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How does a CTO encourage innovation within an organization? It seems to me that one person can’t do it all. Innovation has to start from the ground up. Each staff member in an organization needs to provide input. The management team is there to support innovation and make sure resources are available to build upon innovative ideas.
I sense the struggles to generate and sustain innovation in my organization. Many of our management team members are concerned about reliability. Certainly reliability is a key part of any datacenter company’s reputation. But oftentimes reliability is equated with the status quo. Innovative ideas are viewed as risky and therefore a threat to reliability.
I’ve oftentimes considered splitting engineering and operations. Engineering could focus on innovation and operations could focus on reliability. But that flies in the face of the principle that innovation can arise from any part of the organization.
I’m still looking for the solution.
