This document discusses how low-tech learning tools can be used as part of organizational learning to foster innovation, particularly for environmental innovations. It examines three card or fan-deck based business games - the Nine Innovation Roles game, KnowBrainer tool, and Innovation Planner - that have been shown to effectively engage creativity. However, these tools do not provide guidance on systems thinking, which is important for developing environmental solutions. The document recommends further developing such tools to explicitly promote systems thinking and learning for complexity in order to better support sustainability education.

1. Reprint ISSN 2250-0367
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A E
NTERNATIONAL OURNAL OF
ANAGEMENT TUDIES,
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2. InternationalJour. of Manage.Studies.,Statistics & App.Economics
(IJMSAE), ISSN 2250-0367, Vol.3, No. I (June 2013), pp. 35-42
LOW-TECH LEARNING TOOLS AS A PART OF
ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN THE
PROCESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL
INNOVATIONS
MAJA S. TODOROVIC
Faculty for Strategic and Operational Management
Staro Sajmiste 29, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
Certain studies have shown that organizational learning plays a crucial role in boosting and fostering
innovation process within the company. Organizational learning can take variety of forms, but in this
paper we will focus our attention on low-tech learning tools and business games as a form of engaging
individual and group creativity – that can trigger innovation. In the recent years, low-tech learning
tools seem to have a huge comeback as the preferred method of inducing innovation process within
organizations and we will review those based on TRIZ methodology and KnowBrainer system. With
the raising importance and need for development of innovative green and sustainable products, this
paper at the end recommends how low-tech learning tools can further find their application in creating
and designing different sustainable solutions for industry purposes.
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Keywords : Organizational learning, low-tech learning tools, sustainable solutions
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3. 36 MAJA S. TODOROVIC
1. INTRODUCTION
What is innovation? In general, innovation helps a company to deal with the turbulence of
external environment and, therefore, it is one of the key drivers for long-term success in
business, particularly dynamic markets, [1]. The analysis of literature in the field of
management, reports several definitions, but one particularly interesting for the purpose of
this paper is given in the Oslo Manual innovation guidelines. The basic definition identifies
four main types of innovations: product/service innovation, process innovation,
organizational innovation and the recent one distinguished, marketing innovation [2].
Product innovations in general enable the launch of improved or new products. Process
innovations lead to decreased inputs, at a constant level of output. In contrast to conventional
product and process innovations, environmental product and process innovations contribute
to the avoidance or reduction of environmental burdens, [3]. For the development of certain
product innovations distinct knowledge has to be implemented in order to reach the
established goals and objectives of a new product/service. And this is where organizational
learning comes on the scene. What is the role of organizational learning? Organizational
learning is the process that allows organization to develop new knowledge and gaining
understanding from experience or observation, and environmental scanning. It is also a basis
for gaining a sustainable competitive advantage and a key variable in the enhancement of
organizational performance [4]. Companies that are able to learn stand a better chance of
sensing events and trends in the marketplace [5]. As a consequence, learning organizations
are usually more flexible and faster to respond to new challenges than competitors [6]. That
enables them to maintain hard–to-reach competitive advantages [7].
But, what is the impact of organizational learning when it comes to environmental
innovations and what type of learning tools are giving the best results? We will try to
examine that in this paper.
2. ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING THROUGH ENHANCED CREATIVITY
Certain studies have shown that in order for innovation process to be enhanced, creativity is
the initial step required, since it enables transcending obstacles and obtains needed solutions
in comparisons to established goals and objectives. Existing theories of creativity typically
emphasize the role of individuals or small groups, with little recognition that creative tasks
might well be embedded in larger, complex, organizational systems. In such settings,

