When we talk about innovation in the enterprise, it is often associated with R&D teams. And while innovation is a necessity for R&D, I believe all teams need to look for new ways to develop and improve stellar customer experiences. In fact, everyone at every level of an organization can and should innovate. Everyone can make things better.
I’d like to share my thoughts on how to innovate across the enterprise, and how we’re putting innovation into action at Symantec.
Ways Management Can Encourage Innovation
Management needs to create an environment to foster innovation in action―to encourage employees to look for areas that are causing more angst for internal teams, customers, and partners than they should―and find ways to fix the problem.
Here a few best practices:
- Give the freedom for everybody to innovate—Management needs to set the stage for an environment to innovate. Ask your team to think outside the box and for ways to improve their service.
- Celebrate the “wins”—It is important to acknowledge the success when teams innovate and to further encourage them.
- Recalibrate or move on—Just as crucial as celebrating the success is knowing when to make changes. “What can be tweaked?” “What worked?” “What did not work?” A lot of organizations get caught up on infinite iterations. Know when to stop and move on.
- Innovate through education—Innovation is a continual learning process. At Symantec we use gamification as part of our Security Simulation and security training. Innovative education makes learning more real, relevant, and fun.
Ways Individual Contributors Can Drive Innovation
It is management’s responsibility to create a culture of innovation―but it is the employees’ responsibility to drive innovation across the company. Innovation should not be self-serving. It can be tricky if you are a solving a problem for yourself, but making things twenty times harder for everyone else. Innovation should make the experience better end-to-end. Innovate outside of your comfort zone and drive towards a “win-win-win” situation.
Agility and Innovation
Agility and innovation go hand-in-hand. Organizations should simplify processes and tools, communicate openly, and work together to stay agile. When teams do this―especially IT organizations―the environment is ripe for innovation. In the past, organizations were bogged down with slow, cumbersome processes. For example, a team would work on something by themselves, pass it to another team, and then wait for feedback or action. When feedback came, they would revise, then “throw it back over the fence” and wait, and so forth.
Agility eradicates complexity and inefficiencies. As an example, our Symantec IT teams use agile development to quickly transition the business requirements and demands into a visual representation. “We heard what you said. We will mock it up, then validate that is what is expected.”
This agile development approach helps us listen closely, work together, and move fast. It is collaboration in real-time.
While they may seem separate, innovation and security are deeply connected. At Symantec, we have a long history and culture of innovation. As the largest cybersecurity organization, innovation is part of our DNA and a necessity to help move the technology forward. We constantly talk with our customers to hear what challenges are facing them. We listen and learn what they need, amd then move with agility to solve the problems. Symantec’s innovation in action helps us deliver a win for our customers, partners, and the entire industry.