Uploaded byAdam Nash
2011 Trend Micro Keynote - Innovation & Inspiration
This document discusses strategies for distributed decision making and innovation. It advocates for empowering small, cross-functional teams to drive their own strategies and priorities. It also discusses the importance of establishing a culture of risk tolerance by focusing on "painful risks" rather than risks that only cause embarrassment. The document highlights the success of LinkedIn's Hackdays program in fostering inspiration and innovation by dedicating time every month for employees to experiment with new projects.
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2011 Trend Micro Keynote - Innovation & Inspiration
- 1. Innovation & Inspiration EmpoweringDistributed Decisions Adam Nash October 21, 2011
- 2. Steve Jobs “We don’t have an innovation process. We hire good people.”
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- 5. Optimus Prime “Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing” -- Revenge of the Fallen
- 6. Distributed Systems High parallelization Loosecoupling N-tier architectures Fault tolerance Massive scalability
- 7. Distributed Systems High parallelization Loose coupling N-tier architectures Fault tolerance Massive scalability Why don’t we build organizations this way?
- 8. What do wedo instead? Linear processes, without parallelization Tight coupling, often with single points of failure Fault tolerance generally limited to under utilization Extremely limited scalability, even with winning teams
- 9. What do wedo instead? Linear processes, without parallelization Tight coupling, often with single points of failure Fault tolerance generally limited to under utilization Extremely limited scalability, even with winning teams Who would architect a system like this?
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- 11. Paradox of Delegation Everyonewants authority and decision making delegated down to their level... but not further.
- 12. Distributed Organizations Small,cross-functional teams empowered to drive their strategy, prioritization and execution Common, harmonized goals with unambiguous definitions of success High degree of independence between teams in terms of both process and technology Constant, redundant and consistent communication between teams and up-and-down the organization Clear definitions of exceptions, and protocols for escalation
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- 14. Optimus Prime “Sometimes even the wisest of men and machines can be in error” -- Transformers (1984)
- 15. High Risk, HighReward? Most common incorrect statement made about investment decisions The market does not reward risks that can be diversified away Stupid risk does not add value In a rapidly changing technology landscape, the risk of not moving fast enough is huge
- 16. High Risk, HighReward? Most common incorrect statement made about investment decisions The market does not reward risks that can be diversified away Stupid risk does not add value In a rapidly changing technology landscape, the risk of not moving fast enough is huge What’s the right framework for risk in high tech?
- 17. Three types ofrisk Mortal risk If this goes wrong, the venture literally is over. Painful risk If this goes wrong, you face a significant issue with a key metric (market share, revenue, usage) Embarrassment risk If this goes wrong, you have to admit you were wrong.
- 18. Three types ofrisk Mortal risk If this goes wrong, the venture literally is over. Painful risk If this goes wrong, you face a significant issue with a key metric (market share, revenue, usage) Embarrassment risk If this goes wrong, you have to admit you were wrong. Most companies spend too much time on embarrassment & don’t take enough painful risks.
- 19. Painful Risk isReality Technology is hyper-competitive Great projects often include commitments to deliver solutions to problems that haven’t been solved yet. The landscape changes so often, the “right solution” to a problem is often sub-optimal within a few years. Moderate risk with experimentation, iteration, and minimally viable products. Reward risk by sharing learning & owning the decision
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- 21. Optimus Prime “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” -- Transformers (1984)
- 22. LinkedIn Hackdays One Friday,every month Projects due by Monday, 9am Projects displayed on intranet Projects publicly judged by executives Prizes. Glory. Real Success.
- 23. Why does itwork? In software, you don’t learn deeply by reading or discussing. You learn by doing. It takes dedicated time to experiment and learn a new platform, new architecture, new algorithm. Small teams learn together. Inspiration is contagious.
- 24. Inspiration ➞ Innovation Most of the limits that we face we place on ourselves. Competition challenges and inspires Leadership behavior and incentives matter, as they can easily confirm or deny prioritization of innovation Culture of innovation requires peer-based inspiration
- 25. Inspiration ➞ Innovation Most of the limits that we face we place on ourselves. Competition challenges and inspires Leadership behavior and incentives matter, as they can easily confirm or deny prioritization of innovation Culture of innovation requires peer-based inspiration We inspire each other to do our best work.
- 26. More on LinkedInHackdays http://blog.adamnash.com/2011/05/05/why-linkedin-hackdays-work/
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- 28. Organization, Risk &Culture Innovation begins with empowerment. Small, cross- functional teams have the data, the passion, and the ability to execute. Empower them. It’s easy to talk about being risk tolerant, but which types of risks, and when? Beware spending too much time on embarrassment risk. Don’t run systems at 100% of capacity. Engineers need some amount of bandwidth to learn, experiment and execute on new ideas.
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