People, Creativity and Change

New for May 2016

People, Creativity and Change:

Co-Creation Using Virtual Teams

BU5961

Tutors

Dr Ian Heywood (University of Aberdeen Business School, Scotland)

Visiting Faculty from Across Europe (Coneeect Network)

Background

The importance of creativity as a business development opportunity for many businesses is now a critical component for the long-term survival of any organisation. Innovation has always been a key element of organisational strategy. However, in today’s technology driven society creativity and innovation are increasingly seen as the key differentiator in creating long-term competitive advantage; in the highly competitive global environment companies need to be able to promote and differentiate their products and services from competitors. Managing creativity in building environments where new ideas flourish and are nurtured can be a critical ingredient to company survival. This course seeks to develop your knowledge and understanding of creativity and change as a dynamic process central to individual, group, organisational and societal development.

Aim

The aim of this module is to equip you with the tools, techniques and knowledge to:

1.  Evaluate and Critically appraise the creative process as part of organisational strategy development

2.  Develop a creativity strategy for an organisation

3.  Appreciate the complexity of managing the creative change process.

4.  Work as part of a virtual team.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module you will be able to:

·  Appreciate the growing range of creative solutions available in the market today.

·  Identify and evaluate a creative business opportunity.

·  Develop a creative business model and business plan.

·  Prepare and pitch a creative business proposal.

·  Design and test a creative business idea.

·  Work as part of a distributed creative team.

Topics

During this module we will be looking at the creative processes which are driving the latest developments in global business models. Share our understanding of the theories which underpin the creativity process. Explore how creative thinking can transform an organisations business strategy and research some of the companies that are leading the way in using creativity to add value to their business models. We will also explore some of the barriers and ethical issues associated with implementing and leading creative change.

Topics covered will include:

·  Creative enterprises: trends and types.

·  Ideation and project evaluation.

·  Design thinking and lean start-up.

·  Business model and value propositions.

·  Agile Business planning.

·  Pitching and proposition development.

·  Road testing and validation.

·  Creative leadership and team dynamics

·  Open Innovation, disruptive thinking and co-creation

·  Managing the creative change process.

·  The role of creativity in stimulating economic growth and societal development

Learning Approach

This module will take an authentic and action-learning approach to support you in developing the skills and knowledge to implement a creative strategy for a client organisation. This year our client will be the ANM Group (www.anmgroup.co.uk). Our challenge is to help identify and design an appropriate creative strategy to help the organisation evolve its current co-operative business model. This will involve:

·  Evaluating what the organisation does now.

·  Using creativity tools to identify options for growth.

·  Evaluating these options with members of the organisation

A key component of this course will involve working with students and faculty from across the ‘European Coneeect Educators Network’ to co-create creative solutions for our client. This is an essential component of the course as open innovation and co-creation are now seen as key components for initiating and driving organisational change.

Several of our team members for the week will be joining us ‘virtually’ on a daily basis. That is they will not be physically present in Aberdeen. To handle this we will be working in partnership with the computer support team in the University. Managing and working as part of a virtual team is now an essential key employability skill and we see this as an exciting dimension of the course.

On the course we will work together as a cohort to share our learning experience as you develop, shape and test your creative ideas. To do this we will be using a range of web based creativity tools. The pan European course team will act as your ‘guides’ to explore new tools, techniques and knowledge that will assist you in the development of your idea.

Activities

The course will use a range of different approaches to support you in developing your skills and understanding including:

·  A kick off workshop to explore creative leadership, team dynamics and business models.

·  A personal action-learning project to explore concepts, tools and knowledge.

·  Mini online webinars to cover frameworks, tools and techniques.

·  Discussion forums for debate and challenge.

·  Social media channels for knowledge exchange.

·  Virtual learning ‘buddies’ for critical appraisal.

·  European ‘Ideas’ coaches for project guidance and support.

·  Video blogging to capture your experiences

Assessment

The assessment for this module will consist of

(1) A group project in which you will be expected to research, prepare and develop a creative strategy for our client. This will be delivered in a appropriate format using a media of your choice. You will be delivering this presentation to a Senior Team from the ANM Group.

The nature of the deliverables is most likely to include:

·  A proposition to win support or funding for the project .

·  A pitch to communicate the project.

·  A business model.

·  Evidence of the viability of the proposal.

·  A reflective review of the lessons learned through participating in the module.

(2) Critical reflective review of the literature on managing the creativity process in organisations

(3) A reflective video blog looking at the lessons you have learnt for your own professional development

Timetable

·  Wkc 23 May Preparation week (Distance Learning).

