What do all of the world’s biggest companies have in common? They’re innovative, adaptable, and they set clear goals. 

In today’s rapidly evolving AI landscape, organizations need to nail all three to stand out and avoid falling behind their competitors. How do you do that? Innovation is at the heart of it. 

More specifically, fostering a culture of innovation is essential to get teams thinking creatively about solutions to business challenges, like those posed by AI. A truly innovative work culture not only inspires creativity but also gives teams the tools (and time) to actually create. Let’s take a look at what goes into creating a culture of innovation.

Make innovation part of your work culture

Innovation isn’t just a buzzword. It’s necessary to keep up with the ever-changing technological landscape. Just look at how AI is already transforming your business and industry. Your company has to provide teams with a work environment that creates space for innovation and gives your developers the opportunity to tinker.

That means setting the tone from the top down. Senior leaders will make the biggest impact in encouraging workplace innovation. Developing an innovation strategy, opening lines of communication, and having a willingness to experiment are ways to help inspire team members.

Building a culture of innovation means that everyone on your team can get involved. For example, solving AI-related business challenges shouldn’t rest solely on the shoulders of engineers or developers. Multidisciplinary teams can get involved with experimenting and solving for these problems, too.

Innovation isn’t a “one-time thing”

Innovation can’t be achieved by holding a once-a-year workshop or retreat. To inspire an innovation culture, it should be something that teams are actively working towards on an ongoing basis throughout the year.

The good news is that this doesn’t have to take up as much time as you might think. You can make time for your teams to experiment and explore new solutions—without breaking the time bank.

There are a lot of ways to explore this, like offering training, holding creative challenges, incentivizing innovation, and hosting internal hackathons. 

Hackathons are time-bound events where teams compete to solve a common problem. In the workplace, these events give employees the opportunity to solve business challenges outside of their day-to-day work. The competitive nature of hackathons, combined with a set timeframe, allows teams to achieve a lot in a short period of time.

While hosting any hackathon is a great start, it doesn’t open the door to ongoing improvement and innovation in the same way that hosting multiple events does. Hosting frequent, regular hackathons gives participants the opportunity to improve previous projects and build something they’re excited about.

Use hackathons as a business tool

Think of hackathons as a set time to be creative around a business problem. Hackathon deadlines add some pressure on participants to keep things moving. It also means you can achieve a lot in just a couple of days.

Hackathons are more than just time off from work as part of your company’s corporate culture. They solve real business challenges. In particular, internal hackathons help you get answers to the questions you have about your company’s future—like, “How are we going to leverage AI in our business? What tools would make our product better?” Hackathons help your team keep pace with AI literacy, and embed this responsibility across your organization. 

Inspire a culture of innovation

Inspiring a culture of innovation takes ongoing practice. That’s why we developed Devpost for Teams (DFT). With the platform, you can host hackathons that encourage collaboration and creativity within your teams as often as you want. Your private, internal hackathons don’t have to be a once-a-year event.

DFT streamlines the entire hackathon process from planning to post-event reporting. Book your free demo to see how DFT and our team will ensure you remain at the forefront of AI innovation.