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If you happen to’d been a fly on the wall at our company a number of weeks ago, you’d have witnessed a novel scene: From Monday to Friday, almost everyone on our team (distant and in-person) was involved in actively pitching, constructing and presenting revolutionary latest ideas. We call it “Blue Sky Week”, and it’s our answer to fully immersing ourselves in revolutionary considering and bringing latest ideas to life quickly.
For those latest to this approach, it’s similar to a hackathon but designed to give rather more space and time away from our on a regular basis tasks and luxury zones. This helps get the creative juices flowing together with creating opportunities for collaborations that are not often possible. It has been an impactful way to tap into the genius of our teammates and unlock latest revolutionary ideas — and beyond that, it’s helped engage and invigorate our team.
But when people first hear about “Blue Sky Week,” many wonder how we are able to afford to dedicate a lot time to something without clear controls or direction. My response: How will you afford not to? At a time when rapidly evolving tech like artificial intelligence has forced firms to ramp up their offerings, it’s just too dangerous to let innovation take a back seat. That is why “Blue Sky Week” has change into a core mechanism for revolutionary output.
Here’s how to profit from getting the entire company involved and committed to innovating repeatedly.
Related: How to Tap Into Innovation, the Most Essential A part of Your Entrepreneurial Journey
Start by committing the time
Dedicating pockets of time to innovation is not a novel concept. Tech firms have experimented with quite a lot of ways to encourage creativity and innovation at work — like Google’s infamous 20% time, which provides employees in the future per week to work on projects of their selecting.
Structured innovation time has proven remarkably effective for us, too, in surfacing and developing ideas and evolutions in a way that every day work time simply cannot. And it’s no wonder: The common worker spends one-third of their time in meetings, let alone working through sprint cycles to hit deadlines — and while this might be effective, it could also limit the creative considering essential for innovation.
But contrary to what many firms do, we found that 20% time wasn’t effective for us. Frankly, I don’t think innovation is achievable while you’re doing it off the side of your desk. And after we tried it, the time spent on revolutionary projects was often overrun with regular work. So we decided to dedicate a whole week every quarter, and sometimes more often when opportunities warrant it.
In fact, not each staff member can participate for the complete week. And that is okay — our customers come first and we must ensure they still have access to the support they need. But outside of that caveat, we do our greatest to empower everyone to put aside as much as they’ll so we are able to just give attention to innovating. This prioritization allows team members to really tap right into a creative flow that produces marketable results.
Make it inclusive
I’d bet that virtually every tech leader has attended or sponsored a hackathon, and this model works well for numerous organizations. These ubiquitous events are popular because they are a low-risk way to tap into the spirit of innovation and creativity inside a brief timeframe.
But hackathons tend to attract a certain variety of participant, and we wanted to discover a way to get our entire company involved with innovation events — not only our R&D team or developers. Diverse teams tend to be smarter and more creative, which might lead to stronger results. That is why we wish people from every department to have a seat at the innovation table including marketing, customer success and our people team.
Anyone with an idea can pitch it, and the pitches with essentially the most votes move forward with self-appointed teams. This helps with breaking down silos and empowering individuals who won’t normally get to collaborate to break out of their usual teams and approach ideas and projects with a fresh perspective. In reality, the one criterion we impose is that each team must present their work at the top of the week.
Related: How Entrepreneurs Can Fuel Innovation and Push Societal Limits
Trust your team with autonomy
Studies have shown that revolutionary firms perform higher, with higher profits and stock returns. But I’ll admit that after we first launched Blue Sky Week, I used to be apprehensive the no-rules event would lead to projects unrelated to our core business objectives. We’ve had a number of internally focused outcomes — like the event of a warning light and Slackbot for an office washroom with a door that did not lock properly.
But we quickly realized giving people the autonomy to determine their projects and the way they unfolded led to higher overall results — features and product iterations that customers had been asking for, like search inside our communities, and pagination for course listings. Not to mention latest offerings that we wanted, reminiscent of a mobile app and generative AI functions. And this adds up: Research clearly shows that individuals who feel empowered to act with autonomy have stronger job performance, higher job satisfaction and greater commitment to the organization, and this leads to a willingness to work toward higher customer outcomes.
In fact, we do set the stage with data on customer usage, problems and pain points, in order that teams have context around our most pressing needs. But ultimately our people run the show.
Reap the organizational advantages
Bringing the entire company together to cross-collaborate on latest projects has had undeniable cultural advantages. It’s reduced silos across the organization, and has been a fantastic way to foster relationships and bonds while breaking up the routines and ruts we are able to all get into.
But it surely’s also reinforced the worth of fostering an revolutionary mindset. The truth is, the pace of today’s tech advancements means innovation is critical on a regular basis — not only once per quarter. With AI rapidly changing the sport for tech firms, it’s essential to have opportunities and processes in place that keep services evolving to meet customer needs.
In fact, we do not expect the outcomes of a single week’s work to be perfect. But seeing how much we are able to accomplish in a single week can often be amazing to all involved. It resets our expectations of what is possible and stirs up the creative juices for normal work.
We have all heard the expression about not being the neatest person in a room or on a team. But higher than acknowledging that fact is definitely creating systems that unlock the genius of your team — and “Blue Sky Weeks” are a fantastic way to do exactly that.
Related: How Collaboration Can Help Drive Growth and Propel Your Business to Latest Heights