How to be innovative?

Being innovative is not easy. It involves taking risks, and chopping through some brave, brow-raising ideas.

How else would you like to change anything, if not by being brave, and not conform to status-quo?

Story time: I am not the biggest fan of the thing called daily stand-ups. I find them obnoxious, pointless, wasteful in any sense imaginable: you are forced to drop everything, get out of the zone, and listen for a quarter about things that do not really interest you. A productivity nightmare.

I see the benefit of boosted communication, though. When people talk, synergy happens.

It gave me the idea: what if we replace daily stand-ups with check-ins? Like write what you're going to do today in a chat. Let other people know what's happening in their own time, when they are open to communication. Forced communication is pointless.

Magic happened. People started sharing their progress, and what are their plans for the day. Everyone instantaneously became more aware, more informed, more included.

It took some guts to propose something so radical, but it paid off tenfolds. Innovation is change, the good change.