Building Long-Term Innovative Teams
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Wikispeed
Innovation?
• Come up with a new way of solving a problem
• Applies to product, process, business
Innovation Myths
• Happens over night
• Comes from one innovative person
• ...who does his thing in a corner
• It’s very visible
Innovation Reality
• It’s iterative and incremental
• Comes from a team
• Includes copying ideas
• Applies to Products, Processes, Business Models
Me: Maria Diaconu
• Founder and CEO Mozaic Works
• Entrepreneur, Startups mentor
• Founder of AgileWorks community
• Former: Software Developer, Quality Manager, Coach, Trainer
Innovation Ingredients
• Culture
• Innovation Framework
• Ideas
• Experiments
• Projects
Culture
• Transparency
• Collaboration
• Diversity
• Safe environment
• Courage
• Focus
• Execution excellence
Innovation Framework
Ideas
Experiments
Projects
Culture
Ideas
• Ideas are free
• Collect them
• Make them visible
Refine ideas
Business Case
•Expected Benefits
•Estimated cost of implementation
•Risks involved
Culture for Ideas
DON’T:
•Laugh at others ideas
•Attribute ideas incorrectly
DO:
•Communicate vision, constraints, needs
Experiments - Why
• Validate hypothesis
• Learn fast
• Discover relevant information
Experiments - How?
• Hypothesis
• Measurable Criteria (when possible)
• A Relevant Duration
Experiments: Culture
• If it succeeded, what did you learn?
• If it failed, what did you learn?
Failure is good, as long as you learn from it
Projects: Why?
• Innovation just for its own sake is useless
• Increase revenue
• Decrease costs
Projects: How?
• Incremental & iterative approach
• With PM or self-organized
Projects: Culture
• Execution excellence
• Stop starting, start finishing
• Empower the team
Innovation Framework
Ideas
Experiments
Projects
Culture
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Photos Attribution
