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RE: Creativity

jbnv — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:42:44 GMT

[quote][b]chrisn-585491 (9/14/2012)[/b][hr][quote]An idea: Apply this on Friday afternoon after lunch, when you're probably not going to accomplish much in-the-box work anyway.[/quote]Friday afternoon? That's when project managers that have been sitting on data and projects all week, dump them in your in-box and impose silly deadlines like Monday at 8:00 AM...:w00t:[/quote]I suspect that the sort of project manager who would dump new work on you on a Friday afternoon would not be too keen to letting you work on creative pursuits instead of requirements in the first place. :-)

RE: Creativity

corder — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:33:08 GMT

RE: Creativity

chrisn-585491 — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:27:48 GMT

[quote]An idea: Apply this on Friday afternoon after lunch, when you're probably not going to accomplish much in-the-box work anyway.[/quote]Friday afternoon? That's when project managers that have been sitting on data and projects all week, dump them in your in-box and impose silly deadlines like Monday at 8:00 AM...:w00t:

RE: Creativity

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:12:06 GMT

[quote][b]jbnv (9/13/2012)[/b][hr]An idea: Apply this on Friday afternoon after lunch, when you're probably not going to accomplish much in-the-box work anyway.[/quote]Great idea.

RE: Creativity

TravisDBA — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 07:57:45 GMT

[quote][b]Miles Neale (9/12/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]TravisDBA (9/12/2012)[/b][hr]Either that, or in most cases they will just drop the whole thing in your lap with little to go on and say "Fix it by the end of the week". That is usually the way it works. :-D[/quote]Such are our lives! "Is it possible to do this and have it ready by last month?" Is not an unthinkable question to many.m.[/quote]I'm reminded of another quote as well: "Lack planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on mine.":-D

RE: Creativity

jbnv — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 07:07:09 GMT

An idea: Apply this on Friday afternoon after lunch, when you're probably not going to accomplish much in-the-box work anyway.

RE: Creativity

SQLRNNR — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:59:31 GMT

This would be really great. I have 10, wait 15, wait 20 of those things it seems to be piling up right now. All of these special projects that would really help. It would be great to find that time needed to finish them off. A program such as this at work would help greatly. :-D

RE: Creativity

fuller.artful — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:57:53 GMT

Great piece, Steve. My sole objection is your calling this "think time". I call it "dream time", and its whole purpose is to shut the thinking machine down, and allow the dream-machine its moment to flower, without considerations of practicality, time-to-develop, where it fits in with our marketing plans, and all of those considerations that hamper the flower.On this week, or on that day per week, or however you want to slice it, the whole point is to STOP thinking inside the box, and just for once, think outside the box, just about "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" That is when great ideas are born.

RE: Creativity

corder — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:47:51 GMT

My company has an internal hackathon type event. They bring in food and drink and have prizes. Sometimes the entries getting incorporated into the software, sometimes it's just an exploration of an idea.

RE: Creativity

corder — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:43:53 GMT

I'm in the same place, too. I came in and inherited lots of not so elegant solutions that could be made very svelte. We are getting there to make it so but it is slowed by the todo list. Sometimes it may be that workers have the ability to just take the time out of a day to explore, depending on the culture. Other times it is just "get it done." A little thinking can go a little ways but I believe a lot of thinking up from can go a really long way for the solution.

RE: Creativity

ACinKC — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:40:57 GMT

We've been doing this for several years now in our IT shop. We call it the "Champions Program" and it gives people the opportunity to dive in to something they've been curious about and see if it's worth looking at. The presenters (we require at least two on the team) have to fill out a qualification form that gets approved by IT management (managers, directors, CIO). The ideas are usually technology-related, but a couple have been process-refinement focused. They usually go off site and are essentially considered on vacation or the like (no cell phones and no nagging from the folk left behind). They have to come back and do a show-and-tell (usually a two-to-three hour session) to not only explain the technology or concept, but how it might be implemented in the company. The folk coming to the session could be IT-only, but sometimes we invite the business to view it if it affects/impacts them. The attendees then have the opportunity to either use the ideas/technology or suggest other ways it could be used, refining the ideas as they go along. We usually have one Program per quarter (although we've been busy enought this year that we've only had one!) and a couple of the ideas have been released. It's highly encouraged and supported by upper management.

RE: Creativity

Jeff Moden — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:08:13 GMT

[quote] 37 Signals did just that, taking the month of June off to let people that weren't running day to day operations work on whatever they wanted. [/quote]They should try it on some of those day-to-day operations, as well.

RE: Creativity

Miles Neale — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:06:16 GMT

[quote][b]TravisDBA (9/12/2012)[/b][hr]Either that, or in most cases they will just drop the whole thing in your lap with little to go on and say "Fix it by the end of the week". That is usually the way it works. :-D[/quote]Such are our lives! "Is it possible to do this and have it ready by last month?" Is not an unthinkable question to many.m.

RE: Creativity

Joe Johnson-482549 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:52:14 GMT

We host Innovation Days based on FedEx Days -- 1 day every other month to work on whatever you want that could potentially have a benefit to the business. One day to prototype, study, experiment, work across teams, etc. We have had a lot of positive things that have come out of the program. We recently had a simple little application change that the users have loved and are pushing it through 4 production facilities.

RE: Creativity

TravisDBA — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:30:02 GMT

[quote][b]Miles Neale (9/12/2012)[/b][hr] Contribute where you can and after a while, in some cases quite a while, they will seek you out and ask you to engage your creativeness to solve the problems yourself.m.[/quote]Either that, or in most cases they will just drop the whole thing in your lap with little to go on and say "Fix it by the end of the week". That is usually the way it works. :-D

RE: Creativity

Miles Neale — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:15:31 GMT

Excellent article, good result of trying this in some companies. If you can find a job where you can contribute more than just being told what to do, take it. If you are in a place where you could be creative but they will not let you, keep proving yourself and do not go negative. Contribute where you can and after a while, in some cases quite a while, they will seek you out and ask you to engage your creativeness to solve the problems yourself.m.

RE: Creativity

chrisn-585491 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:59:50 GMT

[quote]Exactly, that's the reality at most IT shops today.[/quote]I'm going to try to work for one of these "creative" IT shops, but it'll be in another lifetime. By then I'll reincarnated as a higher being such as a pampered house cat. :-D

RE: Creativity

TravisDBA — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 10:49:20 GMT

[quote][b]chrisn-585491 (9/12/2012)[/b][hr]I have a long list of projects that would make clients and coworkers more productive. It's buried under a list of production ToDo's that keep the company and clients operational. And that list is subservient to the whims of superiors, project managers and "top clients".... [/quote]Exactly, that's the reality at most IT shops today.:-D

RE: Creativity

Rod at work — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 08:24:54 GMT

Good article, Steve, with a lot of interesting points. In my current job situation we're way too short staffed to be able to take much time off to do creative activities such as you describe. If we stop one thing, 3 others are behind it requiring immediate attention. However, it hasn't always been that way here. When I first joined we had more people and could take the time to experiment with ideas. In fact, our boss gave us an afternoon off, each week, to test something new or learn something different. That was really great and one of the best things I loved about working here. Almost everyone took advantage of it, although there was one lady who refused to spend any time learning anything new, but she was the exception. Man, I miss those days. A casualty of shrinking budgets and the recession.

RE: Creativity

djackson 22568 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 07:53:42 GMT

Good luck! Most companies are not managed well enough to handle thoughts along these lines.I fondly remember those companies I have worked for that did think this way. I can assure you we were far more productive than companies that don't think this way. For example, in one company I worked for that developed software, we tended to work about 35 hours a week, and have about 5 hours for whatever we wanted. We wrote experimental code to learn how things worked, we developed concepts that were implemented in later releases, we dove into bugs that [b][i]we[/i][/b] wanted to fix, but that the company had not yet agreed to make a priority.Along the way, we released 6 versions of the software during my tenure, all of which were not only on time but early! Only one wasn't early, and that was because of scope creep, yet we [i]still hit the original release date![/i]Another company I worked for not only allowed developers to spend work hours learning new things, it encouraged it. I believe in the two years I was there, I spent almost 4 weeks just reading about and trying new things. Initial hires were put through a rigorous training program, self directed by the way, and were allowed up to 12 weeks to complete that work. Finishing early was fine as long as you hit all of the goals of the program. Senior people graded your work to ensure no shortcuts were taken. There was significant prestige for finishing early while exceeding the goals, especially for those of us who extended what the training application could do. :-DIMO most companies are too focused on productivity as measured by the day. Make your staff work more hours, don't pay for sufficient staff to allow true breaks for PTO, call them at all hours of the day and night. Companies that do this save in the short term, but drive increased turnover rates, burnout, stress and even violence in the work place. Overall the costs end up being far higher.Your post may be about "down time", but the root issue is allowing the people you pay to be experts to actually be what you pay them to be. Down time is one solution, there are many ways to accomplish the same thing though. Empower your people (in reality, not marketing speak!) and they will produce more benefit to the organization than you can imagine. Some companies recognize this, but I doubt that most of them do.

RE: Creativity

cgreen-568768 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 07:14:04 GMT

We used to have what we called "Funky Friday" where we would learn new skills or collaborate with other areas of the IT team to automate tasks for example or combine skillsets to acheive a task of our choosing. The skills learned translated directly into improvements to project work and gave people greater knowledge beyond their individual specialisation.

RE: Creativity

OCTom — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 07:03:38 GMT

Think time used to be built in to project estimates. It was expected that considerable time would be spent in thinking mode. I believe the general number was 20%. Today, managers want to treat IT workers like robots who should know everything and be productive immediately on a project.I was asked once why I wasn't typing on my keyboard. I said I needed time to think about a bug that was raised in testing. The manager said that maybe they would replace me with someone who didn't need to think. :Wow:I have been involved in efforts to take one to two weeks off to work on ideas to help the organization. They weren't necessarily IT related, but, most ideas had an IT component. It was very nice to be able to do that and some great ideas were born. Upper management thought it was wasted time and fired the manager who came up with the idea. :crazy:

RE: Creativity

chrisn-585491 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:54:02 GMT

I have a long list of projects that would make clients and coworkers more productive. It's buried under a list of production ToDo's that keep the company and clients operational. And that list is subservient to the whims of superiors, project managers and "top clients"....

RE: Creativity

david.wright-948385 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:31:18 GMT

There are a lot of points raised in this one Steve! A good manager should listen as well as speak in both directions in their chain of command. Typically they listen to their managers and speak to their workforce: there's less listening to the workforce and passing that on up the chain because that's not the perceived hierarchy. The workforce works 'for' their manager who passes commands 'down' to their workforce. If the chain can be seen as a two-way channel, with the manager working for their workforce as well as vice versa, then efficiency, motivation and therefore productivity all benefit. As for 'early/late': this is just one dimension in the management triangle along with "under or over budget" and "inside or outside spec/QA". With estimates being as inaccurate as we know they are, the triangle needs to adapt to cope with the limitations placed upon it by adjusting timescale, cost or deliverables.

Creativity

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 21:25:14 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the item [B]Creativity[/B]