Fostering Innovation through Systemic Diversity

Customers require a variety of solutions to support their diverse needs across various markets for the long term. Companies servicing these customers have a tough job trying to come up with breakthrough innovations that satisfy changing customer requirements and that are sustainable.

Diversity within a workforce allows the innovation cycle to repeat, to prevent breakthroughs from being mere flashes in the pan. The typical cycle is simple; solution providers gather customer input, derive customer needs, define the scope of a product, and then pull together a team to execute on that product plan.  Many companies hire for diversity with the hopes that these teams encapsulate the diversity that the company believes it possesses at a macro level so that they can put out the best product to support their diverse customer needs.

How does a company ensure that its project teams are, in fact, diverse so that the innovation process is at its most optimal? If there is a presiding belief that the most innovative thinking is drawn from a diverse workforce, then how does diversity at the macro level get preserved—or even better—assured at the project level?

In this Knowledge Sharing article, David Silva, Matthew Wilson, Archana Kamath, and Manasa Udupi focus on why diversity is important in innovation, how diversity can speed innovation, and how the Diversity Engine and Team Building Algorithm can be used as a method of crowdsourcing innovation within a company.

Read the full article here.