Encourage innovation in organisational improvement in food and drink operations

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This standard is about the skills and knowledge needed for you to encourage innovation in organisational improvement, to support your organisation's drive to improve food and drink operations. This is important in increasing productivity and success of manufacture, processing and supply within the food and drink supply chain. Innovation is pivotal to the development of new practices and improvements that make a difference to organisational performance.

You will need to lead on creating a work environment where innovation is valued and central to improvement within your organisation. You will need to show and understand how you encourage and support the identification of new ideas from within your organisation and from external influences. You will need to review the innovation policy, help develop ideas and support their implementation.

This standard applies to you if you are a director, manager or consultant who has responsibility to encourage innovation in organisational improvement, in food and drink operations including manufacturing, processing, packing or supply chain activities.

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1. your organisation's vision, strategy and objectives for improvement
2. the benefits of innovation to the organisation, customers and stakeholders
3. the difference between creativity and innovation
4. how to identify the level of innovation within your organisation, including the kind of approach taken, strengths, weaknesses and obstacles to the use of innovation in improvement
5. how to develop an innovation strategy that is key to improvement in your organisation and how to communicate it across the workforce
6. how to use and choose different methods to motivate the workforce to generate, develop and share ideas
7. the methods of forging partnerships with external experts and organisations which can help in the generation of new ideas
8. the importance of communication in the creative process
9. the potential obstacles to innovation and whether and how they can be removed
10. the key stages in the creative process
11. the key stages in the innovation process
12. why it is important to learn from mistakes
13. how to recognise and manage risk in innovation
14. how to provide constructive feedback on ideas
15. how ideas can be developed and trialled
16. why it is important to provide time and resources to support the creative and innovative process and how to identify what is needed for this support
17. how to protect ideas and innovation
18. how to evaluate ideas, the implications of putting them in to practise and how to approve those which appear viable
19. how to give positive recognition to originators and developers of successful ideas
20. how to establish systems for measuring and reporting on innovation and provide feedback to relevant teams and individuals