4. LOW-TECH LEARNING TOOLS AS A PART OF… 37
organizational learning and knowledge management are particularly critical to the creative
process. For existing product line extensions, creativity is basically still linked to already
obtained knowledge, but considering new business creations, importing and developing new
knowledge is necessary (vertical and horizontal technological transfer).
Individual characteristics such as personality, cognitive abilities, and intelligence have all
been linked to creativity. Creativity at the individual level has been related to constructs as
varied as: team cohesiveness, diversity, tenure and degree of cooperation among group
members, job design, supervisory style, and the provision of performance feedback [8].
What makes an organization creative and innovative is an inspirational shared vision and
belief of what and how the organization is going to achieve. In that sense, creativity is
crucial for the company‟s survival on the market and its overall success. As macro-economic
models are being questioned and under scrutiny, in order to prosper in a highly challenging
environment, companies must innovate. The sources of organizational innovation are
unquestionably the ideas generated by individuals and teams.
Organizational learning can take a variety of forms, but in this paper we will focus our
attention on low-tech learning tools and business games as a form of engaging individual and
group creativity for triggering innovation.
Games that are based on learning to gain certain experience or where a player has to identify
his/her own abilities, skills and contribution to the innovation process - games like role-plays
can have a crucial importance. On the other hand, in the phase of innovative process, where
reflective observation or an exploration of new tools and techniques is needed – games for
self analysis, requiring cooperation and communication between players, have been proven
to be most adequate for organizational learning. Playing games is an appropriate activity in
the context of initiating creativity and innovation and should be a part of organizational
learning. Furthermore, we can consequently derive additional traits of playing games that
contributes to the organizational learning:
 It simulates and creates realities, with mutually accepted rules, roles, conditions and
assumptions.
 It can help in the process of team-building since it creates shared experiences.
 It provides fun and entertaining atmosphere within the team. Such ways of „learning,‟
are very important because they generate positive mental energies and enthusiasm for
participants to engage in the complex challenge.

5. 38 MAJA S. TODOROVIC
 It helps in testing alternative solutions [9].
In such way, by playing business games, the group creativity can be effectively initiated,
coordinated and managed - resulting in innovative solutions.
3. BUSINESS GAMES THAT UNLEASH CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
As stated earlier, games can highly benefit learning for complexity. In fact, they can be
regarded as excellent educational environments, supporting knowledge and skills learning
through fun, in situated and meaningful contexts. Here in this paper we will present card-
based business games, that have shown to have an advantage as a learning tool:
a) over books, because they are structured but also offer a certain flexibility in their usage
– which is hard to achieve with unchangeable sequence of pages;
b) over computers – despite all their capacity to network, computers are isolating devices,
while cards tend to be collaborative devices that also happen to work well in isolation
[10].
Now, we will examine several card-based learning tools that are available on the market and
that are in the form of business games:
3.1 The Nine Innovation Roles Group Diagnostic Tool
The Nine Innovation Roles Group Diagnostic Tool is a type of role game and it comes with a
series of simple exercises and a deck of roles cards to help create a fun, interactive
experience for innovation teams or organizations. Their main purpose is to help people better
understand what their roles in the innovation projects are, why the team‟s or organization‟s
innovation efforts are failing, and how they can together improve the innovation
performance of their teams or organization.
There are roles that need to be filled on every innovation project team, and filled well, for
each individual innovation effort to be successful - and the skills necessary to be successful
in each role should be cultivated in the organization. The game recognizes and defines roles
as:
1. Revolutionary
2. Conscript
3. Connector
4. Artist
5. Customer Champion

6. LOW-TECH LEARNING TOOLS AS A PART OF… 39
6. Troubleshooter
7. Judge
8. Magic Maker
9. Evangelist.
Each of the nine roles is important, and represents a link in the chain of the innovation
process. The foundation of the game is based on the fact that creating and maintaining a
healthy innovation portfolio requires the organization to develop the capability of identifying
which role is the best for each individual within the organization. A failure to involve and
leverage all nine roles along the idea generation, idea evaluation, and idea commercialization
path will lead to suboptimal results, [11].
3.2 KnowBrainer Innovation Tool
The KnowBrainer is a hand-held, fan-deck tool and a business game that initiates better,
faster and smarter thinking, using hundreds of proven questions, words, quotes and images
as inspiration. As a self-analytical, the KnowBrainer‟s integrated 4-Stage Accelerated
Innovation Process helps generating, planning and organizing ideas in the form of:
1. Investigation. Understand as fully as possible what goal is, or what the problem is.
2. Creation. Generating ideas and potential solutions.
3. Evaluation of the ideas and choosing which to implement.
4. Taking action.
The tools system uses carefully-researched stimulus to provoke the brain to be more creative
and innovative which helps in generating up to 530% more ideas than by a traditional
brainstorming. This portable tool is self-instructional and has 180 color-coded cards that use
a proven innovation language.
Some of global corporations that used Knowbrainer include: Microsoft, Mitsubishi and
Motorola, [12].
3.3 Innovation Planner
Innovation Planner is a card set of innovation strategies and solutions used for rapid,
effective, and efficient problem solving and idea generation. It is based on the Ideation TRIZ
innovation methodology that was derived from the analysis of over 3 million patents and 500
standard patterns of technical evolution. These cards describe the universal principles of
invention that innovators combine to create the millions of inventions known to mankind.

