This PDF document provides some summary notes from our presentation at the CPSI conference in Buffalo. You can also find our PPT from the session on Slideshare.

1. IBC: Fostering an Innovative Workplace
Creative Problem Solving Institute Conference
Adam’s Mark Hotel, Buffalo, NY
June 21‐25, 2010
Presenters
M.J. D’Elia (mdelia@uoguelph.ca)
Learning and Curriculum Support Librarian
University of Guelph
Robin Bergart (rbergart@uoguelph.ca)
User Experience Librarian
University of Guelph
Objectives for this presentation
1. Understand the importance of innovative practice within learning
organizations
2. Learn simple strategies to foster more innovative thinking in your
organization
3. Recognize the value of play to productivity
4. Learn how making the familiar unfamiliar can lead to innovative
breakthroughs
5. Transfer our ideas for staff training in creativity and innovation to your
particular organization or context
Free Association Game (Instructions)
• In small groups, answer the following question: How is a library like _______?
• Fill in the blanks with one of the following words: Airport, submarine, gas
station and garage, spa or salon, hotel, hospital, tattoo parlour, orchestra,
research laboratory, ski resort, farmers’ market, amusement park, hockey
arena, cargo van, police station, farm
• In 2 minutes, brainstorm as many similarities between libraries and these
objects/places as possible
Free Association Game (Purpose)
• Simple activity to get participants to practice their lateral thinking – forces
participants to look for connections or free associations between seemingly
unrelated objects
1

2. • Shifts the mood and signifies to the participants that they are in for
something different (and that’s okay)
• Can reveal a more interesting picture of the objects that are being free
associated
• Highlights the importance of looking outside our industry (libraries) for
solutions to the problem (too often we focus on what other libraries are
doing and we miss broader trends in other industries)
• Since the participants are not librarians, this activity also highlights (in a
light‐hearted manner) the stereotypes that exist about libraries and
librarians.
University of Guelph (http://www.uoguelph.ca/)
• Mid‐sized teaching and research institution
• Undergraduate, graduate and professional programs
• Over 22,000 students
University Culture
• Place where the lone wolf thrives
• Conservative, bureaucratic, competitive, hierarchical,
• Focused (obsessed with) the written word over images or tactile, kinesthetic,
etc. (all characteristics anathema to creativity) and yet also places associated
with freedom of thought and expression, generating ideas, collaborations in
science, etc.
• Tenure is the main pursuit – but such security actually leads to a lot of
complacency
McLaughlin Library (http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca/)
• Primary library on campus
• Sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts
• Busy hub on campus – 11,000+ visitors each day during the academic year
• 120+ staff members, approximately 23 librarians
Library Culture
• Not viewed as a cutting edge profession or a particularly innovative place to
work.
o The Internet has become the go‐to place for information
2

3. o Is conserving, maintaining, organizing, controlling role of libraries
incompatible with risk and innovation? Where can innovation happen
in a library? In the heads of the users?
• By and large we aren’t about producing new products and services but about
facilitating other people’s work, so innovation looks different where we work
• While we are accountable to our users, we don’t have the same pressures to
be cutting edge and to innovate as a business might need to survive
o We have a captive audience and no real competition
o We also have incredible job security
Libraries, Innovation and the development of IBC
• Budgets are getting tighter, so we need a more strategic way to use our
resources
• If we’re going to do more with less, then we’re going to need to become
better innovators and creative problem solvers.
• Fortunately, one of our core values is innovation
• Given our particular cultural, we used the language of pedagogy. We
designed a curriculum, we used ‘active learning’, we used reflective practice,
we delivered a ‘course’ which we called Innovation Boot Camp.
• We brought our strengths as librarians—we help people with the research
process and are not experts in any one subject. We use the reference
interview to elicit from people what they need and want and work to help
people articulate their information needs and facilitate their work.
• We focused on questions around process: Can we make creativity more of a
habit? Can we forge a strong team with the trust it takes to stimulate
creativity?
Innovation Boot Camp
• Operated a 12‐week social experiment called Innovation Boot Camp
• Adopted a military metaphor (including camouflage) because:
o We wanted to be disciplined in our training (like military boot camp)
o Inherent tension between the chaos that often comes with creativity
and the regimented order that comes with the military
• Delivered an open call to the library and recruited six individuals
• Spent 2 hours every Friday afternoon for an entire semester some creativity
experiments and learning together
o Reflection (chance to reflect on the previous week’s activities as a
group)
o Mind stretch (warm‐up activity designed to loosen the mood and get
the group thinking)
o Main challenge (primary task for the session – e.g. rapid prototyping)
o Debrief (opportunity to discuss the solutions to the main challenge)
o Reflection homework (questions for personal journaling)
3

