As part of some recent consulting and training, one of the project managers asked, “How do you make time for innovation in timeboxes? If everyone's busy all the time, how can you allow people time to think for real innovation?” Good question. I asked how people had time for innovation now. The PM wasn't sure, but he was sure it happened.
I do agree that you can't tell people, “It's Wednesday at 10:28am. Be innovative.” That doesn't work. Innovation occurs when people connect ideas that weren't connected before. There's a substantial thinking component before people can see those connections.
What I don't understand is why the PM thought timeboxing makes innovation less likely to happen. Sure, people focus more on the work at hand, but for me, that makes it more likely that I'll see connections as I finish one thing or when I move to something else. I've been able to finish work, which frees me up to do something else, and to let the thinking part of my brain go to work.
If I have a bright idea, I can always put it on the backlog to address at some other time. (This is the idea behind fieldstones in writing.) I haven't forgotten it, and I have plenty of time to let my subconscious go to work on it. When I don't timebox, I'm more likely to distract myself and try to innovate without the necessary thinking time first. That's why I timebox almost everything I do 🙂
I'm not sure the PM bought this–but this is what happens for me. What about you?
Labels: innovation, timebox
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
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.