INNOVATION

one-up
TIME TO INNOVATE
There’s a common thread among innovative
companies: they set aside employee “free
time.” Take 3M’s long-standing “15-percent
rule,” which encourages researchers and
engineers to spend 15 percent of their
workday on their own projects. At Google,
that rule is 70–20–10: 70 percent of an
employee’s time should be spent on core
business, 20 percent on projects related
to the core and 10 percent on totally
unrelated projects. At Apple, engineers get
20 percent for their own projects, while
last year, Adobe publicized the details of its
“Kickbox” employee innovation program,
which offers $1,000 to employees to
pursue side projects. Meanwhile, PayPal,
GE, AT&T and American Express all have
programs to encourage innovation and
inspire creativity.
No matter how you do it, the concept is simple, suggests Intuit Inc. “Give employees
time and freedom to explore ideas they are passionate about, and they will generate
new and innovative products and services.” The software firm suggests carving out
at least 10 percent of employees’ schedules for “unstructured time,” offering the
following steps to make the most of that time:
1. Batch your time. Negotiate a block of time that falls after peak projects and
deadlines so you’re not distracted by daily fires. Looming projects can steal
your focus; it’s better to innovate in a designated block of undistracted time, so
“40 hours every 10 weeks can be much better than four hours per week.”
2. Build a small team. Forming a mini-team of energetic people with synergistic
skillsets can do wonders for the innovation process via inspiration and extra
brainpower.
3. Create structure. Innovating in a vacuum doesn’t work; “it’s vital to create
some structured activity for your unstructured time project,” states Intuit. Find
a way to spur teams to hit deadlines for innovation via contests; host in-house
competitions or open houses to showcase new ideas.
Most importantly, make innovation part of your organization’s culture, because
“unstructured time alone isn’t enough to spur innovation.” Learn more at network.
intuit.com.
COWORKING FOR INNOVATION
Construction is underway on the third
and fourth floors of the Jump Trading
Simulation and Education Center
in Peoria, creating a collaborative
workspace to solve healthcare’s
most complex problems. The
$12 million project will turn these
floors into open, shared working
environments for numerous
departments within OSF HealthCare,
including Performance Improvement,
TeleHealth, Healthcare Analytics,
Research and the Applied Research
for Community Health Through
Engineering and Simulation program
(ARCHES).
The idea is for employees to
have easier access to each other, to
simulation experts and to clinicians as
they help OSF HealthCare innovate
ways to improve healthcare. The
development will include a staircase
connecting the two floors, small
and large group spaces, video
conferencing rooms and a café.
Construction is expected to be
completed in June 2016.
MINING MEETING GOLD
Tired of wasting time in meetings? Though they sometimes
seem futile, in fact "team meetings are a big indicator of
overall team performance,” says Lawrence Polsky of the global
consulting firm PeopleNRG.com. He and his colleague, Antoine
Gerschel, offer the following tips on how you can transform
wasted time and “mine gold from executive meetings”:
1. Seven-minute watercooler wisdom. Leverage
the HHAY (“Hello, how are you?”) meeting to stay on
top of team issues and build strong relationships with
team members.
2. Don't let the loudmouths dominate. Don’t allow
quieter individuals to be overshadowed by their more
extroverted peers.
3. Separate catch-up, project and strategy meetings.
One often bleeds into another, making meetings
long and unproductive. Suggesting that "this is a good
topic for the XX meeting" helps you stay on track.
4. The meeting before the meeting. Briefing attendees
on the agenda and providing discussion items in
advance will keep meetings moving along.
5. End-of-meeting huddle. End by asking questions
like: "Were the meeting objectives met?" "Did
everybody participate?" and "Do we have clear commitments
and action items?"
24 InterBusiness Issues -- January 2016