Summary: Workplace Innovation Team 5-New and Innovated Product Project

Our purpose is, for each of us on the team to learn the “cycle of innovation.” This “cycle of innovation” consists of ideas such as; Visualizing the Ideas, Measuring the Gaps, Strategizing the Approaches, Projectizing the Details, and Orchestrating the Results. We are going to learn and experience this “cycle of innovation” through the process of creating a new and innovative product. Our team will then be responsible for a final presentation about our experiences in discovering a new product and our use of modern technology to make it happen.
We found the challenges that we as a team face in creating a new and innovative product to be many. However, one big problem we have had in creating a new product is, we could not just take two random items in a room and try to put them together to come up with something creative. The creative juices just will not flow for us using this process. It seemed to team members, most of our product ideas would come when we would try to think of something to no avail, and then forget about the project. Low and behold, minutes, hours, and even a day later, when our minds were occupied with something else, we get product ideas!
We as a team learned from working with the various technologies, on how we used it,to find its challenges. To start with, team members had some similar experiences in what we learned in using the technologies and the challenges we faced. Much of the web technologies were new to us and we had not even looked at them before this project. We as a team also had to figure out (a challenge) which web technology would work the best for us to do this team project, with the time we have to do the project and our technical savvy taken into account. Almost all the web technologies we looked at, we learned, members working on a team project did not have to communicate in real time.
Just look at what’s out there today in workplace technology, computers and laptops with their desktop applications, wireless PDA’s, e-mail, voice mail, and don’t forget all the web applications, such as blogs, Wiki, and Google Doc’s, that today’s companies have at their disposal
New technology has been rapidly increasing in use in today’s businesses. Most companies see the use of new technology as a way to increase profits, and to remain competitive in today’s global market place. Much of this new technology of the last few decades has been in the handling of information, known as information technology or IT, things such as e-mail and cell phones. However, in the last decade, many new and innovated technological web based applications came about, gained popularity, or both, such as Twitter, Facebook, and others.
Many businesses find that workers are no longer tied down to a desk in their offices. With much of the technology today, one could say, many workers can take their offices with them wherever they go. This portability has allowed many people the opportunity to work from home and still be in contact with the office. This new technology also offers the opportunities for a worker, to the people across the hall, to across the globe, to work together as a team for a common purpose; this is called a virtual team. Each individual on the virtual team can live and work anywhere in the world at any time, because communication between team members with the new technology, does not have to be in real-time, such as voice mail, e-mail or a blog. Nerveless, if team members across the globe wish to communicate in real time, there is such technology as teleconferencing, video conferencing and others. However, computers do not always work right, servers go down, routers go on the blink, the power goes out; push the wrong button, how do I get back where I was? This technology is not without its problems. But when everything is taken into account, the cost savings compared to the challenges, this new technology is the way to go.
The “Cycle of Innovation” of the New and Innovated Product Team Project:
Phase 1: “Visualizing the Ideals” is the team members’ agreement of the “why” or purpose of our innovation and the “what” or “Desired Future State” the innovation will be. “Visualizing the Ideals,” allows the team to head in the same direction, to start, be focus, be committed, and to see the project to the end (Papageorge).
Phase 2: In “Measuring the Gaps”, the team is looking at the difference between what is going on at the start of the project and the “Ideals” that were set in Phase1. The difference between where a team project is today and where it should be in the future (the end of the project) is the “Gap.” Once the team knew its “Gap,” the team used “Key Success Measures” or “KSMs” to help track our progress to our “Desired Future State.” Which were? 1. Week 5, the “Verge” new and innovated product will be chosen by the team members from the list of all product ideas that have been researched not to be in existence.
2. Week 5, the “Verge” new and innovated product team project will be 80% done, by having 80% of the items crossed off on the “Team Project to Do List.”
3. Week 6, the “Verge” new and innovated product team project will be 100% done, by having 100% of the items crossed off on the “Team Project to Do List.”
Phase 3: “Strategizing the approaches” We used the Scan-Focus-Go approach. We started out by coming up with a number of different ideas (Scan) that we thought could be very useful. After looking at a number of ideas, we started to narrow them down (Focus) to one or two that we thought were feasible given our skill level and the technology that is available to us. As we proceeded, we focused on one idea and did our best to produce a prototype (Go) that we could test and further develop until to a finished product that we felt comfortable to introduce to the public via marketing and distribution.
Phase 4: “Projectizing the Details” is about, who is going to do what in the period to finish the project, and it is the project management step. The team in “Projectizing the Details”, thought about all the details that would be necessary to finish the project. Details such as, the number of activities needed to finish the project, the time each activity will take, and who will do what when.
Phase 5: “Orchestrating the Results” was the team members need to address their problems of today, while at the same time to meet the challenge of finishing the team project on time. The team members knew if they do not find the time to work on the project, it will never be done. The team members knew they needed to have balance and some flexibility to work on the team project, because they still had to handle their own everyday life situations and issues.