While Andy is off swanning about London, I have decided to write this little narrative post in which I hope to sketch out some of the ancient and more recent background to this blog. In recent weeks I have very much enjoyed following the progress of a proof of concept project that I helped to start with one of my clients. It is with great interest that I watch the very open process of innovation via the blogs of some of the team members, like Tom (whose ideas and comments form a substantial piece of the early posts here).
I am particularly encouraged for two reasons:
- The ‘DNA’ for Proof of Concept projects has been successfully transferred to a new and different environment.
- The open approach of blogging the progress of a Project is generating some healthy debate and introducing interesting new ideas.
Many years ago (before Feb 2001), Andy and I worked together to envision, build and run projects in the Microsoft and South Australian Government Innovation Centre. During early workshops with key stakeholders I scribbled a rather large and busy whiteboard full of ideas into a shape that resembled a chemistry set – which formed the basis for running many Proof of Concept projects. Andy deftly adapted reams and reams of Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) documentation into a single page ‘vision/scope’ template which served to guide many a successful project. I always wondered how well these projects would go outside the fertile environment we had managed to create.
Last year, I had the pleasure of working with a project team at Education.au limited who were brave enough to try out some of my crazy ideas around fostering innovation through a proof of concept (PoC) project. A small team of peers was established following the abovementioned scaled down MSF guidelines. Together we set about a sometimes bumpy journey of weekly meetings punctuated by three ‘Show and Tell’ events in which we showed anyone who would watch our hastily cobbled together prototype code and ideas. Around halfway through this first ‘PoC’ project, the team started blogging about some of the project outcomes and ideas. To me, this was the piece which really opened the bottle and let the genie of innovation out.
On reflection, the key enablers for innovation were:
- Creating space for talented staff to ‘play’ in work time.
- Switching the default attitude from ‘closed’ to ‘open’.
So there you have it. A little background to the journey Andy and I have been on over the last six years and and introduction into some of the key players you see hanging around this little blog.
I suspect what we see here is a foretaste / model / adumbration of great things to come in which some of the world’s bigger problems will be addressed by standing on the shoulders of giants through a culture of creative participation enabled via the internet.
Fang – Mike Seyfang
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