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Innovation Only Happens When Team Members Feel That They're Wanted

How many times do you have to tell your team: it’s time to start innovating again? The global recession is over, if your part of the IT department is going to start to grow and be successful, then your team is going to have to be out in front and leading the charge. Since budgets are still constrained, it’s going to take a great deal of innovation to find ways to do more with what you currently have. Why isn’t anyone doing this?

You Are Not Alone

I’m not sure if this is going to make you feel any better, but as an IT Team Leader you are not alone in this absence of innovation. Lots of IT teams are finding that they are missing that spark of innovation also.

What’s going on here? That’s the very question that two researchers, Feirong Yuan and Richard Woodman , set out to answer. They sent out surveys to 100′s of employees of companies and they covered everyone from the top of the pyramid to the folks working in the mailroom.

It’s All About Image

Their findings were actually quite interesting. What they discovered is that innovation in an IT team is being withheld because team members are concerned about the risk to their workplace image that being seen as being innovative would cause. The power of creating unfavorable social impressions with their coworkers is what is keeping their mouths shut.

A lot of this can be tied back to just exactly what a given IT worker’s job title is. If it doesn’t explicitly say “innovator” in their job description, then you’ve got a problem. Team members who are not expected to be innovators feel that their coworkers will develop a negative impression of them if they start to suggest different ways of doing things.

This goes even one step further. The researchers discovered that many IT team members fear that too much innovation on their part will start to “provoke anger” among their fellow IT coworkers. This will be especially true with those workers who are happy with the way that things are – the “don’t rock the boat” mentality.

The Role Of The IT Leader

As the IT Leader, it’s going to be your job to make innovation happen in your IT team. If you don’t, then you won’t be an IT Leader for very long. What you are going to have to communicate to the entire team is that the whole IT department is behind the push for more innovation.

Showing that innovation is what is being expected will go a long way in setting the stage for your team. Telling the team over and over again that you are looking for them to be innovative will serve to lower the perceived social risk of coming forward with innovative suggestions.

Your job as an IT Leader is to create an IT workplace where your team will feel comfortable in being innovative. This means that you are going to have to make everyone understand that individual differences are not only tolerated, but are actually critical in order to help the team look at problems in different ways.

What All Of This Means For You

As an IT Leader you are going to have to make the most out of the resources that you have – funding will always be tight. This means that you are going to have to find ways to get your IT team to get creative and innovate. However, recent studies have shown that workers who are not expected to be innovative often worry about their image and don’t speak up.

In order to change this, as an IT Leader you are going to have to clearly and repeatedly communicate to the team that innovation is not only encouraged, but it is also expected. You’re going to have to create an environment in which all workers feel comfortable speaking up and being innovative.

There is no one magic action that you can take to make your team be more innovative. However, given time and a consistent message from you that innovation is a good thing, you can convince everyone in your team to think hard and become the innovation engine that the IT department is going to need in order to both survive and thrive.

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Management Skills™

Question For You: What is the one thing that you think an IT Leader can do to make innovation happen in an IT team?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Being an IT Leader is a hard job. On any given day, you’ll have multiple people pulling on you trying to get you to do 100 different things. The question that you have to keep asking yourself is “what should my team be working on right now?”

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Post tags: afraid to, differences are tolerated, fear, image risks, innovation, job titles, new ideas, organizational support, provoke anger, roles, sense of psychological safety, social riskiness

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You Get No More Resources, But Still Need To Find A Way To Innovate

As an IT Leader, you’ve got a bit of a challenge on your hands right now. There is probably no way that you’re going to be getting more funding or headcount in the immediate future (or at least not enough to make a difference).

Yet at the same time your senior management keeps talking about the need for the IT department to start showing some innovation. Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into yet another bind. How about if we take a look at how you can exceed your expectations using what you already have…

It’s All About The Information

Eric Lundquist over at eWeek magazine points out that one way for an IT team to show innovation is for it to create new ways to leverage company information. Two ways of doing this include taking existing company information and combining it in different ways and the other is creating new information from resources that already exist.

Within IT we all know the dirty little secret: our systems don’t talk to each other. What this means is that we have databases that are stuffed with silos of customer, product, and operations information sprinkled throughout the company.

It does not take a genius to realize that simply by creating an application that has access to two databases that have not previously been connected an IT team can create a new information tool. By creating this type of data “mashup” multiple times, the innovation that has been requested can be delivered.

It’s Time To Optimize

Anyone up for more layoffs? Ok, so that’s not the type of optimization that we’re talking about here. Any company runs by executing processes. IT has the ability to help optimize those processes. The first step in doing this is to measure the processes as they exist today in order to be able to determine what parts of what processes need improvement.

In the old days, this type of process measurement simply focused on people and documents. Now we realize that there’s more than meets the eye here. If you look at the full infrastructure of what it takes to run a company and execute a process, then you need to account for things like electricity, air conditioning, physical space, etc.

Most companies that compete against each other end up with very similar processes. If your IT team can come up with a way to make your company’s process better / quicker / faster than the other guy’s process then that truly would be an innovation.

