BSBSTR801 

Lead innovative thinking and practice 

Task 2 – Performance and Skills Assessment

Task summary
This assessment task requires you to undertake market research relevant to a product or service
available in today’s marketplace.

This project requires you to complete the assessment tasks in a real workplace (your current
workplace can be used). If you are not working, select a workplace you are familiar with.

Required
You are required to demonstrate your ability to:

 lead at least one innovative thinking and practices for an organisation or work area.

In the course of the above, the candidate must:

 research, review and analyse trends in thinking and emerging practices as they relate to
an organisation’s current thinking and practices
 develop capacity to lead innovative thinking and practice in an organisational context

Timing
1. You may review this assessment task at the commencement of your unit.
2. You may start this assessment in the first week of the term
3. Your assessor will advise you of the due date of this assessment via Canvas and you must
submit by the due date.

Note: Failure to submit by the actual due date, will be marked as “Late” and recorded as an NYS.

Submit
This completed workbook and the report you prepare.
You may use templates from:
www.canva.com
www.monday.com or
templates provided by us in your resources.

Assessment criteria
For your performance to be deemed satisfactory in this assessment task, you must satisfactorily address all the
assessment criteria. If part of this task is not satisfactorily completed, you will be asked to complete further
assessment to demonstrate competence.

Re-submission opportunities
You will be provided feedback on your performance by the Assessor. The feedback will indicate
if you have satisfactorily addressed the requirements of each part of this task.

If any parts of the task are not satisfactorily completed, the assessor will explain why, and
provide you written feedback along with guidance on what you must undertake to demonstrate
satisfactory performance. Re-assessment attempt(s) will be arranged at a later time and date.

You have the right to appeal the outcome of assessment decisions if you feel that you have been
dealt with unfairly or have other appropriate grounds for an appeal.

You are encouraged to consult with the assessor prior to attempting this task if you do not understand any part of
this task or if you have any learning issues or needs that may hinder you when attempting any part of the
assessment.
Assessment Cover Sheet

Student name:

Student ID

Trainer’s Name:

Date Submitted:

Student declaration: I declare that:

 I have read and understood all the information provided in
relation to the assessment requirements to complete this unit,
the instructions and the purpose and processes of undertaking
this assessment task
 This assessment is my own work and where other’s works or
ideas have been used, I have appropriately referenced or
acknowledged them
 I understand that plagiarism is a serious offence that may lead to
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 Task 2 – Performance and Skills Assessment

1. Read the case study below and complete the task that follow.

ABC Corporation is a fitness centre that has been in the business for 5 years. It employs 10
staff and has 120 subscribers. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, its monthly income lowered by at
least $10,000 per month.

Assume that you have just been hired as the new Innovation Manager of ABC Corporation. In
this task, you are required to develop an Annual Innovation Review of the organisation. Its
goal in 2022 is to lower its operational expense by $5,000 and ensure productive sessions with
subscribers.

In your Annual Innovation Review, you need to research and review at least one (1) of the
organisation’s trend relating to its current thinking and practice and discuss how you can
support and sustain it in the next 5 years as Innovation Manager. Please use the template
provided.

Annual Innovation Review

Name and description of organisation
Crunch Fitness
There are no judgments here – No too much or not enough. No glares of disapproval. Here we
keep open minds. We are nurturers. We seek only to encourage, empower and entertain.
There is no one type. There is no one reason. There is no one way.
What we are is a diverse community; what we have is a culture of fun; what there is, is room
for everyone: all kinds of people with all kinds of goals who’ve chosen to come reach them.
Crunch. No Judgments.
Innovative thinking and creativity
Trends that shaped the organisation’s current and future thinking and practice
1. Hybrid gym memberships
2. Wellness-tracking wearable technology
3. Exercising outdoors
4. Low-impact exercise
5. Inclusive fitness
6. Mini workouts (Mini workouts are for the people who don’t have 45 minutes spare to
dedicate to a workout).
7. High-intensity interval training (HIIT)
8. Mind-body (As more people look to find ways to ease stress, anxiety and support their
mental health, practices like yoga, tai chi, and medication will continue to be popular).
 9. Outdoor personal training
10. Smart home gym
11. Fun group fitness classes
12. Movement as medicine (Fitness is just a part of your overall wellness, and the mindset
of exercise is medicine is growing. There are benefits to daily exercise and movement
for health and well-being).

