A report of 2000 words ±10%, excluding charts, references, and diagrams. It demonstrates your understanding of innovation concepts, theories, and tools by applying them to real organisations and critically analysing both a success and a failure. The submission goes through an AI-usage check, so AI-generated or AI-paraphrased text is prohibited.
Task 1: Innovation Approach Analysis (Atlassian)
Analyse Atlassian, an Australia-based software company known for its collaboration and productivity tools. Draw on their official website, shareholder and annual reports, engineering and product blogs, news coverage, academic literature, and industry reports.
Innovation approach. Describe Atlassian's documented innovation strategy, including how it develops products and what drives its approach to growth.
Innovation concepts and theories. Analyse that strategy through relevant theory, explaining how each concept plays out in practice:
- Open vs closed innovation (Teece, 1988), given the public APIs and third-party Marketplace ecosystem
- Disruptive vs sustaining innovation (Christensen, 1997)
- Design thinking (Brown, 2009)
- Business model innovation, given the low-touch, product-led distribution model
Innovation tools. Identify the specific tools and methodologies Atlassian uses or evidences in practice, and explain how each contributes to its innovation success. Likely candidates include ShipIt Days, the Team Playbook, dogfooding, agile development, experimentation and A/B testing, and UX research.
Task 2: Case Study of Innovation Failure (Webvan)
Analyse Webvan, the online grocery delivery service that launched during the dot-com era and collapsed commercially despite substantial funding and a well-recognised concept.
Overview. Outline what Webvan was, what it set out to do, and the scale of its failure.
Reasons for failure. Critically analyse why it failed, drawing on relevant theories of innovation failure:
- Scaling before validating product-market fit
- Capital-intensive infrastructure built ahead of demonstrated demand
- Market misalignment and timing relative to consumer readiness
- Unit economics and operational execution
- Escalation of commitment to the original plan
Lessons learnt. Discuss what other organisations can take from the case and how those lessons could prevent similar failures. The contrast with Task 1 is useful, since Atlassian's iterative, feedback-driven, validate-before-scaling practices are close to the inverse of Webvan's approach. Webvan is also widely cited in Lean Startup literature, giving you a direct theoretical link.
Structure
- Title page
- Short introduction
- Body: Task 1, then Task 2
- References
- Appendices if applicable
Referencing and Format
- APA 7th edition in-text citations throughout, with a separate reference list at the end
- At least 10 academic and reputable business sources
- Academic English writing style, with clear headings and subheadings for each section
- Sources drawn from academic journals, books, and reputable industry publications