alt text: group photo of WINCan Inc.
A short history: from Research to Practice
The WINCan initiative – Workplace Innovation Network for Canada – began in 2015. Tom Carey, former AVP at the University of Waterloo and Blake Melnick, CEO/CKO of the Knowledge Management Institute of Canada (KMIC) met to discuss Canada’s poor track record of innovation relative to other developed countries, and the present ability of post-secondary institutions to meet the demands of a workforce facing exponential change:
Our Key Hypothesis
Higher education's approach to fostering student's innovation potential has focused mostly on developing innovation leadership among a select cadre of students, originally in entrepreneurship and more recently in social sector innovation. But what about the rest of our graduates? What capability do all our graduates need if they're going to engage effectively with innovation in the workplace? Can elements of this capability be adapted to enhance their roles as community members and global citizens as well?
In order to develop the capability for workplace innovation in all our students, we're going to have to begin tackling the challenge in the space where all of them already participate – within our teaching and learning environments.
The initial WINCan project began at Kwantlen University in British Columbia (WINBC) with the launch of a prototype special topics course, Psychology, Design, and Workplace Innovation, a face to face program which combined innovation theory along with site visits to Innovation work places. [You can read more about the initial B.C. pilot projects here and here.]
In 2017, our efforts expanded to Ontario (WINOn) to test the integrated co-development, partnership model. Project work was supported by the Ontario Government’s Skills Catalyst Fund and hosted by the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University under the project title, Developing an Innovation - Enabled Workforce. Our Workplace Partners included expert innovation catalysts from the following leading organizations: The Bank of Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, Shopify, IBM Canada, Hatch Engineering and York University (through the Division of the Vice-President, Finance and Administration). In addition to York University, our Academic Partners included innovation leaders from McMaster University, University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, Mohawk College and Humber College. [You can read more about the Skills Catalyst project in Ontario here and here.]
The next step: a pan-Canadian organization
As we approached the end of the Skills Catalyst Grant in Ontario it became clear to our Academic and Workplace partners that the work we had done was too important to the Future of Work in Canada to be contained by provincial boundaries or be solely dependent upon Provincial and Federal granting agencies – we needed to grow the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada to be fully pan-Canadian in scope.
In the Spring of 2019, WINCan and KMIC launched a pilot online collaborative course in Knowledge Management and Workplace Innovation. In this online program we applied our research findings from the Skills Catalyst Grant – The mindset, skills and knowledge and experience of the innovation capable student and employee – to test the “Classroom as the Workplace” for workforce participants.
Learners worked alongside subject matter experts from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and KMIC, to advance innovative solutions in support of CMHC’s mandate: to provide affordable housing for all Canadians by 2030. The course pilot was also designed to explore the many ways that Knowledge Management (KM) and Workplace Innovation were intrinsically linked within organizations. Our working hypothesis was that individuals and organizations with better knowledge practices would have a greater capability to create value through workplace innovation. [You can read more about the KM and Workplace Innovation pilot online course here and here.]
In the summer of 2019, we began the process of garnering support from both existing partners and new ones to transition WINCan into two new structures:
A network of collaborating limited-term projects involving workplace and academic partners in cooperative innovation and applied research. These projects could be regionally based, as in our past BC and ON efforts, or affinity-based to address particular key issues, specific work domains and/or shared contexts.
·An ongoing governance organization to link these projects, leverage their results, provide ongoing management and planning, and contribute to pan-Canadian policy initiatives to support an exemplary Workplace Innovation capability across the Canadian workforce.
As of October 2019, we are excited to announce the launch of WINCan Inc. (Workplace Innovation Canada) to serve the 2nd of these roles. With the support of WINCan Inc., we will continue to develop the Workplace Innovation Network for Canada as a consortium of Lean Startup incubator projects to fulfill the 1st role. This WINCan Network will remain as the primary face of WINCan’s innovation initiatives; WINCan Inc. will provide the necessary continuity and direction for the long term.
WINCan Inc. will also be creating programs to accelerate adaptation and scale-up of our insights and resources for employee capability in workplace innovation, as well as pathways to develop the organizational capability to leverage employee innovation and create lasting value. (To see what this might look like, check out the helpful models being explored by our colleagues in Workplace Innovation Europe to foster this organizational capability 😊).
About the new WINCan Inc.
WINCan Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to improving Canada’s capability for Employee-Driven Innovation in the Workplace.
Our Focus: Workplace Innovation as the Social Process of creating lasting value by mobilizing new ideas in the workplace.
Our Goals:
For the Workplace: Every Employee can Contribute to Workplace Innovation
For Higher Ed: Every Higher Ed Graduate can be an Innovation-Enabler in the Workplace (and in their other roles as community members and global citizens)