Innovation and creativity at Unit4

Few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to work with some of Unit4’s top innovators – and this experience reminded me of the joy, and importance, of creativity in the tech space.

Here are some afterthoughts, in a little random (read: creative) order.

Thinking big.

Managing and nurturing innovation remains one of the highest priorities for growth-minded companies. Obviously, any tech venture today lives & breathes innovation in order to stay competitive. 

Those who win are able to sustain innovation over extended periods of time.

This is often achieved by making innovation systemic. Perhaps by setting aside time for exploratory projects and side gigs. Creating idea incubation hubs. Or just encouraging and rewarding personal growth projects.

Such programmes inevitably lead to a structured innovation, which offers two major benefits: 1/ faster time-to-value for new products; 2/ a higher quantity (and quality) of raw ideas. This also means that the entire process is more agile and can minimise the risk of a costly failure.

Putting creativity to work.

In turbulent times, the most profound inventions emerge. During times of economic downturn it’s the feasibility of new ideas that matters most. Those are the things that can get implemented quickly, and have the most impact on our lives. And these solutions often stick for a long time, too.

That’s the beauty of lasting innovation; To devise something that is equally creative and practical; The success is always measured by the adoption rate, and it’s the regular users who ultimately say whether something is any good – or not.

Nurturing the culture of innovation.

So I was asked recently to host a session and coach teams during Unit4’s flagship innovation event called Crazy Lab Days. It’s a hackathon-type, company-wide contest, where teams pitch their new product ideas, then meet for a week to develop these into prototypes, and ultimately pitch to a jury that selects just one winning project.

This is where my role comes into play. Connecting business, creativity & innovation – by inspiring and coaching teams to deliver their pitches to their maximum potential.

My mantra was simple: having a break-through idea is one thing, but communicating it to others takes a whole different skill set. Which can be acquired.

Developing clarity and fluency in explaining an entirely new concept to strangers is often as hard as coming up with the idea itself.

The formula.

So I embraced the challenge and curated the most relevant tips & tricks, with a goal to help the teams prepare their pitches in a minimum time, for a maximum impact. They were still to build their prototypes, and effectively could spend only half a day on polishing their presentations. Sounds like a challenge? It was.

Here are the key concepts that we focused on:

• Use storytelling as an overarching approach – this is to ensure that the pitch will resonate with the audience on a human level
• Weave in strong evidence – proof-points, numbers, case studies – to strengthen credibility and make the concept more real, grounded in sound data
• Spend time on articulating value proposition – no business idea will fly without this; If the creator struggles to explain the value of their solution, nobody else would grasp it either
• Empathise with and understand decision makers – they are humans too, just with different goals; They have their intrinsic motivations and drivers, so help them make the right decision
• Practise loud and own the narrative – consider anchoring, pre-emptying, social proofs, visual storytelling and other influencing techniques that can help you pitch successfully

I knew this would work.

If the teams applied only one thing from the above list, it would already make an impact.

Reflecting on what I’ve seen during Unit4’s Crazy Lab Days – and the feedback I received – I came back re-assured about the place of creativity in a tech business. What struck me the most was this almost explosive mix of skills that comes from interdisciplinary teams.

Running innovation projects with tech folks is how it should be. It’s good. But adding a few members from other disciplines creates a multiplier effect. It’s good to great.

Just think about pitching a technical product idea, vs pitching the same thing along with a rough go-to-market plan, value proposition and effectively a sales pitch. The tangible business impact shines through.

I’m looking forward to the next Crazy Lab Days. Until then, if you fancy joining us on this journey – check our careers page. We have some really hot openings like this or this.

/K.

Note: originally posted on LinkedIn