COMM1120 Collaboration and Innovation in Business
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · T3 2026COMM1120 Overview
- UNSW Sydney
- Term 3 2026
- Level 1
- Assessment guide
COMM1120 Collaboration and Innovation in Business develops a practical innovation process around the Double Diamond.
- Assessed by Four tasks totalling 100%
- Core process Discover, define, develop and deliver
- Strongest habit Trace evidence into decisions
How COMM1120 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Creativity and Innovation in Everyday Life | 15% | Individual writing task, Week 2 |
| Problem Definition and Project Plan | 20% | Team oral presentation with group and individual marks, Week 5 |
| Solution Delivery | 30% | Team oral presentation with group and individual marks, Week 10 |
| The Redesign Challenge | 35% | Individual report or static visual, Week 11 |
What COMM1120 covers
The course follows the Double Diamond from problem discovery and definition into solution development and delivery. It connects creative choices with team process, stakeholder evidence, project planning, prototyping, iteration, persuasive communication and reflective redesign.
Innovation Choices Across the Double Diamond
Problem and solution spaces, divergent and convergent thinking, creativity and implemented valueThe Double Diamond separates the problem space from the solution space and uses divergence and convergence in both.
- Discover before defining the problem
- Diverge before converging on a choice
- Separate creative ideas from implemented value
- Keep a traceable decision record
- Use feedback to revisit an earlier phase
Team Practice: Collaboration and Flexible Leadership
Team process efficacy, courageous conversations, flexible leadership and operational agreementsCollaboration is an observable process of planning, coordination, learning and adaptation. Team process efficacy concerns how people work together, not only whether the final output looks successful.
- Diagnose process rather than personality
- Use courageous conversations for accountable repair
- Match leadership to situation and need
- Turn the team agreement into operating routines
- Rotate the Key Contributor role with visible checks
Defining Problems with Research Evidence
5W1H, 5 Whys, Laddering, primary and secondary research, and How Might We framingProblem definition turns broad concern into a focused opportunity supported by evidence. 5W1H maps the landscape, 5 Whys probes possible causal chains, and Laddering connects attributes and consequences to human values.
- Match each uncertainty to a problem tool
- Separate assumption, observation and interpretation
- Use primary and secondary evidence deliberately
- Build an open How Might We frame
- Connect milestones, risks and success factors
Prototype Learning, User Value, Persuasive Pitches
Testing, stakeholder feedback, iteration, personas, value propositions and audience-specific asksA prototype makes an uncertainty testable. Its fidelity should match the question: a sketch can test sequence, a role-play can test service hand-offs, and a paper interface can expose navigation or comprehension issues.
- Write the test before building the prototype
- Translate feedback into reasoned iteration
- Connect personas to a value proposition
- Narrow the pitch toward a specific ask
- Coordinate timing, transitions and questions
Reflective Redesign Through Integrated Concepts
Cultural context, complementary teams, concept evaluation, user value and future actionThe redesign task combines cultural and global context, hypothetical team composition, selected course concepts and user value. These elements should constrain one another.
- Make cultural and global context consequential
- Justify complementary team composition
- Apply and evaluate concepts through decisions
- Turn experience into future action
- Match visual and report formats in analytical depth
Students learn to explore a problem broadly before defining it, generate alternatives before converging, work through team roles and conflict, gather stakeholder evidence, plan a project, prototype and iterate a response, and communicate value to an audience. The published Term 3 2026 assessment structure contains four tasks rather than a final examination.
The sequence begins with an individual reflection on creativity and innovation in everyday life, moves into a team problem-definition presentation, continues with a team solution-delivery pitch, and ends with an individual redesign challenge.
Across those tasks, visible reasoning matters: evidence should change the problem frame, feedback should change the solution, team practices should change collaboration, and reflection should change future action. The opening task rewards careful observation and a personal explanation of how creativity relates to implementation.
