You're a digital strategist. How can you foster innovation within your team?

It's important to involve your team in the goal-setting process whenever possible. By soliciting input from team members, you can ensure that the goals are realistic, achievable, and meaningful to everyone involved. This fosters a sense of ownership and accountability among team members, increasing their commitment to achieving the desired outcomes. Furthermore, regularly revisiting and refining goals based on feedback and changing circumstances can help keep your team focused and adaptable, maximizing the chances of successful innovation.

Achieving cohesion in a digital strategy team is about creating a shared vision and a collaborative environment. It involves discussing various strategies, establishing a clear plan, and ensuring every team member understands their role and contribution, fostering a culture of experimentation within defined parameters. A shared vision is the North Star that guides the team. It aligns everyone towards a common goal, providing clarity on what success looks like. It's essential that every team member understands not only the overarching objectives but also the specific role they play in contributing to the team's success.

Setting clear goals and expectations is crucial before diving into a project. It's about laying out the what, why, and how for your team, ensuring everyone's rowing in the same direction. This clarity prevents overlap, confusion, and keeps everyone focused on the end game. Plus, it turns abstract ideas into tangible targets, making it easier to track progress and celebrate success. A team aligned behind well-defined objectives is a team poised for innovative breakthroughs and stellar achievements.

Acredito que para cultivar um ambiente verdadeiramente inovador, são necessárias ações adicionais além da definição de metas e expectativas. É essencial criar uma cultura que valorize a experimentação e aceite o fracasso como parte do processo de aprendizagem. Incentivar a equipe a arriscar e experimentar novas ideias sem medo de falhar pode desbloquear níveis de criatividade e inovação que métodos convencionais não conseguem alcançar. E uma equipe composta por membros com diferentes experiências, habilidades e perspectivas pode gerar ideias mais inovadoras e soluções mais eficazes para problemas complexos. Valorizar e integrar essa diversidade na estratégia de inovação pode ampliar significativamente o potencial criativo da equipe.

One thing I've found helpful is having periodically brainstorming sessions. Especially when it comes to creating new projects or launching new initiatives. It is important to remember 3 things: 1. Brainstorming meetings are a safe space to offer even the most radical idea. Everything goes. Then the team explores together which idea will move forward. 2. All ideas should be results- driven and measurable, and connected to strategic goals. 3. Don't leave the room without forming an action plan. If you and your team were unable to create a concrete plan, even a plan to explore some of the ideas further, or look for new ones is a plan, provided you set a follow up meeting.

Also, nurture the team, provide access to innovation hubs, think tanks and publications. Expose the team to need frames of thinking, too leaders, books and culture pieces. Encourage the team to be interested in current affairs in arts, culture, technology finance, entrepreneurship.

One way to nurture the culture is to develop gamification elements into everyday work. For example, in CRO, we can host monthly competition with new experiment ideas submission and count the scores of success and fail experiment. Make it playful and award the best teammates extra lunch meal or company welfare !

Ao incentivar a equipe a questionar o convencional, superar suposições e buscar feedback ativamente, cria-se uma cultura de aprendizado contínuo e melhoria constante. No entanto, para que essa estratégia seja efetiva, é importante que haja um equilíbrio entre desafio e suporte. Enquanto desafiar a equipe é crucial para impulsioná-la além de suas zonas de conforto, é igualmente importante garantir que ela se sinta apoiada e segura para assumir riscos. Isso pode envolver estabelecer redes de segurança, oferecer orientação quando necessário e celebrar tanto os sucessos quanto os aprendizados vindos dos fracassos.

Nothing quashes innovation as quickly as an unsupportive environment that shuts down all out-of-the-box ideas. Most "bright ideas" will eventually be discarded or shelved, so to ensure that the few truly spectacular ones survive, you must cultivate a culture that embraces generating these ideas.

Celebrar e recompensar a inovação é uma estratégia poderosa para promover um ambiente de trabalho estimulante e produtivo. Essa abordagem não só reconhece e valoriza as contribuições individuais e coletivas para a inovação, mas também reforça a importância da criatividade e da experimentação na conquista dos objetivos organizacionais. No entanto, é essencial que tais recompensas sejam alinhadas com os valores e objetivos da equipe, bem como com as preferências individuais dos membros. Envolver a equipe na definição de como gostariam de ser celebrados e recompensados pode garantir que as iniciativas de reconhecimento sejam mais significativas e impactantes para todos.

I love Google',s 20% project. Every worker is allowed to dedicate a 20% of her work time to a project out of her immediate scope - it can be driven by passion points and skills. It allows cross-collaboration and innovation when connecting areas that are not usually connected, creating also an effective space to bring new ideas to the table.

There are several good points already mentioned. In my experience, in addition to being lucky and being surrounded by knowledgeable, curious professionals, I have found two things particularly useful: looking at case studies outside your industry, which helps to think outside the box and apply new ideas or shape your product by getting inspired by other brands or services; and organizing gatherings outside the office or having brainstorming sessions in an unconventional setup.

Utilização de tecnologias emergentes. Explorar e integrar tecnologias emergentes no fluxo de trabalho pode ser uma poderosa alavanca para a inovação. Mantenha a equipe atualizada sobre as últimas tendências em inteligência artificial, automação, big data e outras tecnologias disruptivas. Proporcionar acesso a ferramentas e plataformas de ponta não apenas aumenta a capacidade da equipe de criar soluções inovadoras, mas também estimula o interesse e a paixão por explorar o desconhecido.