The Importance of Setting Aside Time for Innovation
Many organizations set aside time on a recurring basis for innovation. There are many ways to refer to these types of events, such “Innovation Days,” or “Hack Days.” Sometimes, organizations get even more creative with what they call these events. For instance, Management 3.0 practitioners might use a term like “Exploration Days” or “Shipit Days.” Thinking back to when I worked for National Public Radio (NPR), we referred to these types of events as “Serendipity Days.” (For the rest of this post, I’ll use the term Innovation Days.)
Innovation Days Patterns and Practices
Some of the most common characteristics of Innovation Days include:
- Usage of an Open Space (or similar) construct (which is a great fit for rapidly identifying potential things to work on, at the start of the event)
- Self-organization (participants self-select into a group or team that is working on a problem that interests them)
- A converge-diverge-converge pattern, where: 1. The entire group identifies areas of interest at the beginning; 2. Individuals or groups break out to work on solutions to business problems independently; 3. The entire group reconvenes at the end to hear about what the various individuals and groups have come up with
Benefits of Innovation Days
Organizations that set regularly set aside time for innovation report that a large proportion of their ideas for new products, or enhancements to existing products, originate during those events. Simply stated, such events become the primary engine for innovation in many organizations.
Some of the benefits of Innovation Days include:
- Awareness of potential solutions to technical problems increases, due to the “wisdom of the crowd” phenomenon
- Opportunities for people to work together who otherwise might not interact frequently
- Surfaces areas that people might want to learn more about, and also identifies potential mentors in the organization in many different areas
Addressing a Few Misconceptions about Innovation Days
There are many different ways to frame innovation activities. Sometimes, Innovation Days might closely resemble what many of us think of as Hack-a-Thons, where technical skills and technical activities are central to the desired outcomes (working prototypes of apps, dashboards, and websites, to name a few examples). No matter what the approach is, desired outcomes tend to include things like this:
- Identifying potential areas for innovation, which could ultimately increase organizational revenue
- Identifying potential areas for further technical exploration
- Identifying areas that people might want to learn more about
- Creating additional opportunities for connection, collaboration, and yes — fun!
How to Facilitate an Innovation Day
Here is a basic facilitation approach that can work for just about any context:
- Open the space (give people a chance to connect and provide an outline of what the event is going to look like)
- Emphasize that self-organization is a key aspect — people can work in any group they are interested in joining
- Make sure there is clarity on the basic parameters of the event, such as: 1. Desired outcomes (share what we’ve built/what we’ve learned); 2. Identify areas where outcomes could lead to potential innovation. For example: a. Ideas for new products; b. Enhancements to existing products; c. Tools that we might want to start using to meet particular needs
Descriptions of Innovation Days at Other Organizations
Below are some additional examples:
