Innovation Models: 3M’s 15 Percent Program

A recent article at Fast Company Design got us thinking about a tenured, but proven, approach to organizational innovation, by way of 3M’s 15 Percent Program. In place since 1948, the 15 Percent Program encourages employees to use a portion of their paid time to dream, brainstorm and test their own ideas. The program and the free time it provides have generated many of the company’s best-selling programs – in addition to serving as a model for the practices of the likes of Google and HP.

Some key take-aways one can learn from 3M’s program – and apply to their own organization, team or personal practice – are recapped below:

• How is the program implemented? Workers often use 15 percent time to pursue something they discovered through the usual course of work but didn’t have time to follow up on.
• 15 percent time is extended to everyone, not just the scientists
• Failure is to be expected, accepted and learned from
• 3M backs their 15 percent program with financial investment and commitment: they invest more than $1 billion in R&D alone.
• According to the author, ‘experts agree that this kind of nudging probably works best at companies where there’s a high level of creative competitiveness; that is, where impressing peers is just as important as the innovation itself.’
• Past projects – which are currently on the market – have included making clear bandages, optical films that reflect light, and designing a way to make painter’s tape stick to wall edges (to protect against paint bleed).
• Ideas can sometimes be ahead of their time; one employees idea needed 15 years for more advanced technology to be in place to support it – and for the market to demand it.

Perhaps the overall conclusion? Innovative ideas can come from anywhere, at any time. Forward-thinking organizations find ways to motivate and reward employees for developing and testing these ideas.

Fast Co Design: “How 3M Gave Everyone Days Off and Created an Innovation Dynamo”