Vignettes for Assignment 1

Entrepreneurial start-ups, micro and small-medium enterprises make a substantial contribution to national
economies. Many such enterprises typically operate in industries and sectors where the influence of
lockdowns over the past year due to the global pandemic have led to very different experiences. For example:

 Retail
 Hospitality – hotels, restaurants
 Fast food
 Delivery services
 Software/technology
 Care homes
 Religious groups
 Other?

We witness winners and losers:

 Winners have experienced increased demand for their services
 Losers have struggled to survive until they are able to resume business as usual
 Many have been pro-active in accelerating creativity and innovation to thrive.

Your role, as future leaders, is to be responsible for promoting or sustaining entrepreneurial mindset to
support continuous innovation. In each of the scenarios below consider how this might be achieved?

You are required to critically analyse two scenarios, one from Option 1 and one from Option 2:

Options 1: Choose one of these

 Imagine the future of a struggling start-up, micro or small enterprise as a thriving business. Using two
different techniques (analogy/attribute/gap for example) explore how you might generate ideas to
achieve success?

 Innovative developments during the pandemic, for example, home delivery of goods, food and
everything, needs to be critically evaluated alongside the need for sustainability of home delivery
services. Using two different techniques explore how these innovations might be sustainable longer
term.

Options 2: Choose one of these:

 For organisations that have struggled to survive until lockdown eased, how might an entrepreneurial
mindset be developed to ignite creativity and innovation? You will need to critically analyse and
recommend a systematic approach using two alternative approaches (e.g. CPS, techniques, design
thinking, hackathons etc)

 For organisations that have been more innovative during the pandemic, how might the momentum of
accelerated creativity and innovation be sustained longer term? Critically analyse how creative idea
generation/ entrepreneurial mindset, might be developed in future.