RECENT ASSIGNMENT

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School of Management
BUSM4550 CID/Innovation Management
Assessment 2: Group Project
Assessment type: Portfolio of artefacts
Word limit: 2,500 (+/- 10%)
Word count excludes the cover page, contents list, and reference list.
Due Date: Before or on Friday of week 10 @ 23:59 (AEST)
Weighting: 50%
Overview
The purpose of this assessment is to allow you to work collaboratively as you demonstrate competence in the application of core topics covered in the course. Key topics include the use of Design Thinking (DT) and Lean Startup methodologies, as well as their associated creativity tools and approaches.
You are required to collaborate in Groups to propose a creative and practical solution for a real-world, human-centred problem. You will demonstrate that solution by means of an early prototype. Each Group will produce several project learning artefacts (deliverables). These will demonstrate a team’s progression towards developing a solution to that real-world problem.
Definition
In this course, a project learning artefact is an object of applied learning. It is created by students during the execution of a project in a way that makes its relevance clearly visible to others.
For instance, an artefact can portray the application of any tool or method a Group uses in any of the DT phases, together with the learning they obtained from it. Some possible examples include areas such as Empathy Mapping, Ishikawa Diagram, La Salle Matrix, Customer Journey, and Value Proposition Canvas.
Assessment criteria (100 marks equate to 50% of overall course assessment)
This assessment will measure your ability to achieve the following. Specific details for each criterion are at the end of this document:
1. Complete Phase 1 of the Design Thinking process (30 marks)
2. Complete Phase 2 of the Design Thinking process (15 marks)
3. Complete Phase 3 of the Design Thinking process (40 marks)
4. Identification and discussion of potential ethical issues (5 marks)
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5. Overall quality of work (10 marks)
Learning outcomes
Course Learning Outcomes related to this assessment are:
CLO4
CLO6
Work individually, and collaboratively with others in applying a range of tools that assist the creative front end of innovation that leads to problem solving.
Demonstrate learning through presentation and communication skills in a variety of business and professional contexts.
The Program Learning Outcomes related to this assessment are:
PLO2
PLO4
PLO5
Integrate business knowledge, social intelligence and ethical decision-making in ways that are inclusive and culturally appropriate to produce outcomes that are impactful, sustainable and fair.
Reflect on and continuously progress their own professional development, enhancing their intellectual agility and adaptability as tools for success in ever-changing business contexts.
Coherently articulate technical and conceptual business knowledge that is both contemporary and interdisciplinary.
Assessment details
GROUP FORMATION | You are required to form groups of maximum 5 students. Each group will select a group leader and a deputy group leader, who have responsibilities that are specified in the Process for Guiding Group Work document [see Canvas]. These roles may be rotated among members.
Keep in mind that creativity is often stimulated by differences rather than similarities; it thrives in a conflict of information, ideas and perspectives. Therefore, when forming your groups, please think about finding group members with different skill sets coupled with diverse backgrounds that reflect gender balance. Research has shown that these factors can help to foster creative thinking and problem-solving in groups.
TASK | Your group task is to identify a specific problem and derive a relevant solution. To achieve this, consider your group as a task force (temporary work unit) within or outside an organisation. Many of the world's corporate and non-corporate problems are complex and evolving. They require new ways of thinking, new methods, and new products/services to solve. They also require collaborations between individuals with complementary skills.
Thus, in this Assessment you are asked to take on the role of active collaborators. Together, your team will identify a problem and come up with new and useful solutions that solve it.
Hot tip #1
“Cooperation” is the traditional approach used for most Group assignments.
However, for this module, Groups need to work “Collaboratively”. The nature of cooperation is that individual Group members are delegated specific tasks, which
are completed independently of other members. All pieces are then assembled
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together to generate a portfolio or final work piece. Collaboration goes beyond this as it builds upon collective work around “shared” inputs. Communication is vital to allow Groups to cohere and co-create solutions to their chosen problem. This collaborative, communicative, iterative approach is central to the Design Thinking methodology required.
STEP 1 | The first step of your challenge is called “Problem Identification”; you have to choose a Topic. Groups are required to identify a real-world organisational problem, OR, a non-organization-related problem. Whatever problem you select, it must be current, pressing, and have negative consequences for stakeholders, e.g., the organisation, its employees, or society at large.
