Gerald Ottman is our Manager, Engineering for TrainingPeaks and shares his experience for unlocking innovation.
What practices does your team employ to foster innovation, and how have these practices led to more creative, out-of-the-box thinking?
At TrainingPeaks, a Peaksware brand, fostering innovation is a priority. We believe it happens when engineers have ownership, collaborate freely and stay aligned. One practice that illustrates how we make that work is our back-end, web and mobile “guilds.” These guilds represent the major areas of our product, not exclusive membership lists. Any engineer can drop into the regular sessions to propose enhancements, share lessons learned, suggest standards or ask for help on a challenging problem. They are judgment-free forums where even the most junior members can add a topic to the agenda and have it thoughtfully discussed.
In the back-end guild, for example, you will often find engineers enthusiastically sharing their proofs of concept on a new database-migration tool, sharing their knowledge on service-oriented architecture principles or engaging in a thoughtful discussion about our architectural vision and the next steps needed to achieve it. These discussions not only allow engineers to be more aligned on decisions but also give them a space to build momentum behind innovative ideas while still benefiting from the experience of senior engineers.
How has a focus on innovation bolstered your team’s culture?
When we allow for innovation, we encourage a culture where engineers feel empowered to share their ideas, implement proofs of concept and build better processes that allow more thorough testing and quicker, safer failures. In this regard, the relationship between culture and innovation is very much cyclical; the more we make room for new ideas, the more our culture grows to nurture them. Pursuing innovative solutions becomes its own shared passion, and that shared passion pulls people together.
Original article written by Olivia McClure, click here for the entire article.
