I want to expand on the innovation within our Contact Center, but need to ensure it is planned and implemented correctly.
I'm interested in knowing how you all recognise and manage risks with innovation in your environment and any useful tips you have for helping to unlock creativity within your teams.
This would depend on the expansion of inovation within your contact centre
Are you looking @ People,Processes,Technology
Also it depends on the definition of risk, Is this risk in terms of investment or the changing of proceses
Would you like to share your thoughts with us
The innovation is in terms of people and processes, therefore, the risk being the change of processes. At the moment I'm looking at it at a very high level, just trying to gain a basic understanding of obtacles others have tackled, and maybe learn from other people's mistakes.
Typically, to make a broad generalisation, Public Sector tend to be more resistant to change so I have to make sure that the changes I make are planned well, a business case communicated with a clear timeline and utter transparency in the reason for change and the proposed efficiency saving the dept/org. could make.
In order for the business case to be successful, I have to be able to identify and suggest ways of managing the risks.
I used to be an "Innovation Director" for a large telecoms company. A great role in the good times, but not great when economic times become tough.
The largest problems that I found were that people became weary of new management initiatives, which often tend to fizzle out. One lecturer at Henley Management College likened it to a disease and called it "initiative-itis".
My personal take is to really focus in on a small number of areas where you can make a big difference
- Limit new "top down" or "grand plan" initiatives to just one or two and give them lots and lots of time and support.
- Lots of support for people at grass roots who are already making a difference. You can back this up with rewards, promotions, bonusses and pay rises.
- Better recruitment of people who have got a track record of being innovativfe.
- Ease people out of the team (or the company) who are getting in the way of change. A great thing to do if there are rounds of redundancies.
Thanks Jonty, really appreciate your time.
Like you say, people are already weary of new management, however, I find in public sector, people can be particularly 'stuck in their ways' and resistant to change.
In some cases I find that the changes I make are not particularly 'innovative' in the creative sense of the word, more stating the obvious to improve and streamline processes/procedures. However, as long as I feel I am making a positive difference to someones work/team, and it is tangible, cost effective and continues to deliver the same or higher level of customer experience, then I am getting there!
Thank You
Pam
this all depends on the strategies you are going to implement or the work channel you designed I am agree with nicholson's view.
What can work well is to get the people doing the work to change the process - they know the practicalities of it better than anyone, so why not let them make it work better for them.
Start by getting some of them together to find out what frustrates them (you will need to be firm and keep them focused on process, not other stuff), find a consensus, prioritise them in terms of level of frustration and ease of addressing, then explore ways of resolving those issues. If you can get them to drive the initiatives, implementation becomes much easier as the people involved will champion it with the others, and building the business case for them takes less effort.
If you start small and get some quick wins, other initiatives will spring up and the whole process can become self-perpetuating.
As DaveUKLee said, start with the people you already have and see what they think.
I read about a neat little way to find out what type of people you have what innovations are going to work in your environment (can't recall where) whereby you get each member of staff or stakeholder to suggest the organsiation they like doing business with the most. If you can get them to limit it to your industry (government, I think?) then all the better.
From the results you should see a trend in terms of what your people think is important and getting them to buy up to doing more of those things or devising/suggesting new things to do to support them should be much easier than innovations or changes driven down onto them.
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