Innovation happens with 6th Sense
When Sun Microsystems' co-founder Bill Joy said at JavaOne 2003 "innovation happens elsewhere" he summed up the innovators' dilemma in one handy sound bite. That dilemma: how to harness the power of smart people, not necessarily on your team.
That question returned with the publication of a book by two Sun engineers the title of which borrows Bill's words. "Innovation happens elsewhere" is an attempt by the duo to explain what steps companies can take to harness the creative works of others.
While the book tackles how to engage with the community on open source, the question of how to harness creativity is a burning one for everyone with a stake in software development.
People - in our particular case, developers - are an organizations' biggest asset in building software, and often you will find the people most important to this process are those furthest down the management chain, and closest to the shop floor.
These people demand the kind of culture that enables their talent to flourish. One of the book's authors, Ron Goldman, this month highlighted on Sun's developer network (here) some steps employers can take to establish such a culture. These range from opening up the development process so that decisions are taken openly and publicly, to establishing an atmosphere of trust and collaboration, and fostering a set of passionately shared goals.
Fundamental to all of this, though, is the need for organizations to recognize that for software projects to grow and flourish (and hit deadlines) they require different types of skills. People contribute in different ways - in design, testing, coding and writing.
That may seem obvious, but the reality of the workplace is different. Pressures of deadlines or a lack of suitably qualified individuals means projects often suffer from under staffing or a lack of people with the right type of skills. This means developers' workloads increase, often in areas where they many not be specialized, leading to loss of productivity, de-motivation, bugs and delays. This is especially true when companies outsource parts of their application development process, and those members of their application team who remain must either hold the hands of the outsourcing supplier or correct their mistakes.
Good software gets built by staff who have the resources that let them flourish and who are surrounded by a healthy support system. That means employers must build a software-based infrastructure with companies like 6th Sense, which helps identify potential bottlenecks, provide adequate training and tools, and spread workloads across the team so individuals don't become overworked.
The right infrastructure will help build the culture of trust and collaboration, and help ensure goals are shared passionately and that innovation is harnessed.
You will never resolve the fact there's always going to be more smart people outside your team, but you can take big steps towards bringing them onboard and ramping up the creativity of your team using the right infrastructure.
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