4. • Used Tom Kelley’s book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, to structure the
program
o Kelley works at IDEO (http://www.ideo.com/), a fairly well‐known
international design consulting firm
o Divides the ten faces into three categories:
 Learning personas
 Organizing personas
 Building personas
o Presents a broad perspective of the types of personas required for
innovative thinking (enabled us to see what we’re good at, but also
where we’re lacking)
o The goal of the book is not to identify with a single face, it is to become
aware of the faces needed to generate and execute good ideas
o At times you may play multiple roles on a given team, or you may play
one role on one team and a different one on the other
o While you may inherently lean toward one “face”, you can develop
skills and abilities in the other faces
The 10 Faces of Innovation: Learning Personas
• Description: Information gatherers
• Purpose: To help the organization avoid becoming too internally focused
• Responsibilities:
o Gather new sources of information
o Openly question assumptions
o Remain open to new insights (regardless of the source)
• Credo: Enemy of complacency
The Anthropologist
• Develops a deep understanding of how people interact
• Observes human behaviour with products, services and spaces
• Watches subjects in their natural environment
• Key phrase:
o “fresh eyes” – it’s about seeing things for the first time like a tourist in
a foreign place
The Experimenter
• Learns by trial and error; takes calculated risks
• Continually prototyping and product‐testing new ideas
• Expect to fail often, but failing early leads to faster and better solutions
• Key phrases:
o “experimentation as implementation”
o “thinking by doing”; “thinking with your hands”
4

5. The Cross­Pollinator
• Explores other industries and cultures
• Translates findings from other environments into the current context
• Efforts are focused externally
• Nurtures curiosity; explores adjacencies
• Key phrases:
o “connect cultures”; “work the metaphor” – every object has the
capacity to stand for something else
o “connect cultures”
Gadget Game (Instructions)
• Distribute one random object to each pair or group
• Come up with a dozen alternative uses for this item (i.e. not for the purpose
for which it was designed)
• Have groups share some of their ideas
Gadget Game (Purpose)
• Gets people thinking differently about a very common object
• Participants begin to consider other qualities of the object (e.g. colour,
weight, shape, etc.)
• Get people to strive for novel ideas
• Connection to IBC: we had our recruits have to seek out ideas from other
people (who weren’t in the program) to spread some of the energy and
innovation “fever” to the broader organization
The 10 Faces of Innovation: Organizing Personas
• Description: Idea sorters
• Purpose: To help good ideas move forward in the organization
• Responsibilities:
o Move past organizational challenges to accomplish tasks
o Allocate resources effectively
• Credo: Survival of the fittest
The Hurdler
• Has a knack for overcoming obstacles and roadblocks
• Intricate knowledge of the organizational processes and hierarchy
• Politically aware and unafraid of bureaucratic process
• Willingness to bend the rules to accomplish tasks
• Thrives on constraints – doesn’t like to hear that something “can’t be done”
• Key phrases:
o “seek forgiveness not permission”
5