The first team presentation then asks for context, root causes, stakeholder learning, a focused opportunity statement, clear responsibilities and a customised plan. The later pitch requires the group to show how ideation, testing and revision produced its current response, who benefits, and what action a defined audience should take.
The individual redesign draws those capabilities together in a new setting: cultural and global conditions must affect the scenario, team members need a reason for being selected, and chosen concepts must alter decisions while their limitations remain visible. A useful preparation habit is to maintain a decision trail throughout the term.
Record the observation, interpretation, alternatives, criterion, choice and next test whenever the work changes direction. This gives presentations concrete development evidence and gives reflection a basis stronger than memory or general claims. Team records should also show how responsibilities, disagreement and feedback were handled, because collaboration is a process as well as an outcome.
This independent guide explains those reasoning moves with original examples. It does not provide material to submit and does not reproduce assessment exemplars or student work. Use the current Moodle task page for operational instructions and apply the course rules on academic integrity and acceptable research support.
Worked example · free
Repair a solution-shaped problem frame
- +1Identify the embedded solution and the unsupported causal assumption.
- +1Return to evidence about the people, context and obstacle.
- +1Frame the desired change without prescribing a channel.
- +1State what evidence would test the new frame.
Key terms
- Double Diamond
- An innovation framework that alternates divergence and convergence across problem and solution spaces.
- Divergent thinking
- Generating multiple possibilities before evaluation narrows the field.
- Convergent thinking
- Comparing alternatives and selecting a direction using relevant criteria.
- Team agreement
- A shared document that makes roles, responsibilities, expectations and response practices explicit.
- Root cause
- An underlying condition that helps explain why an observed problem occurs.
- Stakeholder engagement
- Gathering insight or feedback from people affected by or influential to a problem or response.
- Prototype
- An early representation used to test an uncertain feature, interaction or service assumption.
- Iteration
- A reasoned revision made in response to evidence or feedback.
- Value proposition
- A clear account of the benefit a response provides to a defined user or stakeholder.
- Critical reflection
- Analysis that connects experience, interpretation, evaluation and future action.
- How Might We
- A question that frames a researched problem as an open opportunity for more than one possible response.
- Key Contributor
- A rotating team role that checks weekly collaborative activities, agreed goals and deadlines.
- Persona
- A data-informed fictional profile whose needs and characteristics guide a solution or communication choice.
- The Ask
- A specific request at the end of a pitch that is tailored to its implied audience.
COMM1120 FAQ
How is the course assessed?
The published structure has four tasks: a 15% individual creativity and innovation reflection, a 20% team problem-definition presentation, a 30% team solution-delivery pitch, and a 35% individual redesign challenge. The numeric weights total 100%.
What does the Double Diamond organise?
It separates broad discovery from focused problem definition, then repeats divergence and convergence while teams develop and deliver a response. The model helps teams know whether they should expand possibilities, evaluate evidence or commit.
What makes collaboration visible?
Specific roles, decision records, meeting actions, contribution history, feedback responses and revisions make team process inspectable. A team agreement becomes useful when its clauses describe observable behaviour and review points.
How should a problem statement use evidence?
Important phrases should trace to stakeholder research, observation or credible secondary material. Assumptions need to be labelled, and a How Might We statement should remain open enough for more than one solution.
What makes a solution pitch persuasive?
The pitch aligns a defined audience need with a relevant solution, development evidence, a clear value proposition and a specific ask. Features that do not advance that chain should be removed.
What makes reflection analytical?
Analytical reflection identifies a specific experience, interprets why it mattered, evaluates the response and its limits, and states how the learning will change future behaviour or judgement.
What must the Assessment 1 submission contain?
Assessment 1 is an individual 700-word reflection, with a permitted variation of 10%, built around the required creativity and innovation photographs. The guide also requires the photographs and their metadata, appropriate research and referencing, and drafting in the online version of Microsoft Word so document history is retained. Check the current task page before submitting the Word document through Moodle.
How are the marks and timing split in Assessment 2?
