We just launched a new initiative in our team to encourage more innovation and learning. Our 10% time is a bit of a cross between Google’s 20% time, and Dragons’ Den.
The idea is that any team members in Product Delivery can spend Friday afternoons working on their own project. It can be anything they want, but our panel of Dragons must agree to ‘invest’ a certain number of afternoons in the idea first.
Pitch
To get involved – team members deliver a short pitch explaining
- what the idea is
- how it will benefit the wider organisation
- how long they initially need to work on it
Investment
The Dragons can choose to invest a certain number of afternoons in the idea, or ask for more refinements to the idea. When the end of the invested time comes – we’ll have demos of the different ideas, to see what we’ve come up with.
Ideas
There are some already some interesting ideas being pitched – ranging from a historic twitter analysis and a pregnancy care planner app, to a virtual fridge. Some people have pitched individually, and others have worked in pairs. The methodologies, technologies and tools used to build these ideas are entirely up the individuals building them, so it’s a chance to try out some new stuff.
