Macadamian Blog
How do you structure a team for innovation?
I had the privilege of attending the Forbes Leadership conference yesterday. If you ever have the chance to attend, it's a must.
The topic was innovation, and one panel was on innovation and teams. One panelist mentioned that he believed innovation was a team sport, an idea that I subscribe to.
We talked a bit about how to structure a team for innovation - what individual backgrounds, personalities, and roles make a great team that comes up with breakthrough innovations? Judy Estrin had a great answer - what's most important is not the specific backgrounds, but that the team has cognitive diversity. If you're trying to come up with a disruptive product, you need a team of people who each approach problems from different angles - who will challenge one another and help spark creative ideas by following brainstorming paths they might not have otherwise followed.
About the Author
Matt heads Macadamian's Silicon Valley lab, and is VP of Strategy and Innovation at Macadamian. He is a trained Innovation Games (tm) facilitator who helps clients define mobile and software-as-a-service strategies, and works with them to uncover new opportunities for innovation and envision new products. Matt was the founder of the Ottawa Software Executive Forum, an executive roundtable that included VP and C level leaders from companies like Cognos, QNX, Corel, and IBM, and met monthly to discuss the direction of the industry and the future of software. Matt is a 15 year veteran of mobile and web technology who delivers frequent webinars on mobile product strategy, moderates executive roundtable discussions on the future of mobility, and is a past speaker at events like Sun's JavaOne and IBM's global partner conferences.
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