Innovation. The thing that every org wants needs. I think it is safe to assume that if something makes it to the Scaled Agile Framework, it is widely requested.
Many companies have tried various things and have invested heavily to create a culture of innovation. Acquisitions, creating departments, carving out separate legal entities, hiring consultancies & creative agencies, with varying degrees of success.
Question is, is this approach sustainable? How much does it increase your chances of succeeding? I believe your best bet is to cast a wider net. Your goal should not be to hunt for innovative ideas, but rather to create the grounds & a culture where every idea could be heard or ideally even tried out. This series of blog posts aims to give you some tips and ideas to achieve that.
Promote Tinkering
Have you ever felt that your processes are broken? The choices & investments you made not give you the benefits that were promised? Ever wondered why something worked for X but failed for you?
Don't you wish you had a guide that you could just follow so that you can go back to doing the things that matter? Something like what we have for building houses. Which ingredients to use for which kind of climate, fire code, and constructing in earthquake-prone zones. You name it, odds are there detailed instructions for it. So, why don't we have something like that for Software Development?
Software Development, both as an industry & a craft, is still in its infancy.
Compare it to an established field such as construction, we have been building things for ages. We failed a lot, tried new things and now know enough to create detailed guides about it. When it comes to software development, we don't even have all the questions, let alone the answers! We have a lot to learn and improve upon. Healthy teams know this. This is why they reject the status quo & keep on tinkering and tweaking things. They experiment and they evolve. Incentivize your teams & people to do so. You cannot innovate if you are busy putting out fires.
Make time and allocate resources to do it continuously
How many of us can have creative thoughts on command? I am sure none of us can do so consistently. Yet we expect teams to do so. Many organizations & even frameworks like SAFe® try to carve out dedicated time for experimenting, such as innovation sprints. I think innovation sprints or something in a regular/predictable cadence is a valid necessity, however, they are not executed properly. This time window should be used for intensive or exploring the "out of the box" ideas. There is plenty that can & needs to be done in this period, but perhaps that is a topic for another post.
Necessity is the mother of invention, but pain provides the impetus. If we do not act on pain immediately, we get used to it. This kills the impetus and stifles innovation & invention.
By being aware of and collecting the pains faced, you create a large pool of things to ideate over. But be careful, pains faced by the teams and people cannot be compared to a list. It is not a backlog to burn through, you cannot always prioritize it. Instead, think of pains as piles of dirty dishes that need to be done. If the pile grows too big, no one would like to touch them. If the pile needs to be tackled, you are most likely to reach for the most recent & relevant thing, even if the most valuable or correct thing is at the bottom. Don't let the pile get too high. Work on it continuously. Do not fill your iterations with tickets, leave some room & create a culture to tackle these pains. This also helps nip many problems in the bud, lowering the cost of your investment.
Teaser for the next post
This post focussed on topics that need to be done by the organizations or departments to activate their teams. In the next post, we will take a look at something the team leaders can do.
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