For example, organisational topics could range from firms having difficulty in establishing innovation-supportive cultures within their organisations, to addressing the high staff turnover or attrition rates. Non-organisational topics could cover aspects such as the disposal of plastic waste, addressing agricultural land degradation and advocating for healthy soil, etc. The range is wide, your challenge is to identify a topic that the group feels motivated to work on.
STEP 2 | Groups will dive down to develop a deeper, more empathetic understanding of their problem and the people who are impacted. Following on from a clear “Problem Definition”, the task requires that groups move ahead with ideas to solve the identified problem.
Step 2 requires groups to develop a creative (i.e., new, and useful) and practical idea on how to solve this problem. Groups must approach their solution using Design Thinking in combination with Lean Startup principles. This approach is reflected in the assessment criteria.
STEP 3 | Groups must create a lead-generation landing page in which they concisely depict their solutions to their target audience with a specific Call to Action. Driving real customers/end users to the landing page falls outside the scope of this assignment, though.
Hot tip #2
This task requires that groups focus their solutions around a “human-centred” problem, and the Design Thinking methodology is a most appropriate tool for this. However, Design Thinking is not the most suitable approach for solving y purely scientific or engineering problems. Therefore, please avoid problems that
require predominantly technical solutions.
Hot tip #3
Pick your topic wisely and discuss it with your tutor first to see whether it is a suitable and appropriate topic for this course, before you proceed. Try not to change your project once you have commenced because you will lose valuable time in doing so. However, if you find early on that you have made the wrong choice, discuss it with your tutor and make the switch quickly so you can make up for lost ground.
IMPORTANT NOTES
1. This assessment is designed to provide students the space to demonstrate their mastery of the DT process and tools covered. This means that it is essential that groups appropriately apply the tools and techniques taught here as part of this academic course. Good outcomes tend to follow
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good processes, so groups are encouraged to trust in the DT process. It is good advice to invest the group’s energy in the process, rather than overly focus on the quality of the eventual solution.
2. The assessment limits itself to the first three phases of the DT process. Each phase is introduced in the weekly Modules in Canvas. For the best project experience, students are encouraged to keep pace with their learning. There is no requirement to complete phase 4 for this project; there is no grade in the rubric either.
3. For a topic to be acceptable, it will have a clearly identified problem, as well as a set of people who are impacted by it. The following set of Topics will not be accepted: Bullying, any topic related to the wellbeing of employees including workplace stress, negative effects of social media, multicultural work environments.
TOOLS AND METHODS
Groups must use tools and methods taught on this course that cover the first three phases of the DT process. When used effectively, they will help groups apply their learning towards developing a proposed solution.
The tools are listed in the table below, and groups need to understand that those marked as “Compulsory” must be provided as part of their portfolio. For tools marked as “Optional”, groups can choose which are the relevant ones to provide.
The quality of artefacts provided will be judged as part of the grading process. Grading will also factor in the relevance of these artefacts, i.e., the decisions a group makes to include, or omit, specific optional tools.
DT Phases Tools / Methods Compulsory / Optional Marks
1 Discovery Problem Identification (with Secondary research summary), Problem Statement, Empathy mapping, Problem Mind Map Compulsory 30
Journey mapping, Value chain analysis, Visualisation, Storyboarding, Personas, Root-Cause Analysis (Ishikawa, 5 WHY’s, Pareto), etc. Optional
2 ideation Brainstorming (any form of divergent thinking, such as La Salle Matrix), Decision making (convergent thinking); Value Proposition Canvas Compulsory 15
Visualisation, Concept Development, etc. Optional
3 Experimentation Customer pitch (written narrative only, Strategyzer style), B-M-L table, MVP (visual presentation), Lead-generation landing page Compulsory 40
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Link-up with Resource-Constrained Innovation, Link-up with SDGs Optional
N/A Ethical considerations Compulsory 5
N/A Overall quality of work 10
Submission of this Assessment will not be in the format of a typical management report. Instead, groups must logically organise and submit their portfolio of artefacts in one Word document.
To provide ongoing evidence of progress, it is essential that each group use the Files section on Canvas for their group to maintain an up-to-date portfolio of their draft artefacts. This will allow their Tutor the potential to provide formative feedback during each workshop. It will also afford Tutors the ability to judge a group’s progress as well as evaluate the authenticity of that work.
