Review - Innovative Teams

Innovative Teams

Get up to speed fast on essential business skills. Whether youre looking for a crash course or a brief refresher, youll find just what you need in HBRs 20-Minute Manager seriesfoundational reading for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives. Each book is a concise, practical primer, so youll have time to brush up on a variety of key management topics.

Advice you can quickly read and apply, from the most trusted source in business.

Titles include:

Creating Business Plans

Delegating Work

Finance Basics

Innovative Teams

Getting Work Done

Giving Effective Feedback

Managing Projects

Managing Time

Managing Up

Performance Reviews

Presentations

Running Meetings

Innovative Teams

Unlock creative energy
Generate new ideas
Brainstorm effectively

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Boston, Massachusetts

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Copyright 2015 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation

All rights reserved

Portions of this work, including core concepts, are derived from the book When Sparks Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groups by Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap (Harvard Business School Publishing, 1999).

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to permissions@hbsp.harvard. edu, or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publishing Data

Innovative teams : unlock creative energy, generate new ideas, brainstorm effectively.

pages cm.(20 minute manager series)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-63369-004-2

1. Creative ability in business. 2. Creative thinking. 3. New products. 4. Teams in the workplaceManagement. I. Harvard Business Review Press.

HD53.I5645 2015

658.4'022dc23

2014044998

ISBN: 9781633690042
eISBN: 9781633690059

Preview

You have a problem: Perhaps your company needs a new service to offer its customers or an internal process is taking too long. Your usual solutions arent working, so you need something different, something creative. Innovative thinking can help you and your team meet urgent needs or make small but important improvements. This book walks you through each step of the creative process. Youll learn to:

Build the diversity of your team to maximize creative potential

Establish the right time and setting for idea generation

Set ground rules for team interactions

Draw on a variety of approaches to crafting ideas

Narrow down your options to a useful solution

Instill a culture of creativity within your organization

Contents

Innovative Teams

Enhancing Your Teams Creativity

Enhancing Your Teams Creativity

Do you need to create a new, innovative product? Is your organization looking for a unique plan for entering into new international markets? Or do you need to think differently about how to break down silos between departments within your organization? All of these tasks require your team to be creative.

But how do you generate ideasthe right ideasif your team is just going through the motions and stuck in a rut? Fortunately, you can take concrete steps to stimulate your groups creative energy. By understanding the fundamentals of the creative process as well as the characteristics of creative teams, you can lead your team to more-innovative thinkingand to new products, better problem solving, improved processes, superior strategic plans, and more.

What is creativity?

Creativity is the ability to develop novel ideas to solve problems or satisfy needs. Its a key ingredient in innovation, which generally refers to that novel idea along with its practical application. An innovative team, as well discuss in this book, is a group of individuals who envision and develop creative solutions to problems.

Enhancing team creativity is a goal-oriented, collaborative process that draws on each individual team members skills, experience, and expertise to develop those novel ideas. This kind of thinking isnt reserved for just the creatives in your organization. Whether youre leading artists or accountants, a group of 12 in a nonprofit or a team of 12,000 in a Fortune 500 company, everyone involved can contribute.

Situations that call for creativity

Many common product-development challenges can best be tackled with innovative thinking. For example, maybe youre in charge of designing a new product line. The last line was a flop, so the pressures on to create new products that wow. Or maybe youve recently launched a web-based service that your customers love. Theyre hungry for an app to complement the servicebut how should it work? Or imagine that your competitor has released a much-heralded new product. What can your organization do to maintain market share? Creativity can help your company stand out, design products that provide a better user experience, devise new ways to engage your customers, develop interesting ways to market a product, and build your competitive advantage.

You can also harness your teams inventive thinking to solve problems that may not directly affect your customers but have an adverse impact on your organizations effectiveness. Maybe an internal process is cumbersome and time-consuming: The invoicing process is overly complex, or a certain report is always submitted late, no matter whos writing it. A creative team can identify better ways to execute the process at hand. Perhaps youre unsure how to communicate a new initiative in a way that will both excite and involve your colleagues. Wherever you need new solutions or ideas, the creative process can help.

Not every problem requires a novel solution, however. The creative process may not be right for you if:

Your team is short-handed, dealing with an urgent problem, or rushing to meet a deadline. In such cases, the creative process can be a distraction (or a procrastination strategy) that will only slow you down. Aim for the most efficient solution, not the most innovative one.

You have a client who is content with what youre providing and is risk-averse or dislikes change. Your client will likely be happiest with the status quo; dont rock the boat.