Techniques and tools used to generate ideas and facilitate thinking

1. Brainstorming – probably one of the most popular creative techniques:

The basis of brainstorming is a generating ideas in a group situation based on the
principle of suspending judgment – a principle which scientific research has proved to
be highly productive in individual effort as well as group effort.
2. Negative brainstorming:
This is another example of creative techniques. It uses brainstorming to generate bad
solutions to the problem and then see how those could be transformed into good
solutions. The method is a two-step process, that consists of generating the worst
ideas first and then transforming them into good solutions.
3. The Insights Game
The Insights Game is about these moments. Every insight gives you one point. You
need to have at least one point every day, if not the game is over.

Creative thinking techniques

1-Concept Map
The concept map is a teaching and learning techniques that help visualize the connections
between concepts and ideas. It helps organize thoughts and discover new relationships, ideas
or concepts.
2-Mind Map
The mind map starts with the key concept we are brainstorming around in the center. Related
ideas are connected to the center with lines.
It helps us capture our free flow of thoughts and organize them on a canvas in a way that will
later allow us to discover new connections that will let us arrive at a possible solution.
3-SCAMPER Technique 
SCAMPER is another successful creative thinking technique that is used to spark creativity
during brainstorming. SCAMPER stands for seven thinking approaches,
 Substitute 
 Combine
 Adapt
 Modify
 Put to another use
 Eliminate 
 Reverse
Relevant conditions for innovation and issues that impact innovative thinking and creativity
 Immovable Forces:
Old habits, beliefs, and assumptions cloud openness to new ideas and overpower
creative and innovative initiatives. The status quo remains in place and nothing
changes.
 Judgment:
Employees who have ideas are reluctant to share because they worry that no one will
like the idea. They are afraid of ridicule or the implications of possible failure.
 Hard Work:
Negativity takes hold even before beginning a project or a project is eliminated before
it even gets up and running. Lack of faith in the possible payoffs of a creative process
can easily stymie or eliminate what might have been the next big idea.

Innovation drivers and enablers

 Develop Innovation Processes that Everyone Can Use:
Innovative organizations have processes that drive innovation. Their individuals and
teams use a structured creative process.
 Go Beyond Developing Products (Offerings):
BIG innovations are more than products. Big innovations transform services, processes
or channels.
 Create Teams that Support Innovation (Team):
While individuals are responsible for innovation, they cannot do it alone. People need
to be part of an innovative team. Being an innovative team is hard work. Everyone
must remain curious, humble and stubborn. If someone is not following these values,
they should be called out. People need to accept feedback from others on the team.
This is not easy, but there are tools and methods to make feedback non-threatening
and an integral part of the work flow. Highly performing innovative teams make
feedback part of their iterative process.
 Welcome New Ideas (Psychological Climate):
When we welcome people’s new ideas, they will generate more ideas. Now, this does
not mean that all their ideas are good. That’s ok, great solutions start with generating
lots of ideas, then evaluating and picking the best. Innovative leaders understand how
to evaluate new ideas. We find the most powerful way to evaluate ideas is using the
tool POINt. This tool teaches people to start with praise first, which helps deflate any
defensiveness. We’ll find other ways to evaluate ideas in our tools library. Do this and
our team will more quickly create innovative solutions.

