Open Innovation

Harnessing the power of people in your organisation to drive innovation. A step by step guide and toolkit to manage ‘Open Innovation Challenges’ in your organization.

Three phases of Open Innovation Programme

  • a. Info session

    Info session for prospective challenge owners (recruitment of challenge owners with organisation)

    b. 1 to 1 Interviews or online survey

    Interviews with challenge owners to understand their problem statement

    c. Challenge statements

    Synthesising interview insights into clear and actionable challenge statements.

  • a. Outreach

    Create a clear and inviting outreach materials that explains the whole competition to people in organisation

    b. Recruitment

    Manage people signing up for the challenges

    c. Team Formation

    Forming balanced teams people who have signed up for the programme and matching them with challenge owners.

  • a. Innovation Design Workshop

    • Interactive session where challenge owners describe their problems in their own words

    • Workshop to familiarise with innovation tools

    • Designing research activities and dry run of the process

    b. Guided Solution development

    • Research

    • Ideation and Prototyping

    • Pitch Preparation

    c. Final Pitch

    • Team presentation

    • Judges evaluation

    • Competition results

Example of Challenge Statements

  • Attracting Talent (Fresh Grads)

    How can we understand prospective employees’ requirements in order to attract young talent (fresh graduates)?

    What are we trying to solve?

    Attracting young talent to a company

    It is challenging to attract new talents for two main reasons:

    • Food manufacturing industry is seen as harsh & unattractive

    • Company has a limited understanding of what young talents want and how to reach out to them

    “How can we make ourselves attractive to attract future employees?” (Key verbatims from scoping interview)

  • Attracting Talent (young, local)

    How can we better attract and retain young, local talents for the factory operations?

    What are we trying to solve?

    Difficulties with business expansion due to insufficient manpower

    It is challenging to attract new talents for two main reasons:

    • Food manufacturing industry is seen as unattractive

    • People are used to higher hourly rates during covid that FM companies can’t keep up with.

    Company often employs foreign workforce (Malaysian) but they also tend to leave after 6-10 months.

    “Singaporeans are very choosy, I don’t know why, they don’t want to work for Food Manufacturing companies.” (Key verbatims from scoping interview)

  • Automation

    How can we identify gaps and opportunities to automate an ordering process through automation?

    What are we trying to solve?

    Gap in productivity and efficiency of the ordering process.

    Par International intends to streamline and automate its supply chain process, through AI, to increase its productivity and efficiency.

    A purchase order process comprises of:

    • Purchase Order Confirmation

    • Issuing Delivery Note

    • Notifying the warehouse of New Order

    “My desired result would be to streamline and automate the operations from ordering to warehouse distributions.” (Key verbatims from scoping interview)

Example of 5 Days Hackathon Programme

It is not five full days but spread over five days.

  • Get familiar with challenge, teams and design thinking

    1. Introductions - challenge teams and challenge owners.

    2. Challenge intro by companies - in their own words

    3. Intro to Design Thinking

    4. Dry run using Design Thinking Tools

    5. Prepare for Field Research

  • Step into the shoes of a user researcher for a day

    1. Interview users

    2. Post field work synthesis session - synthesise key learning and insights from the days research work

  • Generate ideas to develop solution for your challenge

    1. Reframe the problem

    2. Generate Ideas

    3. Develop solution prototypes

    Notes:

    • Self-organise your respective teams to meet for this session

    • Follow steps given in the toolkit

    • Use field research insights

  • Develop a convincing pitch to present your solution

    1. Prepare the pitch

    2. Practice the pitch

    Note:

    • Self-organise your respective teams to meet for this session

    • Follow guidelines given in the toolkit

  • Present your solution pitch to challenge owners

    1. Respective team pitch their solution idea to judging panel

    2. Judges compile results

    3. Results are announced

    4. Drinks and networking

    Notes:

    Each team gets 5 minutes to present, followed by 5 to 7 minutes Q&A by judges if required

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