Comments on: Time for Innovation in Timeboxes?

By: Frank Schophuizen

Frank Schophuizen — Sat, 19 May 2007 11:17:33 +0000

Innovation is “finding something new”. Novum means New.
An company with a particular product portfolio and market angle, “new” is not completely free at random. The new stuff must fit, within or adjacent to the current market scope. It must fit the long term strategy, the company’s roadmap.
The most creative people master the art of seeing existing things from a different perspective, in different relationships. From there they develop a “new” idea. This process is hard to control as it is a continuous, spontaneous process.
Timeboxing the creative process is not possible, but timeboxing the activity of putting things on paper (or other tangeable form) is.

By: Patrick Myles

Patrick Myles — Mon, 14 May 2007 00:08:14 +0000

We’ve recently made moves to address this issue. We started using time-boxed iterations for our product and consultancy development about 2.5 years ago, and have noticed that innovation has reduced. We’ve recently introduced “R&D days” – 2 days per developer per month that can be taken at any time (within reason). On these days they can do anything they like, within or outside of our products or tech area. We have fortnightly show and tell sessions where people can present interesting findings. Time will tell if this works, but I suspect we will find benefits with this.

By: Carlton

Carlton — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:50:35 +0000

I believe that is why there is a practice called Slack in Extreme Programming. However, I have learned most middle management does not want to allow people to have slack and quiet time to think of innovation. I suspect complaints about “not enough time for innovation” is a false complaint and maybe the speaker is really talking about their own discomfort with people working harder than themselves.

By: Chris Morris

Chris Morris — Thu, 10 May 2007 20:32:23 +0000

I think innovation comes from the culture which is more a people thing than a process thing.
I’ve been on a team where mgmt didn’t much talk about how much they value the devs spending time needed to do their own QA types of work (unit test, etc.), and the devs would end up in different places assuming different levels of support from mgmt for getting things done and getting things done right.
Innovation, quality, etc. I don’t think are inexorably linked to our tools. “Individuals over processes.”

By: Chris Hughes

Chris Hughes — Thu, 10 May 2007 19:18:34 +0000

My team just came off a release that was made up of 17 – 15 day timeboxes. The team has subsequently been honored with an innovation award from the company.
The key to innovation for this team was the support from PM. Our PM set priorities and made them clear. The team had free reign in how they solved the PM’s stories. Since the priorities were clear – the team could focus on the innovations required to deliver kick-ass software. The PM worked hard to ensure that he was not telling the team _how_ to solve the problem. The stories framed the _problem_ for the team to solve.

By: Jared

Jared — Thu, 10 May 2007 05:58:06 +0000

In ‘Alternatives to Lean Production’, lack of time for real innovation and process improvement is one of the Lean manufacturing complaints described. You can see this sometimes in heavily-paired environments, or teams where the focus is on churning through stories and keeping their velocity up. Team members may lose the ability to spend time on things that they think will help. For some, the discretionary time they had previously is critical to their job satisfication, and they don’t find this time when their week is rigidly scheduled to pair morning and afternoon.
What you describe seems to be a real concern. I haven’t managed to get my hands on a full copy of Berggren’s book, so haven’t seen what it has to say. There’s suspiciously little criticism of lean approaches, and Berggren seems to be a lone voice.
You can find a little more here: http://www.industrysearch.com.au/features/viewrecord.asp?id=329