Assessment 2 is worth 20%, divided into 13% group marks and 7% individual marks. The team has 5 minutes and 30 seconds for its oral presentation, followed by 2 minutes of questions and answers in the Week 5 workshop. The guide requires problem context, root causes, stakeholder learning, a How Might We statement, collaboration evidence and a detailed project plan, so timing should protect all of those links.
What development evidence belongs in Assessment 3?
Assessment 3 is a 7-minute and 30-second team pitch followed by 3 minutes of questions and answers. Its solution-development section asks teams to trace changes to the How Might We statement, ideation, prototypes, testing, stakeholder feedback and iteration. The pitch must also connect personas to a value proposition and finish with an ask suited to the implied audience, rather than merely listing features.
Can Assessment 4 be submitted as a visual instead of a report?
Yes. The Redesign Challenge permits either a 1,000-word report, with a 10% variation, or a static infographic or digital poster with equivalent explanation and detail. Both formats must establish the hypothetical context, include four team personas in the appendix, justify the team, apply and evaluate three course concepts, explain user value and critically reflect on how COMM1120 teamwork informed the composition decisions.
Questions students ask in each COMM1120 chapter
- Why should teams delay convergence?
- Early commitment can turn research into decoration for a favourite idea. Delaying judgement long enough to gather alternatives improves comparison, but divergence should end once relevant uncertainty has been reduced enough for a responsible choice. Chapter 01 · Innovation Choices Across the Double Diamond
- What makes a team agreement operational?
- It names a trigger, observable behaviour, owner and review point. A statement such as communicate promptly is weaker than a shared rule for posting changes, tagging affected members and acknowledging urgent updates. Chapter 02 · Team Practice: Collaboration and Flexible Leadership
- Which problem tool should I use?
- Choose according to the uncertainty. Use 5W1H for boundaries and context, 5 Whys for a possible cause chain, and Laddering for the values or motivations behind behaviour. Chapter 03 · Defining Problems with Research Evidence
- How detailed should a prototype be?
- Use only the detail required to test the current uncertainty. Extra fidelity costs time and can make teams defend work because it looks finished rather than because evidence supports it, so begin with the leanest credible representation. Chapter 04 · Prototype Learning, User Value, Persuasive Pitches
- How should context affect a redesign?
- Context should change a need, constraint, access condition, team requirement or design choice. A place or culture label without a consequence is descriptive rather than analytical. Chapter 05 · Reflective Redesign Through Integrated Concepts
How to prepare for the assessments
Build one decision record throughout the term. For each important change, note the observation, interpretation, alternatives, criterion, choice and next test. Rehearse course concepts by applying them to small fictional situations rather than memorising definitions. Before a team presentation, trace every claim to evidence and every slide to an audience question.
Before the redesign challenge, test whether context affects team composition, selected concepts affect redesign decisions, and reflection affects future action. When sources conflict, preserve the disagreement, narrow the claim, and identify what observation or stakeholder input could resolve it. Practise stating what is known, what is inferred, and what remains uncertain.
Confirm current operational details on Moodle before submission. In Week 1, collect possible everyday creativity and innovation examples, then test whether each example shows idea generation, implementation and value rather than novelty alone. Before the Week 2 writing deadline, reserve time to verify photo metadata, references and document history as well as revising the reflection itself.
For the Week 5 presentation, allocate rehearsal time by reasoning dependency: the problem context should support the root-cause analysis, stakeholder evidence should support the opportunity frame, and the project plan should respond to the risks already identified. Rehearse to the published limit and prepare concise evidence-based responses for questions.
Between Assessments 2 and 3, keep prototype versions and feedback notes so the Week 10 pitch can demonstrate what testing changed. Assign owners for the audience case, solution mechanics, personas, value proposition and final ask, then rehearse transitions as one coordinated argument. For the Week 11 redesign, compare several possible concepts before selecting three.
Draft the context, four-person team rationale, redesign and reflection as connected choices, and check that the selected format provides equivalent analytical depth whether it is a report or static visual.
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