Enabling Swinburne staff to become and be future ready.

Change and disruption has never been so prevailing and universally shared as it is today. We are all experiencing changes in the way we operate, communicate and collaborate. The future might seem quite uncertain and challenges we are facing are complex and multifaceted. Navigating in this change and finding opportunities in the transformation requires capabilities, skills and tools that we might currently lack.

The Fearless Innovation initiative was designed and developed to support Swinburne staff with capabilities to identify opportunities and create impactful solutions and the confidence to drive change. The initiative drives a culture of innovation through staff training and creates opportunities to operationalise Swinburne’s 2025 strategy to be an innovative enterprise.

The capability building program consisted of three different stages, each building on one another: A brief introduction and inspiration to design thinking, a 2-day intensive Bootcamp to identify and create user-centred opportunities aligned with the 2025 strategy, and a business-driven team coaching to support continuous improvement. Between May 2018 and February 2020, these training sessions were available to Swinburne staff to partake in the form of professional development. Overall, 200 staff members across faculties, business units, roles and backgrounds participated in the Fearless Innovation initiative.

During the Blitz event, three participants of the Fearless Innovation program shared some of their experiences and development initiatives that had resulted after the training.

Tim Binstead, Lead Process Analyst, I.T

Embedding the process with other systems and approaches to enhance own capability and workflow.

For Tim, the Fearless Innovation Bootcamp was time well spent. It taught him to fail quickly and gave him the confidence to speak on the fly about anything. His biggest takeaway was his introduction to design thinking – more specifically the design thinking double diamond model. The model has guided him on when to think big and when to rein it in when generating ideas and has been a framework for new projects within his department.

Janice Jackson, Student Engagement, Careers & Employability

Foreseeing opportunities to redesign existing offerings with a fresh approach whilst embracing a new approach for problem-solving.

Similarly, the Careers and Employability team have “taken design thinking elements in how [they] work, the content of [their] resources and programs, and the type of language [they] use”, according to Janice. Design thinking has enabled them to be innovative in the delivery of their programs during COVID-19. Their Career Connection Series is designed to facilitate discussions between students on career strategies, and their Ask and Employer series aims to maintain connections between students and industry. These initiatives have already resulted in more engagement from students.

Ella Scorringe, Associate Director, Student Experience, Student Life

Enabling new ways of working for the team and co-creating user-centred solutions for business challenges.

Ella believes the Bootcamp to be “the single most valuable piece of professional development [her] team has done over the past three or four years”. Through strategies learned in the Bootcamp, Student Life has seen an increase in engagement with their programs. To ensure that innovation continues and new approaches are embraces, they have designated champions within their teams who continue to advocate for innovative practices and ensure the knowledge and ways of working learned in the Bootcamp are evolved and passed on to new team members.