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CHAPTER 8, I referenced a number of frameworks and philosophies that are being successfully applied by organizations to form and activate innovation teams. You could dive deeply into any of these, attend classes, read blogs, and visit workshops. To save you time, I’ve done a good deal of that for you. Here is an executive summary of today’s best approaches; I also synthesize them into one model that combines the best features of each. Five approaches have proven effective:
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Objectives and key results (OKR). A method introduced by Intel, propagated by Silicon Valley venture capitalists like John Doerr, and popularized by Google, this approach suggests that to scale quickly, you allow people to define their own objectives (qualitative mission statements), each supported by measurable key results. Have people focus on just a few OKRs at a time. Make OKRs available to everyone. Update them regularly. We have used a version of OKRs with our clients and found the approach and philosophy remarkably effective at accelerating the pace of strategy execution, increasing agility, and strengthening engagement, without interfering much with the core performance management process.
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John Kotter’s Accelerate (XLR8). Kotter has adapted his change-management framework for today. He argues that companies need to embrace a “dual operating system” in which the traditional hierarchy coexists with a more agile network structure. The two are loosely connected by the people who operate in both. You not only have a formal hierarchical role (e.g., regional sales manager for XYZ) but also spend time as part of a multidisciplinary networked team scaling a particular innovation (e.g., the “Leopard” team with a mission to launch a new sales force and product). Kotter lays out eight key accelerators you need to drive your innovation team, including creating urgency, removing barriers, forming a change vision, and building a coalition.
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The Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX). A good number of the internal innovators I interviewed have embraced and experienced this model, introduced by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling. The model suggests that you assemble a team around just one or two goals and then implement four disciplines: focus on “wildly important goals” (WIGs), act on lead measures (rather than lagging measures), keep a compelling scorecard that everyone can see, and create a cadence of accountability (frequent, short, efficient meetings to review progress).
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Growth teams. Many fast-moving technology companies, including Uber, Pinterest, FanDuel, and HubSpot, have started adopting teams intensely fixated on accelerating growth. The common principles behind these growth teams include assembling an interdisciplinary team, focusing tightly on one or a few issues or objectives, generating quick wins, and implementing a rhythm of quick reviews. In a job posting, HubSpot describes its growth team this way: “The growth team is a small, versatile, focused, data-driven and aggressive group within HubSpot that works on new emerging products with massive audiences and a freemium business model (similar to Dropbox and Evernote). We are constantly pushing ourselves to learn new growth strategies, tactics, and techniques. As part of the growth team you’ll have the opportunity to be involved in growing a product from thousands to millions of users while learning and working with some of the best along the way.”
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Scrum teams. “Scrum” is a teamwork philosophy first adopted in software development and now being adopted across a wide range of management activities. The key idea is that you divide a project into parts and create a prioritized backlog of work. You then focus on just one piece at a time, running a sprint to get that piece of work done quickly. To increase velocity, you ensure that each piece of work is independent, actionable, and assigned, and has a clear definition of completion (“definition of done”). The team is organized under a “scrum master,” with product owners and other experts rallying around each sprint. You also maintain a “scrum board” that visually displays the team’s current progress.
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