New products are innovative, and innovation is fueled by creativity. Therefore it’s important for your product team to be as creative as possible. There are a number of things you can do to help encourage creativity at work. Google employs the 20 Percent Factor, by which they allow their employees to spend 20% of their work time on side projects as a way to amp up creativity in order to help them think more innovatively.

It’s not enough just to see the value in creativity; you also need to clearly demonstrate to your product team that their creativity is welcome. When your team sees creativity around them, they are more likely to be creative themselves. This is absolutely necessary in this day and age in which technology changes at such a quick pace.

Here are three ways to help unleash your product team’s creativity.

1. Offer Encouragement and Support

Creating an atmosphere of encouragement and support is an important way to show your product team that their creative ideas are welcome. Four ways to encourage innovation in the workplace include allowing time for brainstorming and problem-solving, sending a clear message that creativity, new ideas, and feedback are welcome, ensuring business processes aren’t stifling creativity, and doing what Google does and allowing employees to work on personal projects during work hours.

2. Team Members with Diverse Backgrounds

When you bring together team members with a variety of backgrounds, there’s a good chance they won’t all think the same way, and this will encourage creativity within the team. When people approach a problem from different points of view, you get more possibilities as to how that problem can be solved. This encourages discussions that will also improve creativity as the team works together to come up with the best solution.

3. Have Fun

Fun goes a long way toward silencing the inner critic and increasing creativity. Too much seriousness can make the creative process more difficult. A stressful or serious work environment doesn’t encourage employees to think outside the box. Instead, they will only look forward to the end of the day.

Create a fun environment by having regular get-togethers like lunches out, encouraging employees to socialize, celebrating small wins, and even creating a games area. Team-building activities like retreats are also a great way to increase the fun at work and improve creativity.

There are many more ways to unleash your product team’s creativity, but offering encouragement and support, choosing team members with a variety of backgrounds, and having fun are great places to start.

Technology changes at such a great pace that innovation and creativity are a must for any product development team. Pivot International has many years of experience creating and working with product development teams. We have experience launching a diverse portfolio of award-winning products into the marketplace, and we offer many product design and development services to help get your product to market. For more ideas on improving your product team’s creativity, contact us today.