Division Of Management And Economics Essay, Research Paper

Division of Management and Economics

University of Toronto at Scarborough

MGTC43H3 S: Innovation Management

Winter 2001 Project Outline

Instructors: Elaine Dundon, MBA, and Alex Pattakos, Ph.D.

The individual or small group project topics can range from:

? Investigating and profiling innovative organizations and their innovation systems

? Assessing the validity of innovative thinking assessment and profiling tools

? Developing new individual or team-based innovation tools

? Detailed book reports

The objective of this project is to give students an opportunity to investigate and analyze an area of Innovation Management that interests them and which could bring an additional perspective to the class.

Project Grading:

The grading for these projects, which will comprise 30% of the final grade for the course, will involve investigating the topic area, preparing a written report, and making an oral, in-class, presentation of the findings.

? Submission of written project-due on March 15 15%

? Class Presentation-weeks of March 22 and March 29 15%

Written Report

A valuable and necessary business skill is the ability to communicate your thoughts clearly and concisely to your chosen audience. Your written report should consist of a two page summary of your project, outlining the following: a) Background (objective, methodology, or in the case of a book report-key concepts, etc..), b) Key Findings or Learnings (include comparisons to your learning from in class and on line discussions as well as course readings), and c) Indicated Actions or Recommendations.

Presentation

In-class presentations are expected to last no longer than 3 minutes per person or group with 2 minutes for questions from the instructors. As you are being rated on content, please focus your presentation in order to communicate your message in the most understandable and concise manner within your time limit.

Options: The specific topics must be pre-approved by the instructors to ensure maximum learning and to avoid duplication. Here are the categories of options:

? Investigating an Innovative Organization

Teams of 2 or Individual. Investigate an organization using the knowledge you have gained from class discussions and the readings for this course. Outline how well, in your opinion, the organization does in terms of establishing the systems necessary for sustaining innovation and recommend how you would improve this organization in terms of its innovation activities.

? Assessing the validity of innovative thinking assessments/profiling tools

Individual. Based on your understanding of innovative thinking, review assessment or profiling tools or innovation software. See instructors for a list of potential products.

? Developing new individual or team-based innovation tools

Individual. Based on your investigation of various individual and team-based innovation (creative and strategic thinking) tools, develop a new tool and explain its conceptual foundation and application potential. Good reference books for this Option include Higgins (101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques) and Hall (Jumpstart Your Brain)-see attached book list.

? Detailed book reports

Individual. Please note that book reports will be marked/graded more rigorously than the other three options, since they tend to be “easier” and do not always teach you the valuable creative and personal interaction skills which we believe are very necessary in today’s business world!

Potential Books (Must be approved by the instructors. No duplications)

Book Author Student

1 The Future Ain’t What It Used To Be Abrahamson, Meehan, Samuel

2 Innovation Strategy for the Knowledge Economy Amidon, Debra

3 Winning at New Products Cooper, Robert

4 Creativity; Flow; and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly

5 Six Thinking Hats De Bono, Edward

6 Serious Creativity De Bono, Edward

7 Freeing the Creative Spirit Diaz, Adriana

8 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Drucker, Peter

9 Intuition at Work: Pathways to Unlimited Possibilities Frantz, Roger & Alex Pattakos

10 Creating Fritz, Robert

11 Innovation Inc. Grossman

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