Have you ever wondered how and when innovation happens? Can managers demand it? Can we put it in our project plans? Can we just reprioritize it when we get too busy? Although these questions seem rhetorical, each one causes us to ask how and when innovation happens. Is innovation, much like creativity, neither intentional or something we can turn on and off? Does it just happen?
There’s no one answer to these questions, but there are patterns we can observe from successful innovation.
Take the opportunity to watch this TED talk by Tim Berners-Lee on The Next Web. In this talk Tim tells the story of how he created what we now know as the World Wide Web. In March of 1989, while a software engineer at CERN, Tim handed Information Management: A Proposal to his supervisor Mark Sendall. Sendall wrote “vague, but exciting” on the paper, put it in his drawer and nothing happened. Eighteen months later Sendall told Tim he could “do it on the side as a sort of a play project.” Some twenty years later we know the Web not only as an essential global information and business resource, but also a part of the critical infrastructure on which our national security depends.
This is an interesting enough anecdote, but there’s a pattern. During the fall of 1992 at the National Center for Supercomputing (NCSA) Marc Andressen and Eric Bina had enough time available to start a side project based on Tim’s work at CERN. The project soon became X Mosaic, the world’s first widely available graphical web browser. Within a few years the Mosaic team formed Netscape Communications Corporation which a few years later was acquired by America On Line (AOL) for about $4 billion.
Today, Google recognizes this pattern in its operations plan and it calls the pattern 20-percent time. Engineers are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time working on projects of their own choosing. Google does not enforce 20 percent time and engineers work on behalf of Google during that time. 20 percent time is so successful that about half of Google’s new product launches originate from what engineers create during their 20-percent time.
There’s solid evidence that innovation happens when employees have time and opportunity to investigate projects beyond their core duties. That does not mean that managers have lost control, or that employees are not working on behalf of the organization. Not all organizations recognize 20 percent time in their ops plan, but all organizations can create an environment that encourages how and when innovation happens.
4) Innovation Happens
Carolyn Barranca on 7/16/2009 6:40:53
Wasn’t it Einstein who said creativity is one percent inspiration and 99 percenet work? It’s finding the time to just think amidst all the noise. And then to put that idea down on paper, forge through the myriad of possibilities and then focus on something that might work.
I like the new administration’s focus on just trying something new and seeing where it goes. Government is going to benefit largely because this philosophy encourages ideas from the bottom up and it’s giving employees permission to think out loud, and saying “what if we tried this.” I see it happening more and more. Executives are becoming more open to ideas from those involved in the nitty gritty.
There should be more encouragment through incentives. And incentives don’t need to be monetary — maybe putting an employee into a new office for a short detail so they can benchmark and network with other teams. These are exciting times, aren’t they?
3) Innovation Happens
Bill Perlowitz on 7/16/2009 8:50:55
Managing a “scheduled innovation” can seem elusive, but there are some things we can do to improve our chance of success. “The Medici Effect” by Frans Johansson has been a great resource for me as a guideline to forming and managing teams that are required to breakthrough traditional barriers of procurement, scope, and schedule, and I recommend it to anyone who needs to ingrain a culture of innovation into their enterprise.
The truly difficult part of innovating is managing stakeholder expectations that every project will succeed, which simply can’t happen if you are being truly innovative. If anyone has a creative solution for that problem, it would be great if you would share it!
2) re: Innovation Happens
Casey Coleman on 7/16/2009 10:54:08
Yes, they are! Thanks for your comments, Carolyn.
1) Innovation Happens
Steve Radick on 8/13/2009 20:39:22
Interesting post Casey, and something that I’ve actually proposed more than a few times here at my company, but never gets beyond the “intriguing” phase. That’s why our Gov 2.0 work only got off the ground when I started working 9-5 on my client work, and then 5-9 on this new idea, in my “spare time.” Three years, look where we’re at.
The hardest part is senior leaders usually (and justifiably) demand ROI, and it’s hard to show ROI on some failed ideas. That is, until those 4 or 5 failed ideas eventually lead to that one hugely successful one. It ultimately comes down to two factors: 1) trust – do you trust your employees to continue to add just as much, if not more value if allotted a “free” 20%? and 2) risk – are you comfortable with months of work with potentially no final product to show? Are you ok with failed initiatives? Do you reward risk-taking or do you encourage toeing the line and doing your job?
I do hope we see more Google-like ideas like this in our government space – there’s a LOT of untapped potential in our civil servants!