Fostering and sustaining innovation in a fast growing agile company

  • Authors:

  • Nils Brede Moe;Sebastian Barney;Aybüke Aurum;Mahvish Khurum;Claes Wohlin;Hamish T. Barney;Tony Gorschek;Martha Winata

  • Affiliations:

  • SINTEF ICT, Trondheim, Norway;Information Systems, Technology and Management, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia,Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden;Information Systems, Technology and Management, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden;Information Systems, Technology and Management, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia;Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden;Information Systems, Technology and Management, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia

  • Venue:
  • PROFES'12 Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Sustaining innovation in a fast growing software development company is difficult. As organisations grow, peoples' focus often changes from the big picture of the product being developed to the specific role they fill. This paper presents two complementary approaches that were successfully used to support continued developer-driven innovation in a rapidly growing Australian agile software development company. The method "FedExTM Day" gives developers one day to showcase a proof of concept they believe should be part of the product, while the method "20% Time" allows more ambitious projects to be undertaken. Given the right setting and management support, the two approaches can support and improve bottom-up innovation in organizations.