Leading innovative practices

Personal leadership style to confirm it models positive innovative thinking and practice
 1. THE AUTHORITATIVE LEADER:
The Authoritative Leader focuses on setting and achieving goals.
“The authoritative leader can give direction, then step back and watch success
take shape as employees put their own spin on producing their work.”
The Authoritative Leader has a strong entrepreneurial spirit and inspires an
eagerness for success among employees.
2. THE AUTHENTIC EXEC
The Authentic Exec is transparent and honest, responding in the moment and
unleashing their actual emotions regardless of how they fear they’ll be viewed.
“Of all the types of leadership models, the Authentic Exec approach requires
balance.”
3. THE FORERUNNER EXECUTIVE
A Forerunner Executive truly leads by example. They set the pace in regards to
productivity and everything else falls into place. This type of model works
seamlessly in companies with highly-skilled teams. Because employees have the
necessary training to execute, a Forerunner sets the bar high. This type of
leadership is based on a “Do as I do” philosophy, ensuring employees have an
example by which to work.
“Motivated employees thrive under a forerunner leader because they inspire
greatness.”

Practice that models and supports innovation

 How an authoritative model works
 Executives are true experts in their field, molding their employees into high-
performers

 Employees have strong mentors and feel confident in their growing abilities.

 Confidence and faith in leadership are constant.

 A success-culture is created in the office.

 how an authenticity model works
 Executives are more accessible and relatable to their employees.

 Employees on all levels feel comfortable sharing new ideas.

 Passion for company success is welcomed and promoted among all employees.

 A family-like culture exists in the office.

 how an authoritative model works:
  Executives lead by example, ensuring employees always know what’s expected
of them.

 There is a low margin for error and a high level of productivity.

 Trust is easily built between leaders and employees who rely on their guidance.

 A productivity-based culture exists in the office.

Requirements to promote sustainable innovative activities

 Strong ability to inspire greatness in others

 A keen interest in bettering the workplace environment
 Confident and cool-headed in the face of adversity
 Maintains a positive attitude and leads by example
 Focused on solutions instead of problems
 Highly productive/not one to waste time
 Honest and loyal in their pursuit for company success
 A goal-setter and achiever
 Expert listener who is able to distill important information
As innovative ideas surface, a clear sense of mission empowers front-line employees to act on
new ideas that further our company's purpose.

Methods to promote knowledge transfer with relevant stakeholders

1. Decide what information you need to keep:

Begin by carefully considering what kinds of knowledge are useful to stakeholders and
people every day—from simple information, like how to log a customer service call in
our CRM, to more complex knowledge, like the best strategies for responding to tough
customer objections throughout the process. If we don’t identify this information, we’ll
not only fail to ensure processes and behaviors are consistent across the organization,
but we’ll leave documentation to chance and risk losing valuable knowledge every time
someone moves on.
2. Create a process for transferring knowledge:
Beyond determining what knowledge needs to be documented, we also need to
consider how to save it for use of stakeholders. For some information, that will be
simple. But, for other types of knowledge, it’s a bit more complex.

3. Choose a platform to facilitate knowledge transfer:

Knowledge management technology that requires little effort to save information
eliminates many obstacles to successful knowledge transfer. A good knowledge
management platform will enable us to standardize and automate how information is
 saved while also making it as easy as possible for people to share what they know.

Risks associated with innovation and how to manage them

1. Recognize that a model exists and needs to be developed for judging risk and return:
Even those innovations that involve only minor alterations to existing products or
require minimal investment are built on a foundation of knowledge. Cognitive scientist
refers to the use of this knowledge about risk and return as a “mental model” whereby
the decision maker assesses the trade-offs of taking risks and generating return.

2. Every innovation model has its own set of limitations:

There are two broad and pervasive types of limitations to an innovation’s model. The
first is having an incorrect model – one where the underlying assumptions about the
innovation’s potential and the way it is fundamentally evaluated is simply wrong. This
requires a complete turn around and redevelopment of a new model. The second is
having an incomplete decision model. Incompleteness is a limitation that all models
have in common as an innovation model will never be perfect.