DOCUMENT STRUCTURE
Structure your submission document as follows:
1. Cover Page
You must include the following on your cover page:
• BUSM4550/1/3 Innovation Management; Date; Tutor name
• Assessment 2: Group Project; Project title
• Group Name (Tutorial X Group Y); Full names and student numbers of all group members
• Clickable hyperlink to Landing Page
• Word count (count excludes cover page, contents page, Reference list)
2. Table of Contents (provide descriptive numbered headings for each phase, sub-headings (for each artefact), and page numbers)
3. Artefacts Present each artefact on a new page sequentially according to phase in a logical progression, using the following format:
a) Purpose: Briefly explain your rationale for using this tool/method
b) Implementation: Describe in short how your group used this tool/method
c) Output: What information was forthcoming from implementing this tool/method? Include easy viewable graphs, images, or tables.
d) Insights: What are the main learnings or insights you gained from having used this tool/method? How does this assist your group in progressing towards the proposed solution?
FURTHER EXPLANATORY NOTES REGARDING THE USE OF TOOLS / METHODS
Secondary research
Groups will conduct secondary research as part of the “Problem Identification” and “Definition” phases to learn as much as possible about the problem identified and its consequences. To achieve
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this, they will use scholarly and professional literature, as well as use other routes, such as reading journal articles, books, magazine articles referring to news, and TED Talks.
A full reference list must be included at the end of the summary and will include a minimum of 5 references from recent scholarly work (2014-2021). The remaining References can be non-scholarly works. References should be formatted using RMIT Harvard style (or Harvard style if using Endnote). The list should be in alphabetical order by family name, and not listed by numbers or bullet points. The reference list is not included in the word count.
Problem Statement
This is an essential part of the Design Thinking process, as it helps you set out the problem with clarity, and in an actionable way. All projects must therefore use the template provided as part of their submission to identify the problem that the group is working on. The Problem Statement also importantly allows you to bring focus to the customer or end-user(s) that is experiencing the problem.
Empathy Mapping
Using this tool, groups must use a series of prompts to identify their target group's thoughts, feelings, motivations, desires, and needs in a way to gain a deeper insight into their customers.
Mind Map
Groups will submit a mind map that summarises the various facets or sub-sets of the problem they face. That map will clearly indicate which part(s) of the problem the groups is attempting to derive a solution for.
Brainstorming
Groups will inevitably brainstorm to generate ideas on numerous occasions, especially during divergent phases of the creative process. Any form of brainstorming that has been covered on this course is acceptable. Groups will apply these amongst other things, to derive as many as possible ideas for solving the problem.
Decision-making
Groups will also need to engage in convergent thinking as they shrink their list of ideas generated into a relevant and more workable set. This is an evaluation process that requires critical thinking. Groups need to explain the methodology followed during convergence, as well as the rationale used to select the idea(s) implemented in their selected solution.
Value Proposition Canvas (achieving Problem-Solution fit)
The VPC sets out very clearly who the customer is that is impacted by the problem, together with proposals that address that problem. Groups must provide a VPC that specifically zooms in on their target audience, there associated problem, and your team’s proposed solution. As expressed in the course materials, your VPC represents the ‘problem-solution’ fit in the Lean Startup scheme of things. Be specific as you describe your solution’s features and functionality, keeping in mind that high level, or generic offerings are not acceptable.
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Customer pitch
“Selling” the idea to senior management is an inevitable part of any innovation process. Groups must therefore consider how to convince others to buy into their proposed solution. We have provided the Strategyzer template which must be used to develop your customer pitch. Apply the template to provide the written narrative as-if you were delivering your pitch. That said, you are not required to deliver any pitch as part of this project.
MVP and B-M-L Table (achieving Product-Market fit)
Conceptually develop and describe or depict your minimum viable product(s) (MVPs), one or more of which must appear on your landing page for the purpose of explaining your solution to your target audience. The actual testing of an MVP falls outside the scope of this assignment, however, for planning purposes, you must identify your main assumptions and show what experiments you plan to run with appropriate MVPs, including the metrics you will use to validate or invalidate your assumptions.
If your MVP or part thereof takes the form of a short film, please adhere to the following principles:
1. Films can be produced as a documentary, role-play, news report or any other creative manner that succeeds in explaining your solution to the intended audience and clearly communicates your message.
2. It is optional for group members to appear in the film. If you decide to include people, they must be members of your group. No members of the public or students form another group may appear in your film.
3. The group members must agree to being filmed.
4. Films can be recorded outdoors but limit the inclusion of passers by as much as possible as their consent is not obtained.
5. The film should avoid sensitive/inappropriate topics (e.g., topics that incite hatred or glorify unlawful behaviour, etc.)