Risk Is What You Make Of It

Risk to a company comes in many forms. Most firms focus on making sure that they are complying with both state and federal regulations. Rarely does a company see risk management as an avenue to innovation and so more often than not they end up trying to do the bare minimum needed just to get by the regulators.

There is a different approach that you can take with your IT team. If you assign them the task of determining where the risk to the company lies, they just might surprise you with what they come up with. Once they’ve identified where the risks are, assign them to create solutions that will either minimize or eliminate these risks. You just might be surprised with the level of innovation that empowering your team creates.

What All Of This Means For You

Innovation is currently a popular buzzword both in business and in IT. As IT Leaders we are being asked to create innovation within our teams using the resources that we currently have available.

If we take the time to look around, we will find that we have three opportunities to make things happen using what our teams already have. The first is to bring silos of company data together in order to create information that doesn’t currently exist. Next we have the opportunity to measure existing company processes in order to find out where IT can help optimize the processes. Finally, IT has a key role to play in minimizing the risk that the company faces and by empowering your IT team you can uncover hidden risks.

Innovation is there, you just have to take the time to uncover where it is hiding. You need to move quickly, because there’s a lot more that your IT team needs to get done after this!

Do you think that your IT team has the ability to work with other IT teams to create company data mashups?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Sigh, if only we all could work for Google, right?  Hmm, but wait a minute, no matter how nice it seems, they’ve got to be dealing with the same IT Leader issues that we all are. Maybe it’s time to have a talk with their (former) CIO…

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Post tags: business process, company information, data silos, governance, information, innovation, mashup, process, process measurement, risk, risk management

Innovation In An IT Department Is Not Done Alone

So IT Leader, what are you going to do about boosting the innovation within your team? Your hands are tied when it comes to giving out raises – not that money really helps innovation. You don’t have any spots to offer promotions into because the company has adopted a “flat” organizational structure. Oh, and all of your workers are running around afraid that they might lose their jobs any day now. Good luck with making innovation happen here!

It’s All About Words

Sure we read about big “innovation generation” exercises that those fancy firms put on where they haul everyone out into the woods for a week and make them climb trees together until they agree to work together if only they’d be allowed to return home and eat normal food once again. It turns out that as an IT Leader, you can make innovation happen within your team by doing something much simpler (and less costly).

Innovation happens when the right person talks with the right person. As an IT Leader it’s your job to make this happen. This means that you’ve got to know both your team and the rest of the company. Since you know your staff, you know what their talents are. Using this information, you need to have them go out and talk with the other parts of the company where there are people with complementary talents.

Just Make A Decision Already!

If you want to kill innovation in your department, then the simplest thing that you can do is to make it hard to get permission to test a new idea. All too often the decision making processes that we have in place are legacy artifacts that are left over from days gone by.

If you take a look at just what it takes in order for a fresh idea to bubble to the surface and get permission to be tested, then you’ll know what needs to change. This process should have as little friction as possible and should be perceived as being easy to do.

Who’s In Charge Here?

When it’s time to come up with a new idea, the person that you appoint to run the show will be key to its success or failure. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone but we naturally tend to choose the best performers in one particular area to lead the team that is in charge of innovating. It turns out that this is the wrong decision.

What we should be doing is realizing that success in this area is going to really be more dependent on connections that the leader has with other parts of the company instead of any special technical skills that they may have. This means that we need to find those team members who are the best “hooked in” and let them lead the team.

Come Together, Right Now…

Where people sit and who they work side-by-side with is key to their ability to come up with innovative ideas. If you insist that your team members sit in the same location or if you resist transferring people to other departments to work on a project, then you’ll be acting as a roadblock to the very innovation that you are so desperately seeking.

Beware Energy Vampires

Hopefully it goes without staying that it’s much easier to work with positive people instead of negative people. This is something that you’ve got to watch out for and plan around very carefully.

It can be very easy to identify those people that will enable your team to make forward progress and those that will drain both their energy and enthusiasm. Once you know this, then you’ve got to work to keep your team away from the “energy vampires” so that they’ll remain highly productive.

Final Thoughts

Nobody ever said that being an IT Leader was going to be an easy job. One of your responsibilities is to make sure that your team is able to create and deliver innovative ideas. With little budget or other such levers, you’re going to have to get creative.

Knowing that innovation is often caused by having your staff interact with others, you need to make sure that such opportunities exist. Simplifying decision making and ensuring that novel ideas can be tested is a good way to foster innovation. Remember that in the end, an IT team that be innovative will have the ability to solve the greatest number of business problems.

What’s the one thing that holding you back from being more innovative?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

What is it going to take for you to get promoted? What set of skills as an IT Leader do you need to develop in order to have any chance at moving up to the next level? If you don’t know what you need to know, then how is that promotion going to happen?