3. Expect the unknowns:

Even with unconstrained time and resources, an innovation model will never
incorporate all the factors that could potentially affect the innovation’s success and
completely minimize its related risk. This is largely due to the fact that many unrelated
risks, when occurring simultaneously, can inadvertently become an adverse event that
ultimately results in an inept innovation.

Supporting the culture of innovation

Innovative practices, processes, products and/or services according to audience and
organisational requirements

 Discover new markets:

Instead of competing with stubborn competitors in competitive markets, companies
should try to win new and previously untouched markets or sub-markets.
 Diversity is the key:
A high diversity in terms of team composition is an ideal breeding ground for fresh
ideas in practice. For this reason, personnel selection is a central innovation strategy.
The ability to innovate is particularly high in mixed teams consisting of men and
women of different age groups and backgrounds.
 Input from outside:
Numerous international companies are already using the possibilities of networking for
innovation development. Instead of internal solutions, crowd sourcing is increasingly
used in the course of innovation management. By involving customers and testers from
external sources, creative input can be increased many times over, which significantly
improves the opportunity for innovation.
 Creating free space:
 As already mentioned at the beginning, innovations are closely linked to creative
freedom. In this context, time and performance pressure in particular have a poisonous
effect on the creativity of employees. Companies should therefore specifically integrate
niches in their day-to-day work. Even an individualized working environment often
inspires the creativity of employees.
 Taking up ideas:
Even the most ingenious idea is ineffective in a company if it is not accepted by other
people in the company. In this way, innovative thoughts get lost in the stress of
everyday life on a daily basis. To prevent this from happening, the underlying processes
in the company are particularly important. A critical self-assessment of ideas that have
not yet been implemented can help to revise one's own innovation management.

Ways to capture, communicate and share innovative ideas and practices

1. Ask Questions. Asking questions to your employees regularly helps generate a lot of
ideas.
2. Provide Incentives.
3. Encourage Feedback.
4. Gamify the Process.
5. Communicate Effectively.
6. Use an Idea Collection Tool.
7. Take Action on the Great Ones.
8. Schedule Regular Brainstorms.

Team approaches foster communication, consultation and team development for innovation

1. Encourage interaction between departments

In large businesses in particular it can be easy for different departments to become segregated
and shut off from each other, making it difficult for employees to fully appreciate how the
business functions as a whole. Encouraging members of different departments to come
together now and again can help our team to break out of their silos, be inspired by new ways
of thinking and come up with ways in which departments could work together to make
processes more efficient or effective.
2. Always look for alternative methods, and encourage your team to do the same
Although tried and tested practices often seem like the safer option, sometimes we find
ourselves doing things ‘the old way’ when there’s a better, more successful method out there.
It’s always a good idea to look for alternative methods, and in doing so we’ll lead by example
and encourage our team to do the same.
3. Try reverse mentoring to gain different perspectives
Reverse mentoring is the process of teaming up senior and junior employees in order that
both parties gain new skills and knowledge. Although a senior employee may have many years
of business expertise and industry knowledge to pass on, the junior staff member might have
valuable insights to share on new technologies which could be useful to the business, or have
a better understanding of what makes young consumers tick.
4. Get out of the office
Creativity and innovation doesn’t always come when we’re restricted to the same office every
day. Get out into new environments and encourage our team to do the same. A refreshing
walk, lunch at a local cafe or even a Monday morning working from home could be enough to
get the creative juices flowing.
5. Tolerate and encourage learning by mistakes
With innovative thinking and new ideas inevitably comes a certain degree of risk-taking, but
it’s important to embrace this rather than be afraid of it. When members of our team take
risks and get things wrong, be sure to let them know that we tolerate the error and encourage
them to learn from it.

Relevant resources for innovation processes

In order to achieve this innovation—to start creating ideas, processes, services, and products
that are forward-thinking and unique—companies need to make permanent allocations of
money, people, time, and equipment that are dedicated to the sole mission of innovating.

