Innovation is a skill not an act of genius
The University of Buckingham is launching an MSc in Structured Innovation.
The University of Buckingham is launching an MSc in Structured Innovation that aims to take a new approach where “the goal is to develop ways of creating constructive structured innovation which will benefit an organisation’s bottom line”.
Kobus  Cilliers, the Programme Director writes:
When we talk of innovation within businesses we think of the new and the disruptive, of excitement but concern for the trouble it may cause. Yet it is also a fundamental building block of all successful enterprises if they are to be future proof.
This pioneering new course will take talented managers with aptitude and build innovative thinking into their day-to-day approach to problem solving.
And it does so fully understanding and addressing the two fundamental fears that innovation can bring;
1.     From the top management ‘I want my team to innovate but not disrupt the organisation’s structure’, and
2.     From the individual ‘I want to innovate but I don’t want to be marginalised or seen as difficult for doing so’.
From the identification of the problem through to delivery of the innovation, the course investigates and develops skills within the students to innovate constructively and in a disciplined way. It doesn’t set out to change the culture of the student’s organisation, it couldn’t do so if it wanted to, but it does look to develop individuals whose increased innovative contribution will benefit their whole working environment.
There are dozens of management tools out there to develop innovation including Lean, TRIZ, Design and Systems Thinking, Chaos Theory, SWOT, Taguchi, DeBono and many more. Each has its strengths and its weaknesses and no one of them is the answer for all circumstances, people and times. This course takes a multi-disciplinary approach, enabling the student to identify the right tool for both them and their organisation.
Led by a team of lecturers, all highly respected innovators with both an academic and practical real-world track record, the course combines academic rigour with practical learning in the innovative environment of the only privately-owned university in the UK, a learning centre which has featured in the top tier of the National Student Satisfaction Survey every year of the last decade. In addition, by often working in the student’s own workplaces all of the students will get to experience the application of innovative tools to a broad range of real work problems, vital information for their long-term development.
The part time course involves a series of five-day modules, often held on-site, taken over a two to four year period. A typical module involves a short, sharp burst of theory, case studies and hands-on exercises tailored to the student’s current environment
Starting in January 2018, the first cohort is currently being sought from practicing managers working across all areas of business from Strategy and R&D through to Service, Design and Logistics.
For more information on the MSc Structured Innovation course and how it may benefit you and your organisation contact Programme Director Kobus Cilliers,  kobus.cilliers@buckingham.ac.uk.