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Post tags: best performers, decisions, energy vampires, friction, information technology manger, innovation, innovative ideas, IT manager, it manager handbook, it manager interview questions, it manager job description, it manager jobs, it manager resume, it manager salary, it manager wiki, leader, negative people, permission, positive people, seating, social connections, transfers

Innovation In IT Is Hard To Do When There Are Roadblocks In Your Way

Welcome to the world of overused buzz words! The star of the show these days is “innovation” – everyone wants it, everyone is talking about it, nobody really knows how to get it. IT Leaders find themselves in a situation where if they aren’t careful, they just might make one of three different mistakes that could prevent innovation from happening within their teams…

The Communication Problem

Researchers Rob Cross, Andrew Hargadon, Salvatore Parise, and Robert Thomas have looked into what kills innovation in a department. #1 on their list of culprits is our old friend poor communication.

IT Leaders already know that poor communication is a major problem. However, they may not realize just how much of an impact that it may be having on their attempts to foster innovation in their IT department.

The causes of poor communication can be varied: staff in different physical locations (even working on different floors of the same building can be a hindrance), an organizational structure that may prevent teams from talking to each other, or it could as simple as different IT Leaders being in competition with each other and not being willing to communicate.

The Roadblock Problem

It is my belief that in order to be an effective IT Leader it’s as much who you know as what you know. When it comes to fostering innovation in your IT team it turns out that the same is true.

Within an IT department there are often certain people who become experts about one or more parts of the IT shop. This in turn puts these people in a position of power. Other IT staff must seek them out in order to get the information that they need to do their jobs or to get permission to complete some task that impacts the area under the expert’s control.

Having IT experts is not a bad thing in of itself. However, when these experts are allowed to control the flow of new ideas problems start to arise. Often times these experts will have had experiences that will cloud the way that they see the world. This means that they may quash innovative IT ideas based on their personal experiences that would otherwise benefit the company.

The Insulated Staff Problem

As much as we like to brag about all of the workplace benefits that working in the 21st Century has brought about, our communication networks are still amazingly frail. When IT departments allow staff to remain insulated, innovation can flounder.

A great deal of time and effort goes into setting up the deals that allow IT operations and development to be outsourced to other firms. However, once those deals have been set up, the communication channels between the firms are often left in the hands of just a few people.

This means that any innovation that occurs at either firm will be hard pressed to make it through this narrow communication channel to the other firm. Additionally, if the person who is the conduit leaves the firm, then communication will be damaged or lost.

Final Thoughts

IT Leaders are responsible for fostering and growing innovation within their departments. This job is hard enough without the extra challenge of encountering additional roadblocks to innovation.

Having the ability to recognize the three most common obstacles to a successful innovation program are the first step in dealing with these challenges. Once an IT Leader recognizes that an innovation problem exists, then a solution can start to be crafted.

If you develop the ability to spot these three innovation blockers then you will have found a way to transform yourself from an IT manager into a true leader.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Times are tough all over and a lot of IT Leaders are out pounding the pavement looking for their next position. For some of you it may have been a long time since you last had to do an interview – you are much more used to being on the other side of the table doing the interviewing. Well guess what – no matter how well you prepare, your best efforts may be undone by what your body is secretly telling the interviewer…

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Post tags: communication, gatekeeper, innovation, Insulated Staff, it careers, IT experts, IT professional, IT projects, IT Staffing, poor communication, roadblock, roadblocks, technical skill, technical skills

IT Leaders Need Practical Ways To Grow Innovative Ideas Within Their Departments

Innovation, innovation, innovation. Everyone seems to be talking about it, but nobody seems to have any clear guidance for IT Leaders when it comes to telling them HOW to grow good ideas within their IT departments. Well we’re going to change that starting right now.

Dr. Jan van den-Ende and Bob Kijuit have spent some time thinking about this problem and they’ve got some suggestions for us. The problem that they’ve been doing research on is just how to come up with systems that will allow IT departments to nurture GOOD ideas while at the same time getting rid of BAD ideas.

In a nutshell, what they have found is that if you can come up with a way to tap into the input of many people early on in the idea process, then you can make sure that the good ideas make it all the way to the top.

In most companies, new ideas are often collected via some form of  the old fashion “suggestion box”. Using this method, literally thousands of ideas can be submitted in a company of medium size if you have an enthusiastic work force. The problem that this causes is that then someone has to review all of those suggestions and identify the worthy ones. Good luck with that!

What the research has found is that if people take the time to discuss their ideas with colleagues then this helps out a lot. These discussions can help further refine the idea in terms of technical issues or market feasibility. If the idea is really a stinker, then it will cause it to be quickly discarded.

The researchers have also discovered two additional things:

• if ideas are discussed with colleagues who work outside of the submitter’s department instead of colleagues inside his department, then there was a better chance of the idea eventually being accepted.
• if ideas were discussed with friends and trusted colleagues then once again the idea had a better chance of eventually being accepted.

The reason for these higher acceptance rates is probably because both close friends and outsiders can give the most frank feedback.

IT Leaders can help their departments to generate innovative ideas. They just need to introduce this additional review and discussion step into the process in order to improve the quality of the ideas being submitted.

Does your IT department have a program to collect ideas from department members? Does anyone currently review and take action on these ideas? Do you get too many or too few ideas submitted? Do you think that adding a peer discussion step in the process would help in your department? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Post tags: employee, feedback, idea, ideas, information technology, innovation, it, IT Manger, leader, manager, motivation, suggestion box, suggestions