Innovation: What you can learn from small companies

March 5th, 2008 · No Comments

Just attended another innovation conference. It was a mixed bag but as always there was one special nugget that eclipsed all the other presentations. It came from Brett Jackson, Director of Product Management and Design, from Atlassian Software Systems. This company formed five years ago is one of the world’s fasting growing companies.

For me it mattered less what they do but how they went about it. Here are some of the features of their culture:

1. They experiment all the time.

Someone thinks of a good idea they test it and see what happens. If it work then well and good. If not then move on to something else.

2. But they measure everything

Metrics are important to them. You can only tell if something is working if you can measure it. But it is not measurement for measurement’s sake. Metrics serve business objectives not the other way round. My Phd research found the same thing. Creative organisations are not fluffy ones–they are not for the faint hearted. Creative people want their ideas to be tested.

3. 20% of time free.

Google talks about it but they are trialling the idea of giving everyone the creative feedom of 20% of their time free to work on projects that interest them. If it works great, if not then move on!

4. The Stand Up Meeting

Most of their meetings are short, punch affairs with a pre-arranged agenda. These meetings are also held standing up. Novel, original, fresh –their is no comfort factor here. This is also consistent with my new book out in July which highlights the importance of Speed Thinking.

5. Regular User Groups

Thye also meet regularly with their user groups for four hours at a time. These are meetings that are open, transparent with a view to genuinely co-creating new ideas and solutions.

My message? There are many innovative organisations around that are not the usual suspects. (think Apple, Google, 3M etc). Anyone can copy or adapt the practices I have highlighted here. These are innovative and more importantly seem to work.