Search results

The purpose of this paper is to chart a novel approach to customer‐service training at Origin Housing, using forum‐theater techniques in which the trainees can decide where the action goes next.

Explains the background to the program, the form it takes and the results it has achieved.

Reveals that forum theater has two key differences from ordinary theatrical performances. First, the action periodically stops to give the audience the chance to discuss it. And second, a facilitator encourages the audience to speak to the characters in the play during these breaks, enabling them to attempt to influence the characters' behavior and change the outcome of the drama.

Explains that, because the audience watches a play in which characters struggle with the dilemmas of the trainees' everyday working life, they are able to think about and comment on those dilemmas in a free and unthreatening way. They relate closely to the experience of the drama, but without any feelings of exposure and nervousness which participating in a role‐play can bring.

Highlights how such training is helping to ensure that Origin Housing serves its customers better.

Discusses an unusual form of theater training, in which the drama highlights many of the problems that employees encounter in their everyday work.

The key environmental issue of the 1980s has been that of the depletion of the stratospheric ozone. The key environmental issue to be addressed in the 1990s will be that of global warming. These head the list of worldwide ecological problems that arise directly from the activities of man. Each industrial sector has an urgent responsibility to increase awareness of such problems within both management and production and to seek to alleviate its impact upon the environment through development of modified or alternative manufacturing technologies. The electronics assembly sector had the opportunity to consider its future in a more environmentally conscious world at the first conference on Electronics Manufacturing and the Environment. This two‐day event was held at the Bournemouth International Centre. It was organised by Vertical Marketing of Wimborne and sponsored by The Department of Trade and Industry, Du Pont, ICI and Multicore Solders, who must take credit for a well organised and splendidly presented conference. The theme of the conference was one particular implication of environmental awareness, namely the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as a goal of the electronics manufacturing industry. The conference was aimed at addressing ways in which companies can eliminate the use of CFCs, taking into account the moral and financial implications involved as well as the stringent restrictions in CFC production that are about to be imposed.

The purpose of this paper is to describe innovation planning methods used at Microsoft.

The paper examines the cultural environment and changes that needed to occur to implement these methods and looks at a selection of product development efforts at Microsoft that used these methods and were successful.

This paper shares the steps taken to enable innovation planning methods to be successful organizationally and describes the specific approaches that were most successful from a product development perspective.

The findings demonstrate that innovation in the large enterprise is a repeatable and reproducible process when the right environment and methods are utilized.

Because enterprises are increasingly being called on to provide breakthrough and disruptive innovations innovation planning methods are increasingly becoming a necessary core discipline that is required in the enterprise.

This paper is valuable to all readers and organizations that want to enable innovation planning methods in large enterprises.