Published: August 31 2011, 02:16 PM | 2 Comment(s)
by Rich Graves

Thanks to fast moving technology companies like Apple and Google the IT world is now obsessed with innovation. Not to say innovation has been unimportant in the past, but it's now a close second in the techie buzz word dictionary only to "cloud." However, it's hard to say "innovate" without giving employees at least the right environment to do so. After doing some reading on the topic I thought I would share my thoughts on ways to get your IT organization to at least start sharing ideas that could form a good foundation for innovation.

First I highly recommend watching Steven Johnson's amazing TED talk on innovation titled "Where good ideas come from." He tells a humorous and thought provoking story on how ideas can connect, mature and eventually flourish. If you find the talk interesting then go out and buy his book of the same name (or you can watch this 4 minute video overview of the book). The book covers in much greater detail what types of environments help foster innovation.

Openness serves ideas better than walls - This is often a tough one in traditional IT departments. There is a strong belief that the thoughts and ideas in your head (tacit knowledge) are your intellectual property and by keeping it to yourself you stand to gain more by sharing it. This is the classic job protectionist line of thinking. But when it comes to innovation it just doesn't have the same rate of success as sharing ideas and being open. A team that openly shares their ideas is a team that will be more successful. Ultimately ideas that work are often ones that connectd with other ideas.

Ideas are hungry for other ideas - As said above many individuals' ideas aren't fully formed and they need to connect and be discussed to become a reality. Johnson likes to use the coffee house as an environment that generates informal discussion. It's a comfortable environment where people can talk freely and allow their thoughts to connect and form new ideas. Try to create an environment during team meetings that promotes free form discussion where you don't have the formal organizational structures (i.e. judgment and hierarchy). This could be literally going to a coffee house, a team lunch outside the office or a walk around the office park.

Follow the improv rule of "yes and" - If you know anything about improvisational comedy then you are well aware of the most important rule "yes and". Meaning you don't disagree with your fellow actor but rather agree and add onto that thought and push the scene/plot further. This is a great rule to follow in a team meeting by taking a suggestion or idea and pushing it further. It also promotes openness.

Put all your junk on the table - In Johnson's book he talks about the movie Apollo 13 and how the team on the ground that is trying to save the astronauts puts all their spare parts on a table and are told "figure it out." Put all your components, systems and processes on the conference room table (virtually that is) and think about where they either work well together today or are disconnected. What are the biggest problems for the business or IT right now? Can these parts be put together in a different way to solve it? Do we need all these parts?

Are there leftovers? Can we make a soup? - My grandmother could always make a great soup out of last night's leftovers and available items in the kitchen. Like soup, some of the most amazing innovations have come from what many see as junk or waste from an existing product or process. From an IT perspective what waste or noise do your applications or processes generate that could be used in other processes or applications? Is there gold stored in those log files or data exports that we could use if we mine it?

Innovation in IT is often about automation - The low hanging fruit for innovation in an IT organization is usually automation. It could be automating a manual process, or even getting rid of an expensive or unnecessary process. Don't feel that innovation can only be achieved by buying a new piece of technology. Instead look at ways to get rid of technology that isn't adding value or could be slowing your team down.