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"How do we prepare students and future employees for the challenge of working with knowledge that doesn’t exist; using practices that don’t exist; in jobs that don’t exist?"

Knowledge Management and Workplace Innovation - The Classroom as the Workplace

Program Description

The Knowledge Management and Workplace Innovation Certificate Program treats workplace innovation as, “The social process of creating enduring value through the mobilization of ideas in the workplace.”

The course objective is to help ensure all graduates are “Innovation Capable” and every employee is able to contribute to innovation in their organization, by developing the mindsets, skillsets, and knowledge that will prepare them for opportunities in a world characterized by complexity, uncertainty, and exponential change.

The 6 week course introduces a completely new model of learning, which treats the classroom as the workspace. This program emphasizes experiential learning and focuses on addressing real-world challenges with respect to workplace innovation. It will include virtual visitations by workplace organizations and interdisciplinary subject matter experts who will engage with participants share strategies and explore how to design and foster cultures of innovation within workplace settings.

Pedagogical Approach

The knowledge economy requires that organizations remain on a continual trajectory of innovation if they wish to survive and thrive in a world characterized by exponential change. This will require organizations and individuals to think, work and learn differently than they have done in the past.

The traditional approach to education, which treats work, and training and learning as separate activities, is no longer valid. This program will integrate learning with work, in real time. The program aims at having participants solve authentic problems and challenges related to innovation, while they are learning Knowledge Management theory and practices, effectively translating what they are learning, immediately into practice.

The program is designed to emulate how knowledge centric organizations behave. What participants will experience in the program, the level of collaboration, the interplay with multiple technologies and the focus on solving authentic, real world problems, are exactly what knowledge age workers are dealing with in their organizations every day.

The course employs a problem - based approach. Students tackle real world forward looking challenges, which are by their very nature complex and messy. They learn how the application of KM principles, practices, and methodologies can lead to viable solutions to challenges associated with promoting, developing and maintaining cultures of innovation.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will:

• Learn why people and culture must be at the centre of workplace innovation
• Understand the diffusion of technology model and the “innovation gap”
• Practice divergent and convergent thinking styles through design challenges
• Develop a deep understanding of knowledge construction theory through the application of knowledge building principles 
• Learn how to increase both personal and organizational capacity for innovation
• Develop a foundational understanding of the relationship between Knowledge Management and Innovation.
• Apply KM principles in the design of workplace cultures which fosters innovation
• Identify the attributes of innovative workspaces and organizational cultures
• Engage in hands-on activities that teach design thinking, deep user empathy, radical collaboration, and rapid experimentation
• Collaboratively build new knowledge throughout the learning process

If you have any questions, please email Allison Davies at adavies@kminstitute.ca