6. Include your film on your landing page and ensure it is viewable.
Lead-generation landing page
This must be a live web page where potential customers/users can learn about your solution and register their interest should they wish to do so. Incorporate an MVP of your solution or an early prototype of your solution in its current state of development with a specific Call to Action (CTA).
Ethical considerations
With any innovative change, it is likely that ethical issues or dilemmas may crop up. As part of risk management, groups should reflect to identify any ethical aspects that may arise as a result of their proposed solution. They will also need explain how to address these in order to mitigate and manage the potential likely risks.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Feedback mode: Feedback will be provided using Canvas/Turnitin's inline marking tool, a Rubric, and general comments.
Turnitin Similarity Percentage: The Turnitin Similarity Percentage is an indicator of the similarity of your paper with other assignments. This link gives you information on how to interpret the similarity report.
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Equity Contribution Policy (EOC)
All members of a group need to read and sign the EOC agreement (see Canvas). The team leader must then upload this as a separate document to the report onto Canvas before or on the deadline for assessment 2. A special link will be created in the Assignment 2 portal to enable this.
Online collaboration
As you may not always have the opportunity to meet your group members face-to-face to collaborate on this Assignment, using online tools (e.g., Skype, WhatsApp, Google docs, email, etc) are essential. Think of yourselves as a task force working in a virtual environment which is typical of teams globally.
A task force represents a miniature work organization tasked with achieving a goal. They can be found in scientific and consulting units or work organizations that are temporary in nature. All members of the task force must work towards solving a given problem within a given budget and time frame, and in this task collaborating virtually using online tools. This is a good opportunity to refine your technology skills to practice and develop means and ways of effective collaboration online.
First things first!
• Have you formed a group in Canvas?
You must form teams of five (5) students (minimum and maximum) from your tutorial group. At times it will be inevitable to have four students in a team, but for such cases permission must be obtained from the tutor. A special case must be put forward to the Course Coordinator by students wanting to complete the assignment individually. Only cases with exceptional circumstances will be considered. The same required output will be expected from each team and the same marking rubrics will be applied to each project, irrespective of team size.
We encourage you to start forming teams by week 3 at the latest. It is your responsibility to register your team on Canvas in the 'Assignment 2' tab in the People section. It is essential that, in order to be awarded the collective group mark, you must be enrolled into the team. Failure to do so will result in a zero mark even if you have contributed to the report.
To help you find a team, regular workshop attendance and getting to know fellow students during activities are highly recommended. The deadline for aligning yourself with a group of your choice is 5 pm on Friday of week 4. If you are not part of a team by then, your tutor will assign you to a team in week 5. Remember that you should be active in only ONE group and group members must be from the same tutorial.
• Submission
This is a group assignment and hence only the group leader is required to submit this assignment and the EOC on behalf of the other group members.
• Font: Ariel or Calibri 12-point
• Format: Word documents in either .doc or .docx formats. Assignments submitted in pdf format will not be graded.
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• Keep a screen shot of the submission time in case this is required by the assessor.
Turnitin
Assignments and other assessments must be submitted through the CANVAS assessment submission system (Turnitin) in WORD format. Submitted assignments that do not have a similarity score will not be graded.
Turnitin Similarity Percentage: The Turnitin Similarity Percentage is an indicator of the similarity of your paper with other assignments. This link gives you information on how to interpret the similarity report.
If you are checking the similarity score multiple times, allow sufficient time for the Turnitin system to reset before you make another attempt at obtaining a similarity score. Make sure you obtain your final similarity score well in advance of the assignment deadline in order to avoid a penalty for late submission.
Do NOT attempt to obtain a similarity score by first submitting it to Turnitin via another course as this will result in you achieving a very high similarity score when you eventually submit your assignment for this course.
Referencing guidelines
Use RMIT Harvard referencing style for this assessment.
You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.
Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on how to reference in the appropriated style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.
Academic integrity and plagiarism
Academic integrity is about honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge, and ideas.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:
• Failure to properly document a source
• Copyright material from the internet or databases
• Collusion between students
You should take extreme care that you have:
• Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e., directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods
• Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites
If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.
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RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
For further information on our policies and procedures, please refer to the University website.
Assessment declaration
When you submit work electronically, you agree to the assessment declaration.
Do NOT submit this declaration via Canvas.
