Page 151 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

“A key role of the executive team is to set up a culture around innovation,
rather than generate all of the big ideas themselves.”

Our job as an executive team was to create the environment in which this
innovation process could occur. Our job was to incubate this innovation passion
rather than come up with the big ideas ourselves. One technique we used was the
internal “hackathon.” Normally, these hackathons were focused on a specific
problem that was relevant at the time, such as slow customer adoption of a new
feature, a competitor's new offering, or an internal culture issue. A message was
sent to the company, framing the problem and inviting anyone interested to
participate in the hackathon to brainstorm solutions. Most of them occurred after
hours. Often there was pizza and beer provided. Sometimes hundreds of people
showed up. They were fun.

To kick off the hackathon, the organizer would frame the problem for the
audience and set the agenda on how the brainstorming process would flow for
the evening. Next, anyone who had an idea would pitch it to the audience for a
minute or two. All ideas were recorded on a whiteboard. After approximately 30
minutes of idea generation, the crowd was polled to gauge interest in the various
ideas on the board. The top 10 or so were selected and small breakout teams
were formed around each idea. The teams spent about an hour discussing their
assigned ideas and devising an experiment to test each concept. Once the plans
were fully formed, each team circled back to present the details to the broader
group.

If an idea was simple enough and required minimal investment, it would be
executed by the individuals involved in the relevant business function. For the
promising ideas that would require significant investment, the brainstorming
groups would be invited to present the proposed experiment to the executive
team at a dedicated experiment board meeting, where company leadership would
decide whether to fund the experiment. If the idea was funded, it would be added
to our innovation pipeline. The innovation pipeline was monitored each month
and, when applicable, teams would deliver a status update to the experiment
board on their particular projects. The board was there to provide guidance and
decide whether to keep each experiment going, dedicate additional resources, or
discontinue certain projects to make room for other innovations.

Another key element of the innovation culture was the transparency we had
throughout the organization. A successful innovation culture requires all