BMAN71471 Innovation Management

BMAN71471 Innovation Management Question:

Discuss about the innovative thinking skill and management.

Answer:

Introduction

Innovation is the key to success and it holds facts for humans as well as they strive to attain new heights in their career and professional quest. Innovation is a skill that makes the individual stands out in the queue and evolve a better version of themselves. For humans, the innovative quest is not only considered with scientific inclination but an innovative mind to think apart and contribute to the business and community. Accordingly, this piece of write-up will discuss four skills for the human to develop such as innovative thinking skills, written presentation skills, critical thinking skills, and time management skills.  

Innovative thinking skills

In contemporary scenarios, innovative thinking is held in high esteem to contemplate business solutions effectively. The innovative mindset nurtures creativity and critical thinking ability to survive in the competitive workplace to have workable business ideas and solutions (Kiantoa, et al., 2017). So innovative thinking skills are characterised by innovative approaches to business problems that challenge the status quo and deliver a better business outcome. The different traits of innovative thinking skills are as follows:

• Creativity – It deals with an artistic bent of mind to have creative solutions for the generation of ideas through group input and brainstorming.
• Originality – The innovative thinkers always come out with different ways to express the business ideas that change the status quo and conceive ideas that can be shared with fellow team members.
• Critical thinking – Innovative thinking skills propagate deductive and inductive reasoning to run situational analysis and arrive at a suitable solution (Abubakar, et al., 2019). It is crucial to assess and reflect the ideas in short term and long term to draw a formidable conclusion from them.
• Problem-solving – Innovative thinkers are natural problem solvers to seek alternatives to make things work and are determined to find an effective solution.
• Communication – Communication is a crucial element of innovative thinking skills as it is necessary to communicate and elaborate the matter suitably with fellow teammates.

Written presentation skills

To date, there has been no alternative to written presentations as it is considered a suitable manner to express thoughts and ideas explicitly. In the digital era, written presentation skills are associated with presentation slides, website content, e-mails, blogs, and social media posts to get the attention of the targeted segment (Dwyer, 2020). Thus the written presentation skills can be developed using the following strategies:

• It is suitable to deliver the presentation having an introduction, main body covering the vital points, and an overall summary. It is a widely practiced phenomenon to set the pace and retain the attention of the readers.
• Preparing the written presentation with relatable instances and stories will help to get the message across (Martins, 2017). It will help to illustrate each point and link with the main theme to have a suitable conclusion.
• Paving the written matter with visual aids like tables, charts, and images will nurture the underlying message making it understandable to the targeted readers instantly.
• Writing is an art and practicing more will develop the skill characterised by lucid language, simple sentence structure, and natural flow of words to have continuity throughout the passage.

Critical thinking skills

It is effective to inculcate in oneself the critical thinking abilities to enhance the skills to analyse the issue, situation, data, or facts logically (Gonzalez, et al., 2020). The objective to nurture critical thinking skills is to have a neutral stance without the intervention of any sorts of personal feelings, biasness, or opinions to focus on simple facts and information. In the competitive business scenario, it is requisite to develop the critical thinking skills abiding the following elements:

• Identification – A crucial element is to identify the underlying issue by going through the mental inventory of the state of affairs while facing a new situation. It can be answered by understanding the context, apparent reasons, and probable outcomes (Dwyer, 2020).
• Research – To develop a curiosity to find out intricate details of the matter and develop an argument based on it.
• Recognising biases – To push oneself to develop fact-finding solutions generated from beliefs and evaluate the credibility of the sources. It is contemplated to know the benefits, information source, credibility, and persuasion of the facts (Hislop, et al., 2018).
• Inference – Proper rendering of knowledge is required to develop an active inference through conscious efforts for sourcing suitable information before drawing a full-fledged conclusion. 

Time management skills

It is mandatory to manage the time usefully to progress in professional and personal career and for this, time management skill is necessary (Abubakar, et al., 2019). This skill can be developed using the following elements:

• Organisation – The skill can be rightfully developed by organising oneself with the daily requirements at the workplace like maintaining updated excels, keeping the workstation clean, and jotting down important notes.
• Prioritisation – Each assignment has its priority and it is necessary to prioritise the task as per the urgency of the deadline and importance to the business.
• Goals – To manage time effectively, setting suitable goals are necessary. It can be in terms of short and long-term goals to prioritise and accomplish the tasks accordingly as an effective time manager.
• Communication & planning – A strong communication skill is an important characteristic of a good time manager to communicate the plans and goals suitably for delegation of authorities (Martins, 2017).
• Delegation – Delegating the tasks properly to manage the project is a good practice for accomplishing the goals adequately.

Conclusion

The discussion concludes that to be an effective innovator, an individual is required to inculcate in himself the necessary skills of innovative thinking, written presentation, critical thinking, and time management. The combination of these skills is necessary to imbibe the seeds of a successful professional by organising himself and thinking of creative solutions for a better outcome for the business.

List of Innovation Management Topics for the Student