WHAT ROLE DO YOU PLAY IN TEAM INNOVATION?

Creativity guru Roger von Oech, & also author of two great classics, namely, 'A Whack on the Side of the Head' & 'A Kick in the Seat of the Pants', among many others, propounds 4 important role-playing personnas, in team innovation so to speak:

- explorer;
- artist;
- judge;
- warrior;

Likewise, creativity guru Edward de bono, & also progenitor of 'Lateral Thinking', has his own version of six important role-playing personnas, using the analogy of wearing coloured hats.

Interestingly, his one-time protege, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, from Down Under, has seemingly a competitive version of seven important role-playing personnas, using the analogy of wearing coloured sports caps.

The award-winning industrial design firm, IDEO, has shared their perspectives of important role-playing personnas more specifically in team innovation in the wonderful book, 'Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate & Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization', by Tom Kelley, General Manager.

[Please refer to my earlier post, entitled 'Becoming More of an Innovator in Your Daily Life', of this weblog.]

In a nut shell, & as I see it, based on my own personal & professional experiences, the real purpose of all these role-playing personnas is to generate shifting perspectives in one's mind, to ride on the cross-functional synergies of different departments or business units, & to leverage on the diversity & the intellectual capital of all the people in, within as well as outside the organisation (e.g. customers, suppliers, facilitators, competitors).

Needless to say, human ingenuity is such that no one plays a single role. It's always a multitude of roles, or may even be composite roles when raw ideas take birth in human minds.

What follows is Dilip Mukerjea's version, visually speaking, of role-playing personnas in team innovation:

TEAM INNOVATION


DESIGNER

EVALUATOR

GENERATOR

IMPLEMENTOR

PROMOTOR
So, what role or multitude of roles do you play in team innovation?

[All images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]