Building a culture of continuous innovation holds significant rewards for enterprises that need to address constantly changing market environments and new competitive landscapes and also want to unleash the untapped potential of their broader employee base. While many companies have incentive programs for inventions and improvement proposals, their impact is often quite limited. In the following article, I would like to discuss some considerations and practices that are based on my experience of leading large organizations in the technology industry and have proven successful over the years.

It goes without saying that a culture of innovation needs visible support from the top of the business, and innovation needs to be directly tied to the mission and values of the enterprise. This emphasizes that it concerns all employees, not just those with a specific job title. IBM’s assertion of “innovation that matters” as one of three company values is one successful example.

It is also important that such a value statement is translated into impactful actions that employees can take related to their ongoing work and to the company’s strategic direction. In this way, broad groups of employees can become active participants in a transformation, gaining a sense of empowerment. A few examples:

Hackathons

Themed hackathons using strategic technologies or company-wide initiatives to solicit proposals addressing strategic areas create opportunities for the entire population to participate. They should be team-based and involve a well-defined process of proposal generation and decision making. For instance, soliciting proposals for artificial intelligence (AI) infused solutions can bring together teams that do not normally deal with client-facing solutions but are passionate about the potential role of AI in their company’s offerings. These initiatives are especially effective when coupled with mentoring on how to apply methodologies such as design thinking or agile practices and especially if they contain an element of gamification, like community voting. Rewards for winners should be geared towards allocating resources for implementation of the best proposals, and all participants should receive some form of recognition. If these events are not one-offs but part of a continuous drumbeat, they have been shown to significantly increase employee engagement.

Innovation Boards

Apart from specific time-boxed initiatives, establishing an innovation board to solicit proposals from a broad practitioner community on a regular basis has proven to be effective. It is important to set expectations and to provide mentoring to teams and individuals during the proposal process. Giving clear directions about the kind of proposals expected and specific areas of focus is also an opportunity for the leadership team to communicate about an organization’s priorities. This is especially important during major transformations, like moving to cloud or shifting towards a platform-based approach to services.

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