7. 40 MAJA S. TODOROVIC
The cards succeed in their purpose by presenting I-TRIZ and related innovation concepts in a
highly useable and dynamic form that can be matched to the problems and opportunities at
hand. The following are definitions for commonly used terms:
System: A total operational unit;
Element: Any part of a total system;
Field: An energy source;
Resource: An element or field that can be used by or provided by a system I-TRIZ – The
Ideation/TRIZ methodology, a systematic method for finding solutions to problems based on
proven solutions revealed by extensive patent analysis.
Each Innovation Planner Card Deck contains 166 unique cards and within these 166 cards
there are seven card types:
1. Operators – Solutions for systems that provide the ways to solve problems – 85 cards;
2. Resources – Properties and attributes of systems that provide the means to solve
problems – 37 cards;
3. Center of Gravity – Location within the system where a solution is or could be applied –
16 cards;
4. Concept – Idea behind how the problem will be solved – 7 cards;
5. Decision Cycle – Strategic parameters of how the problem will be solved – 7 cards;
6. Organizational Resources – The capacity of the supporting organization to provide the
ways and means to solve problems. (These are solution constraints.) – 9 cards;
7. Resolve Contradictions – Methods for which a system can exhibit two or more
conflicting properties or attributes – 5 cards.
Each card represents an idea and any given card could provide the means to make the idea
on another card work. Innovation Planner can be used for systematic innovation planning,
brainstorming, or through a several innovation games. It supports several games that can be
played in order to initiate creativity and innovation in a fun and entertaining way. Some of
the users of Innovation Planner include companies like Hewlet Packard, IBM and Intel, [10].
4. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-TECH
LEARNING TOOLS WITH AIM TO FOSTER ENVIRONMENTAL
INNOVATION
Environmental innovations as a subset of all innovations in an economy have to satisfy two

8. LOW-TECH LEARNING TOOLS AS A PART OF… 41
basic requirements in order to be considered sustainable:
a) develop new ideas, behavior, products/processes, apply or introduce them, and
b) contribute to a reduction of environmental burdens or to ecologically specified
sustainability targets, [13].
And that‟s not an easy task. One of the fundamental challenges of sustainable development
(SD) education is its goal to integrate natural science, social and managerial science into one
- creating systems thinking framework. SD relies on mutual interconnection of social,
economic, industrial and ecological dimensions. Thus, SD education has to provide tools
through which learners can understand the effects of one dimension on the other dimensions
and on the whole (and vise versa), [14]. Since the systems thinking methods provide the
flexibility to manage innovativeness, complexity and uncertainty in innovation projects more
successfully, they are essential in creating environmental innovations.
The previously mentioned tools accelerate new ideas and initiate creativity and inspiration
within the team, but they don‟t offer guidelines on systems thinking which is crucial in
developing environmental innovations. Consequently, it is important to work on
development of fun and entertaining tools as a part of organizational learning but in a way
that will promote and facilitate the development of systems thinking and learning for
complexity. Those tools also need to focus on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, the author explored the relevance of low-tech learning tools as a part of
organizational learning and its role in the modern corporate practice to foster and initiate
innovation. She stressed out that low-tech tools have earned their position as a preferred way
of learning due to its fun, entertaining and engaging properties. This paper makes a reference
to three low-tech tools. Such way of learning offers numerous opportunities for further
development of similar tools, but with more focused and systems thinking integrated
framework that will increase the potential of usage of such tools in SD education.
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9. 42 MAJA S. TODOROVIC
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