe Methodology. It was a full day event. Ideas were contributed by eNCoralians.

At the end of the day, we identified a few initiatives to be implemented. In short, it was a successful event. This is part of our effort to introduce innovative culture at our workplace. 2011 - Innovation....Innovation....Innovation.... We continue innovation and conduct another innovation day. The target is to showcase our innovation to our customers and staff. Since the event is conducted close to our annual dinner, we conclude our innovation day at our Annual Dinner with prizes to winners. Although we had this event conducted at prestigious hotel, we are still in the dark on how to go about with innovation. --the story continues