·  Wkc 30 May Workshop week (Blended)

·  Wkc 6 June Assessment week (Distance Learning)

Course Texts

·  Andriopoulos, C., & Dawson, P. (2009). Managing change, creativity and innovation. Sage.

·  Radjou, Navi, Jaideep Prabhu and Polman, Paul 2015. Frugal innovation: How to do more with less. Economist Books

·  McQuivey, James. "Digital disruption: Unleashing the next wave of innovation." (2013).

·  Osterwalder, A. and Pigneur, Y., 2013. Business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. John Wiley & Sons.

·  Radjou, Navi, Jaideep Prabhu and Polman, Paul 2015. Frugal innovation: How to do more with less. Economist Books

Web Sources

·  Blog: An interesting blog which looks at all aspects of Disruptive Innovation is: http://innovationzen.com/blog/2006/10/04/disruptive-innovation/

·  Papers: Meeting the Challenge of Disruptive Change (Clayton M. Christensen and Michael Overdorf) – Harvard Business Review, March – April 2000 http://mis.postech.ac.kr/class/MEIE780_AdvMIS/paper/part1/14_Meeting%20the%20Chal lenge%20of%20Disruptive%20Change.pdf

·  Skype’s Disruptive Potential in the Telecom Market: A Systematic Comparison of Business Models (Alexander Osterwalder, Jan Ondrus and Yves Pigneur – University Lausanne Working Paper (2005) http://www.janondrus.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/05-skype.pdf

·  This is the team that went on to develop the business model canvas framework for exploring new kinds of business models. See: http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/

·  Videos: Clayton Christensen and James Quigley - Building a Disruptive Corporation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERhShfMuD6s

·  Simon Waldman on Creative Disruption – Author of the book of the same name. http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2010/12/simon-waldman-on-creative-disr.html

Tutor
Ian Heywood is the MBA Programme Director in the Business School. He started out his academic career as a geographical information specialist and was a faculty member at Durham, Newcastle, Salford and Manchester Metropolitan Universities before moving into Business in 1998. He has also worked as a consultant for a range of companies and held visiting professorships at the University of Salzburg, Austria and The Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is also the founder and lead ideas coach with the Ideas Academy (www.theideasacademy.co.uk) and a founder member of the Coneeect Open Entrepreneurship faculty (http://www.coneeect.eu). He is passionate about the role disruptive technology has on existing business models and is co-author of the internationally acclaimed text book ‘An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems’ – currently in its 4th edition – having sold over 60,000 copies world wide. He is also Chief Storyteller for Coneeect’s crowdsourcing project targeted at sharing good practice in entrepreneurship education. Several of Ian’s students have gone on to launch their own Startup companies see www.amazers.org
www.abdn.ac.uk/business/people/profiles/i.heywood
Client
Established in 1872, ANM Group is one of the largest and most progressive producer-owned farming, food and finance businesses in Scotland and ranked in the Top 25 of UK co-operatives.
With more than 140 years at the centre of the agricultural industry in Scotland and highly diversified with interests in the land market, commercial and industrial plant and machinery and equipment and the catering and hospitality industry, we are dedicated to maximising returns for our 5,000 members, ensuring the sector is fit for the future.
Together, we have a stronger voice, and this includes robust representation of members’ interests with the aim of securing a political and commercial landscape that benefits customers, producers and the economy as a whole.
Our diverse services and expertise provides customers and members with the infrastructure, skills and systems to trade their livestock, goods and services openly and fairly.
Our profits are used to sustainably grow and develop the business so we continue to meet the evolving members’ needs.
www.anmgroup.co.uk
Coneeect European Entrepreneurship Educators Network
Coneeect is an international network of universities that offers interactive training courses for academic entrepreneurship teachers to improve the Entrepreneurship Education across Europe. Officially supported by the European Union, participants, and their associated institutions benefit from intense training programmes and easy access to the European Entrepreneurship Community. In interdisciplinary teams, best-practice entrepreneurship education is delivered by award-winning international experts, coaches and trainers. Idea exchange and network building takes place in open forums, closely linked to the global entrepreneurship scene.
Coneeect offers a unique opportunity to learn, experience and design new teaching methods, materials and learning outcome assessment techniques to maximise your teaching impact. You will be an active member of the lively entrepreneurship community in Europe with access to entrepreneurship experts and innovative institutions, organisations and companies!
At UIIN Conference 2015 in Berlin we won the Best Practitioner Paper Award for our approach on Entrepreneurship Education.
http://www.coneeect.eu