A few posts ago I wrote about How Management Kills Innovation and wanted to touch upon this concept a little more.
I have been compiling some notes on ways to foster innovation and help turn around the lack of innovation in companies I have seen first-hand. This is a working copy basically that I will add to and tweak as needed:
- Have no more than 3 governing rules for a team
- Follow the Lean Startup ideas of Build -> Measure -> Learn and repeat
- Create an environment of experimentation
- 6 people tops per team
- Do not keep teams in a vacuum
- Promote cross-pollination between teams (openly share ideas free of fear)
- Customers decide on what the MVP is not the stake holders. Double down on what the customer wants and uses. Drop the rest.
- Ask the right questions (don’t put the answer before the question)
- NEVER allow process over innovation!
- Remove barriers to teams getting new products/features
- Individuals don’t build great companies, teams do
- 98% of meetings are a waste of time
- Just in time not just in case.