Strategies to foster a workplace culture that encourages innovation

 Communicate – Let employees know where they can submit their ideas.
 Create an Innovation Sandbox – Define what innovation means for your organization!
 Be open to new ideas (and be willing to build on them)
 Provide constructive feedback.
 Reward smart risk takers.

Systems and processes that support innovation

1. Generating Ideas

Generating ideas is the exhilarating part of the process. It is best to do this in teams, rather
than individually. Innovative ideas generally come from a vision, an unreasonable demand, or
a goal.

2. Capturing Ideas

Capturing the ideas from the first stage is done by means of team discussion or discussion
among peers. It is important to record the ideas.

3. Beginning Innovation

Review the list of ideas and develop them into a series of statements of ideas. Next, quantify
the benefits of each idea to be pursued. Do this in reference to the department, the
organization, and/or the customer.

Sustaining innovative thinking and practice

Strategies where innovation is an integral part of organisational activity

It is important to develop an environment/culture which will foster innovation.

A framework to support innovation includes integrating it into your business objectives by:
 taking a holistic approach to innovation
 establishing strong channels of communication
 fostering a culture of innovation.
For an innovation strategy to be effective, it needs to be integrated into senior leaders'
agendas. Using performance metrics and targets for innovation helps senior management
integrate innovation into their normal pattern of business and creates an environment where
staff are comfortable with innovating and better use of existing talents is made.

Processes to undertake that will confirm ongoing awareness of individual and collective
contributions to innovative thinking and practice
Organizational firms adopt openness in the innovation absorption where the dynamicity gets
established. It is orienting to better learning and research environment that firms develop
their performance capacity. With the help of leadership and teamwork innovation a creative
tilt of gaining evolved ideas and competitive edge oriented understanding to be created. This
makes the organization encourage training and creative learning than that of industrial
effectiveness fostering growth oriented performance. Making the firm secure better results
with new ideas are helped to create sustainable position in the market.

Potential barriers and risks to innovation and devise strategies to respond

1. Politics/Turf Wars/No Alignment (55.1% of Respondents)

As a company grows, so does the complexity of its internal politics. This is why smaller startups
often have an easier time innovating than larger corporations.

Implementing a new innovation program can require sweeping internal changes, meaning that
some employee roles will change for the better, and others will change for the worse.

2. Cultural Issues (45.3% of Respondents)

Risk and innovation go hand-in-hand. As the cliché goes, we can’t make an omelet without
breaking a few eggs. Innovation will inevitably lead to some failures, and for some businesses,
any missteps are viewed as unacceptable.
One great way to minimize risk aversion in an innovation program is by optimizing your proof-
of-concept process. While this will not completely eliminate risk, it can allow our company to
make informed decisions that will have a higher rate of success.
3. Inability to Act on Signals (41.6% of Respondents)
A large part of enacting an innovative new product, service or procedure is recognizing the
need for the change in the first place.

Innovation performance as a basis for developing strategies for improvement

Defined as the ability to transform innovation resources and capabilities into outputs that
result in innovative market success, innovation performance underscores the notion that
achieving market success is reliant on the efforts of other innovators in one's environment.
Simply put, innovation can lead to higher productivity, meaning that the same input generates
a greater output. As productivity rises, more goods and services are produced – in other
words, the economy grows.

Feedback from relevant stakeholders

Overall performance was satisfactory for them. They are happy with their decision of making
investment to our fitness company. They want to focus more on old aged customers as they
need more care then other young clients. Also, new equipment must be added for old aged
people as it is difficult for them to deal with heavy weights, we need to introduce new exercise
for them and some equipment which are flexible in use and gives good result.

Changes to innovative thinking and practices according to feedback received

 edition of new equipment
 hire another well-educated and experienced trainer and nutritionist for old aged
people
 weekly classes to employees
 weekly classes for customers
 flexible hours for workout
 exceed online training sessions timing as compare to the old one