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Rubric
HD DI CR PA NN DNS
1. Overall quality of work presented Cover page with all relevant information; Table of Contents; logical flow of content; No spelling mistakes and grammatical errors; Tables and figures appropriately numbered and referred to; Appropriate headings-and sub-headings appropriately numbered; sources appropriately cited; Reference list provided (RMIT Harvard / Harvard style). 10 marks Fully meets all the required criteria. Excellent quality of work. Meets most of the required criteria. Very good quality of work. Some of the criteria are not being met. Good quality of work. Several criteria are not being adhered to. Very average quality of work. An unacceptable number of criteria are not being met. Poor quality of work. One or more of the following items/practices are missing: • Cover page • TOC • Citation of sources • Reference list
2. DT Phase 1 - Discovery Appropriate choice of tools and usage; Relevant and enough contextual information provided from reputable sources (at least 5 recent scholarly sources); Ascertained and presented sufficient understanding of problem in terms of identified customer/user needs; Problem clearly defined. 30 marks Excellent application of compulsory and optional tools; Secondary research consulted reputable sources; is exceptional and very clearly portrays the full scope of the problem. Good application of compulsory and optional tools; Secondary research consulted reputable sources; is very good and portrays the full scope of the problem. Reasonably good application of compulsory tools; some compulsory tools were not used, certain optional tools should have been used, but were not. Secondary research done, but source quality is questionable; portrays only some aspects of the problem. Poor application of tools; Some optional tools should have been used but were not. Secondary research is poorly done and/or sources are of questionable quality; portrays the problem poorly. Very poor application of tools; No optional tools have been used. Secondary research has no credibility and/or sources are of questionable quality; portrays the problem in a very unconvincing way. One or more compulsory tools have not been used. No attempt at using optional tools. No evidence of secondary research. Problem description lacks any credibility.
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3. DT Phase 2 - Ideation Followed relevant process with choice of tools that are appropriate to the situation; Appropriate tool usage; Sufficient number and quality of ideas generated; Sound justification for choice of final solution. 15 marks Excellent demonstration of divergent and convergent thinking and tools to arrive at preferred solution; Excellent portrayal / description of chosen/preferred solution. Good demonstration of divergent and convergent thinking and tools to arrive at preferred solution; Good portrayal / description of chosen/preferred solution. Provided a demonstration of divergent and convergent thinking and tools to arrive at preferred solution, but process lacks rigour; Portrayal / description of chosen/preferred solution is provided but there is much scope for improvement. Poor demonstration of divergent and convergent thinking and tools to arrive at preferred solution; Poor portrayal / description of chosen/preferred solution. Use of divergent and convergent thinking is below expectation. Very unclear what proposed solution is about. No evidence of divergent and convergent thinking or the use of any tools to arrive at preferred solution; No portrayal / description of chosen/preferred solution.
4. DT Phase 3 -Experimentation Appropriate use of compulsory tools and good choice of optional tools and usage; Presentation of MVP on landing page; Design of appropriate scientific experiments and identification of appropriate metrics. 40 marks Excellent choice and description of first MVP; The assumptions are carefully defined and experiments and metrics very well designed. Landing page is exceptional and meets all its objectives. Good choice and description of first MVP; The assumptions are reasonably well defined, and experiments and metrics seem appropriate, but could be improved. Landing page is impressive and succeeds in its purpose. Fair choice and description of first MVP; The assumptions could have been better defined, and experiments and metrics seem to be workable, but could be much improved. Landing page is reasonable and might succeed in its purpose. Questionable choice and unclear description of first MVP; The assumptions are poorly defined, and experiments and/or metrics do not seem totally appropriate. Landing page is poorly designed and it is questionable if it will succeed in its purpose. Wrong choice of MVP and/or poor description of first MVP; Some assumptions have been identified, but not well done. Experiments are poorly designed. Landing page is very poorly done. No MVP identified or described; No assumptions, or experiments or metrics identified. No landing page provided.
5. Ethical considerations Identified possible ethical issues and dilemmas arising from the solution; proposed ways of mitigating them. Excellent identification and discussion of the possible ethical issues arising from the solution and have proposed very good suggestions for mitigating them. Identified and discussed possible ethical issues arising from the solution and have proposed sensible ways of mitigating them. May not have identified and discussed all the possible ethical issues arising from the solution and may or may not Some obvious ethical issues have not been identified and discussed. Proposed ways of mitigating identified issues are not convincing. Poor identification and discussion of potential ethical issue. Poor mitigation offered. Failed to discuss the possible ethical issues arising from the solution and failed to propose ways of mitigating them.
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5 marks have proposed ways of mitigating them.
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