Here's a question that I get asked very often...

"How do I incorporate innovation into my workday?" 

This is an excellent question because, most of the time, we're not working on creating a new product or service. But we still want to be innovative. 

And by having some everyday workday innovation techniques up your sleeve, you can use them to help you get more stuff done. You can also be more excited about your work, but most importantly, you can get better results. 

The first area we can start with is what you do the first moment you get into work or to your workplace, wherever that might be. 

And I would suggest that you could start by asking yourself this question. 

"What's the number one thing that I could reinvent or improve today so that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?" 

I ask this question because it helps me get clear about an action that can help to free up my day or free up the week that's coming up.

It works by helping you to look at what's the most important thing to do. Because, more than not, we get distracted, and we end up doing something we want to do rather than something we should do. 


Next, I encourage our clients to work on developing their idea muscle.

If you asked yourself the above question, you've now got an area to focus on to improve, reinvent, or innovate.

To work your idea muscle, challenge yourself to create 20 ideas to solve the problem or issue you've identified. Give yourself three minutes to do this, and use a timer. 

When you stretch yourself by having to create 20 ideas in three minutes, it forces you to get past the hurdle of procrastination and the inability to generate ideas.

This is a neural rewire for the brain that just works. Try it and find out for yourself.

So there are two straightforward activities that only take about three or four minutes to start your day and get your mind active and focused on innovating.
 

Suppose you face a problem during the day and you're looking for solutions. In that case, the easiest way to be innovative is by using idea-generating prompts.

A proven acronym I use and wrote about in my latest book, The Reinvention Sprint, is called SCRAMBLE™️. 

The acronym is short for...

• Substitute
• Combine
• Reverse
• Add or automate or adapt
• Magnify or minimise or multiply
• Break up or break down
• Leverage
• Eliminate

What could I substitute? What could I combine? What could I reverse? What could I add or automate or adopt? What could I magnify or minimize or multiply? What could I break up or break down? What could I leverage, or what could I eliminate? 

And by having that acronym written down or just using it in your mind, you can start to look at ways to help solve the problem. 

Let's say, for example, I've got a problem with a service that's just not doing very well, and we're getting a lot of customer complaints.

I could ask, is there anything that we could substitute that might alleviate this problem? 

Is there anything we could combine with the offering we already have that may make it better?

Would anything positive happen if we reversed a specific part of the process? Would that improve it? 

Could we adapt something from somewhere else? Or what if we were to add something? 

What if we were to multiply or magnify a particular part or minimise, you know, the amount of time it takes to submit a form, break it up, or break it down?

Could we leverage something from somewhere else to alleviate the complaints? 

Or what if we were to eliminate one of those steps? 

You get the gist of it. Just writing down the SCRAMBLE™️ acronym often helps you to come up with ideas you wouldn't normally do to help solve a problem. 

So next time you've got a problem, ask yourself, what could I SCRAMBLE™️ to solve that problem?



The third innovation technique that can really help is when we have a meeting.

Weekly meetings are an excellent opportunity to add innovation to the mix.

Near the end of the meeting, you could ask the team an innovation-prompting question. Such as, "Are there any incredible new inventions or products or services that we could take the best attributes and adapt and apply to our business, product, or service?"

This question is a tremendous culture-building innovation technique that has created incredible results for our clients. 

The fourth thing we can do to incorporate innovation daily looks at your projects. And you could ask another question for this part. You might ask, "How can we execute this project faster, safer, easier, or simpler? "

By asking that question, it starts to get you into the Kaizen continual improvement mindset.

• Faster so we can get our project done before our deadlines saving us money and effort.
• Safer, so that we are making sure there's no risk happening. 
• If we can make it easier, it's going to make life better for everyone. 
• And if we make it simpler, we'll have fewer mistakes. 

One other thing we can do when we are implementing projects is to be mindful that no matter what project you work on in life or in business, there will always be obstacles. 

We can usually create workarounds by identifying potential obstacles before we work on our project. 

Psychologists call this 'If this, then that planning'. 

So we might say, If this happens, then this is what we will do next.  This enables us to keep our good momentum to get things done.

1. First thing in the morning workday innovation: Ask, "What's the number one thing you could reinvent such that everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?" Then apply the Idea Muscle strengthening activity - 20 ideas in three minutes to solve the problem you've identified. 
2. Workday Innovation Problem solving: Use the SCRAMBLE™️ acronym. 
3. Workday Innovation for Meetings: Near the end of the meeting, ask - "Are there any new cool inventions, products or services that we could adapt and apply to our business?" 
4. Workday Innovation for Projects: Ask, "How can we execute this project faster, safer, easier, or simpler? "
5. End of Workday Innovation: Ask yourself, "What's one pain point that you, your team, your customer, or other people within the organisation might be experiencing that would be worth addressing?"