Innovation Requires a Cultural Investment

Innovation means something different to many people but one definition that resonates is:

"a means of creating value from ideas"

Many make the mistake of limiting innovation to solely generating commercial value and thus influencing the business' bottom line but clearly innovation can add social or personal value - its the realisation of the creativity that drives our world forward. Finally, innovation starts with an idea, either something new or a better way of doing it.

But why should we innovate, if its not broke why fix it? Various methodologies such as agile promote the need to continuously improve and Rita McGraph noted that:

“Stability, not change, is the state that is most dangerous in highly competitive environments,” [1]

Arguably the finance sector is the most competitive its ever been with FinTechs leading the way. The introduction of PSD2 and Open Banking will augment this competition from innovative FinTechs - providing greater choice for customers in an era where digital journeys are of an equal, if not greater importance to the financial product.

As a technical leader you can't just say "hey team, be more innovative". Innovation requires a previous investment to be made - an investment in creating a supportive culture within the team and the wider business. Applying agile and devops principles gives us the ability to measure, gain feedback and ultimately fail fast which is the platform for innovation. You already have the final keystone to innovate, the great employees in your business, just provide the culture that encourages spikes within product sprints along with hackathons/ideation sessions to unlock that potential.

Google is a great example of providing a strategy around how the business should innovate where the notion of "10x thinking" is implemented against a backdrop of the 70-20-10 rule. 10x thinking encourages the thought process of how can we improve something by a magnitude of 10 rather than a marginal gains approach of small improvements. The 70-20-10 rule applies to where innovation is targeted, with 70% around core products, 20% around related products and 10% aimed at unrelated products. This is a great example of having an innovation strategy built on top of a supportive culture.

[1] Rita Gunther McGrath - The End of Competitive Advantage