6. o “see through constraints”
The Collaborator
• Brings eclectic personalities and diverse individuals together
• Encourages and enables cooperation among the team members
• Helps generate multi‐disciplinary solutions
• Co‐opts the Devil’s Advocates
• Gets people learning and doing together
• Thrives in the messy spaces of people working together (conflict, friction,
strife, delight, creative potential)
• Key phrases:
o “Lead from the middle”
o “break down silos”
The Director
• Gathers talented crew and inspires them to perform
• Intimate knowledge of team members’ strengths
• Ability to harness the creativity of others
• Allocates resources, keeps people on tasks, showcases the team
• Draws people out – motivates and encourages
• Less dictation, more facilitation
• Puts others on the centre stage
• Key phrase:
o “showcase the team”
Improv Game (Instructions)
• Divide the audience into bigger groups
• Run improv activities
o Clap and point game
o Jump in and Build (I am the teabag. I am the teapot. I am the British
lady. The teapot stays.)
Improv Game (Purpose)
• Key principles of improv
o accept the offer—support your teammate
o listen
o don’t set someone else up for failure
o serve the scene—it’s not about you being funny or the star
o commit to the scene
o movement and play fosters learning, innovation, flexibility,
adaptability
6

7. • The opposite of play is not work; it is depression. When play and work are
integrated it helps us make sense of our world and ourselves; play helps us
see things differently, makes us curious and alert. Play at work is essential.
The 10 Faces of Innovation: Building Personas
• Description: Idea executors
• Purpose: To turn great ideas into real projects
• Responsibilities:
o Apply insights from learning personas
o Recognize successes from organizing roles
• Credo: Build it and they will come
The Experience Architect
• Design compelling experiences
• Connect with customers and users at a deeper level than mere functionality
• Surprises and delights in unforgettable experiences
• Authentic
• Attention to details
• Key phrase:
o “make the ordinary extraordinary”
The Set Designer
• Create a stage on which members can do their best work
• Consider the physical environment as a tool
• Find hidden performance improvements by reshaping space
• Builds spaces for creative play
• Provides the materials to be creative
• Key phrase:
o “shape the spaces”
The Caregiver
• Anticipate customer needs and are ready to look after them
• Willing to move beyond simple service
• Demonstrates empathy toward the plight of the customer
• Goes for “intimacy not scale”
• Treat people as individuals not as an aggregated group
• Provides valuable expertise
• Makes people feel good about themselves
• Key phrases:
o “show more, tell less”
o “smile”
7

8. The Storyteller
• Build internal morale through stories
• Reinforce organizational culture through firsthand accounts
• Create external awareness through stories (marketing angle)
• Importance of authenticity
• Use a variety of tools to communicate
• Key phrase:
o “collect compelling narratives”
Mad Libs Game (Instructions)
• In small groups (grandparents and children), have the grandparent read out
parts of speech needed to complete the story
• Parts of speech are supplied by the “children”
Mad Libs Game (Purpose)
• Used this activity to provoke a humorous response – especially when it is a
familiar core document
• In IBC we used this activity to make our very familiar library orientation tour
less familiar
Concluding Thoughts: Build your own Boot camp
• With buy‐in from management, this can be done inexpensively (aside from
the cost of staff time, we did our entire 12‐week program for under $500)
• Don’t need to do a 12‐week program – try a morning, a day long retreat, once
a month, at the beginning of your staff meetings, etc. – figure out what will
work in your context and go with that
Find Your Metaphor
• Build your own boot camp. We used curriculum design. What approach or
metaphor would work where you work?
Build on your Strengths
• What we bring to the table as ‘insiders’ and as librarians—we are trained to
address people ‘where they are at’ and to be creative in tailoring to their
needs, to keeping the possibilities open and applying solutions from
wherever inspiration might come
• What strengths do you bring?
8

9. Challenges and Resistance
• Listen to the challenges so you can better understand the issues, but don’t
give in – be persistent
• Use the concerns that people have with your idea to refine your idea or
program
• What kind of resistance do you face in your workplace?
Assessment
• Run a series of follow‐up “innovation” activities
• Ask yourself what success looks like – How will you know you succeeded?
• Plan assessment mechanisms early
• Library has established a fund for innovation and a process by which people
can submit ideas (and applicants will be selected by employees not
management)
Share what you learn (including failures)
• For an organization to truly benefit you need to find a way to share what
you’ve learned about the process
• Sharing failures is just as important as sharing successes (don’t sweep it
under the rug)
• Find an appropriate way to reach your organization
Innovation Boot Camp (Steal These Ideas!)
• More information on Innovation Boot Camp can be found at our blog:
o http://innovationbootcamp.wordpress.com/
• Feel free to borrow and adapt these ideas for your organization!
9