DISCUSSION QUESTION
PURPOSE
This assignment builds on the individual pre-assignment (EssayFactory order nr #780311) and the course learning journey, focusing this time on a particular organization you select and assisting by associating your learning from the course to develop your design thinking and innovation capabilities. The organization can be for-profit, non-profit, or a government agency located anywhere in the world, as long as you prepare for this assignment thoroughly, with the support of relevant literature and external sources, and preferably interviewing someone from the company.
The purpose of the assignment is to associate your newly captured insights with an organization of your choice. Choose an organization you are passionate about that could do with your expertise. Consider this an excellent opportunity to reflect and advise the chosen organization in growing its design thinking and innovation capacity in times of considerable uncertainty.
GUIDANCE
Complete the following tasks:
– Review your pre-assignment, all course materials, and team assignment-related materials one more time.
– Explore and decide on a target organization you are excited about and want to advise.
– Make a deep dive market research based on published materials, observation, and personal email or live interviews to scope a significant problem worth solving in the organization context.
– The problem could relate to something the organization could do significantly better (e.g., customer offering), is not currently doing at all (e.g., employee-related benefits), or something they are doing that must stop to implement your alternative solution (e.g., unethical behavior).
– Based on research findings, proceed to design a novel and intriguing solution by applying design and business thinking as described in the course and other materials covered during the course.
– Write all this in an executive-level advisory report, which your target company can use as a base for action in their next leadership meeting.
DELIVERABLES
– Cover with heading and name, max 6-pages of pure text with page numbering and subheadings as requested: professional document with APA references, unlimited number of complete appendices including relevant and readable tables, graphs, images, etc. Font 12, 1.0 spacing, and standard margins.
– Note: executives are busy people who crave evidence to make sound decisions, so ensure you stick to the core, reference, and if you need more pages, refer to relevant appendices in the main text.
– Before starting this assignment, check the rubric for what determines a quality contribution.
– You are expected to submit a detailed description of your problem-solution set for the chosen organization by referring actively to relevant sources to strengthen your problem argument and then responding to the following critical areas of importance (use these headings):
1. Introduction and Problem Statement: Introduce the paper by leading the reading to the theme, the problem, and critical findings, along with a brief document flow overview. Remember to introduce your chosen organization briefly and any key stakeholders you plan to advise as an outcome.
2. Market Research: Identify and define the problem area based on your research findings regarding currency, relevancy, and societal and business significance (actively referenced, both academically and professionally).
3. Associate to course learnings: Apply the skill of associating as described in the course materials by identifying critical insights from the course and your individual and teamwork. Discuss these critical insights and use them as inspiration when describing how they can help develop a solution to the organization’s current problem. As you may recall, associating is the idea that you borrow ideas from one area and then use them as inspiration in another.
4. The Problem-Solution Fit: Describe your solution and provide evidence to the extent possible that it solves the problem as defined in this paper.
5. Concluding Discussion: Conclude by arguing, based on your newly gathered research and analyzed intelligence, why solving this problem is worthwhile, especially from a business and data collection perspective. Why is it novel and fresh, despite potential competition / alternative solutions? Finally, list concrete actions for your team to proceed and succeed in building a state-of-the-art solution.
6. Personal Reflection: Discuss critical findings from this assignment and the course at large for yourself; what was most valuable learning? Discuss how enhanced your knowledge with your team members throughout the course.
