Creating the time to innovate -- Part I

I am frequently approached by leadership from other divisions asking how my teams find the time to be so innovative. I propose that it is not finding the time, but rather creating the time. We all need more time in the day, but if you create a culture which inspires quality, you will naturally have the time you've been looking for.

Culture
A culture of continuous improvement runs through my team's veins. When inefficiencies arise, the team identifies solutions to improve productivity.

Team members are encouraged to give back to the team (I call this "team community service") by proposing and implementing better ways of doing things. Generally it's about 20% of their time (equating to about 1 day per week).

The key is not assigning tasks nor me saying what to do, but rather giving each individual a blank slate to identify and contribute to the areas they are most passionate about. (See previous post about motivation.)

Quality
Where do we get the time to implement these solutions? We have a constant pulse on things which prevent us from working on value-add tasks. From here we identify where we need to simplify or improve quality. These improvements in quality add up to very large time savings.

At first the team uses this extra time to catch up on value-add work and achieve a consistent flow. However, once we achieve optimal flow, we use the extra time gained to continue to innovate, gradually reaching the magic 20% time for each individual.

Suggestions to get started
Analyze your team's errors, production bugs, defects, and other distractions which require someone to stop what they're doing and spend time fixing issues. Use the 80/20 rule to determine the 20% of items causing 80% of the issues, and start to eliminate them.

It may be difficult at first, but leverage key team member strengths and passions. Some folks will not mind putting in extra effort, especially if it means helping the team in the long run and working on something they enjoy.

Be sure to track your team's progress. Take a baseline of key metrics today (number of production defects, average time spent fixing issues, etc.), and track improvements along the way.

The key is to have a tipping point in mind: when do you stop giving the time saved back to "business as usual" work and start giving it to "team community service?" Some individuals may only be able to reach 10%, while others may reach 20% or more.

You will see that 10-20% of time spent on innovation and continuous improvement will produce 2-10x gains for your team in the long run. Create the time to do it.


Update: Read Part II of this topic here.