Avoiding Innovation Debt

• Lunch and learns – Ask one team member every month to take a morning and hack on something interesting (maybe a new javascript library or to try out a new version control system) and ask them to give a presentation to the rest of the team (or write a blog post if they don’t like to present). It’ll give everyone a chance to hack on something new every few months and will create a sense of shared learning within the team.
• Conferences – Make sure all developers hit one local conference a year and ideally send them to at least one conference a year that’s out of town. It’s a great way to learn about new technologies, but it’s an even better way to build a network with other developers who might be able to help with technical issues in the future.
• Hackathons – Take a couple of days once or twice a year to allow your teams to hack on passion projects that support the company’s goals. Encourage them to create mockups using new technologies so they can get some hands on experience with technologies that might become important to the company over time.
• Continuous consulting – Most teams I’ve met would be well served by putting aside 3-5% of their annual budget aside for ongoing consulting. Bring in a consultant for a few days once a quarter to help your dev team to learn something new on a regular basis.
• Pair programming – Pairing can be a great way to increase the sharing of knowledge within your dev team, but you do still need to invest in other activities to make sure your team are still learning from external sources and have new ideas to share.
• Allow failure – The goal of trying a new technology is not to use the technology. It’s to learn whether the technology might be worth using. If you never try a technology that ends up not being worth using for your projects, you’re probably not trying new technologies aggressively enough.