How To Help Your Teams To Innovate

Create a system that generates new ideas.

(credit: Patrick Tomasso)

Our team had a meeting before releasing a component to production. The code was tested and ready to be deployed.

• I asked: “Does anyone see any loose ends or has ideas about how to improve something?”
• One of the team members said, “Yes, I have a couple of ideas”.
• I said: “Great! I want to read them and bring them to refinement. Just let me know which document I can look for”.
• “I will post them later; they are in my private notes”.

That was scary because we were missing opportunities. What if I didn’t ask?

Who knows how many good ideas are in peoples’ private notes, and will never see the light of day?

Some team members feel free to promote their ideas and are persistent. That’s great, but not everyone has such “marketing” skills.

It’s better to make it as easy as possible - create an environment where ideas are often exposed and debated productively. It is a matter of culture, and it takes time to get there.

The mission became clear. Create conditions where the team members will

1. understand what is…