Creating the right conditions for innovation

Our customers expect the best product and content delivered to them whenever, wherever and however they want. Typically they are also very busy and are always first to the latest technology trends.

This means that their way of experiencing technology is constantly evolving and we need to innovate to deliver new experiences that builds deeper engagement and loyalty.

While that seems sensible and straightforward to most, in reality, being truly innovative is difficult.

Trying to improve or even invent new techniques or products means that we fail many times in the process before we ever succeed. That can be hard to take but ultimately it is a very enriching experience that grows teams.

Overseeing the technology team that builds NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER, it is my responsibility to create an environment and culture of working that encourages the team to break new ground. Here are some ways that we do so:

Set your team’s working principles

Working in a team means working together in a way that benefits everyone. Every team is different so there is no universal approach, but there are some principles we like to stick by:

• Transparency is key. Clear updates allow everyone to plan their work better and support members of the team who are under pressure. We find that having the right tools in place, such as Jira or Slack, makes being transparent much easier. But it also depends on instilling…
• A no-blame culture. The outcome of a project is down to every member and the aim is to win together. When we are trying to innovate, failures are inevitable so we do retrospectives on our projects to learn. But rather than singling out individuals we encourage each other to think about how we could have done the work differently to create a successful outcome.
• Thinking space. We do not live in a vacuum so what we create needs to be a reflection of the world around us, refined for our luxury customer. We make sure our team has time in their day to think freely away from their work. Time to read, research, converse with colleagues, get away from their desk or even the office and do their job in a different environment such as our Bologna office. This all helps people get a different perspective, think creatively and innovate in a way that would not be possible if they were at the same desk every day of the working week.
• Thanking each other. It is so easy to let days fly past without ever really taking stock of what we have done as individuals and as a team. Sometimes one person may have done an exceptional job, other times the team might stay late to meet their deadline. Saying thank you takes a second but is often remembered long after.

Visualise your goals together

When it is very busy, it can be tempting to share an action plan without getting your team’s input on how to achieve it. But in the long run, that rarely brings out the best, most innovative work.

Making sure the team has time to discuss a project can be incredibly constructive. It gives people the chance to voice opinions about where they think they can do the best work and how they think the project should be run, creating shared ownership and responsibility.

More interestingly, it gives us a chance to visualise the project. We map out our key milestones, think about our peoples’ unique skills and how we can use them to achieve our objective. Then we visualise the best and worst case scenarios which is always a useful exercise for creating a softer forum for discussion with more tangible outcomes.

Get close to the customer

When a journalist writes, they do so for a specific audience which requires them to have a level of knowledge about their readers.

The same goes for creating online luxury stores — when we build, we are catering for a very specific customer who we have to know very well.

In order to make sure that we are building our technology in the right way, we always try to get as close to the customer as possible to understand exactly who they are and what they want.

Being a digital business, we are very fortunate to have data that we can share with the entire team so we can see what the customer sees and act accordingly. If our customers are having a good experience we want to know about it and apply those principles to our other work.

And even more importantly, we always bring our customers into the business so that our teams can hear their feedback directly and evolve as required.

Get close to each other!

From my own experience, getting to know your colleagues better is probably the most valuable way you can spend your professional time to boost creativity and innovation. Going for a meal, organising a team activity, celebrating together — these bonding experiences show you the character and strengths of the individuals you work with day in and day out. We find this encourages empathy and better long-term outcomes.

Once you have that togetherness, you can turn that bond into professional outcomes. One fun exercise we sometimes do together is called “mobbing”. It basically involves everyone on the team coding together, which is highly interactive, creative and ultimately productive.

Innovation can come from anywhere in a business if the conditions are right and I believe our way of working fosters creativity and allows us to continually deliver the best possible new experiences for our customers.