What do you do if your engineering team needs a creativity boost?

Much like sugar levels in our blood, creativity comes in spikes as well. As an engineering leader your role is to stabilize those spikes to keep ideas flowing. One of the common mistakes I see is constantly working under stress. Encouraging breaks even throughout the work day can make a significant difference. Lead by example, people look up to their leaders and try to imitate them, it's 100% natural. Share your stories on how you like to take some 1:1s while walking in a park. This can set a positive trend in your team.

Taking breaks from work can be beneficial, as productivity and mere work are distinct concepts. These breaks can involve enjoyable activities, such as playing games like charades or having a team lunch that turns into a lighthearted roast. These brief respites from constant work can provide the energy boost necessary for optimal performance and ultimately yield positive outcomes.

Some practical avenues to promote diverse experiences could include attending local professional society group meetings such as ASME, SWE, SME, etc… - Many of these groups offer monthly presentations from subject matter experts. - Others may facilitate tours of factories or development centers both within and outside of your current industry. - And, many of these organizations offer access to a rich compendium of technical articles, books and training videos. All of which may bring a new perspectives or depth of understanding about a wide range of topics. Plus, they offer opportunities to network with peers in both small local settings or at large conferences.

An idea workshop can be a good option for generating ideas. However, as a leader, I have observed that the team is more enthusiastic and productive when given a real problem to solve rather than just a hypothesis. This boosts their confidence and gives them a sense of purpose. As the leader, you can take advantage of this by giving them higher visibility. To inspire your team, make sure to deliver motivating speeches at regular intervals. This will keep them charged up and creative.

I encourage my staff to attend conferences and expos both within and outside of our industry. While same industry events provide opportunities to benchmark common practices and technologies, exposure to other industries often gives rise to nontraditional approaches to resolve challenges or technology gaps, which may not be evident when only viewing the norms…and perhaps the limits of tools and technologies utilized within a single industry or industrial segment.

Highly encourage every team to run a book club where you study a related technology or anything else as a group. This not only encourages every one to think differently but also sets the level equal for everyone. It's important to choose a book that is very new to majority of people. We used to run these at Google and the results were beyond comprehension. Get over the feeling that it's useless and waste of time, at the end your team's performance is directly tied to their ability to innovate.

Flexibility in the process can significantly boost the creativity of the team. As a leader, it is essential to create some space for innovation within the same process in which they deliver their primary work. You can reserve some capacity for innovation within the same deliverable horizons and ask your team to bring something new. This can be done through a dedicated innovation sprint running parallel to everyday work so that there is a balance of both. Although this is not an easy task, creating a win-win situation for your team and stakeholders is possible. This way, the team gets to do what they like, and stakeholders get to see immediate benefits. If executed properly, this can be a highly effective strategy.

Create a culture where failure is seen as a part of the learning process, not as a setback. I like very much this phrase "fail fast, learn, and iterate" emphasizing that each failure brings valuable lessons that lead to improvement.