Computerworld - American Family Insurance Group created a sort of internal venture fund with the goal of encouraging IT workers to explore solutions that are risky but have a significant potential payoff.
Like many IT organizations, the insurer works on a chargeback system, billing internal customers for projects. Enterprises have long found that while the chargeback system is generally effective, it can deaden innovation because IT workers feel pressured to grind away at routine billable projects.
American Family's response is intriguing. "Let's say we believe our internal client needs a technology that's risky," says developer Jeff Dekelver. The company has built into its central IT budget time and money for IT workers, regardless of title, to "investigate [the idea], create a proof-of-concept, test and come up with recommendations," he says.
The program is hardly a pie-in-the-sky sabbatical: Employees who make a proposal must sell it to both senior IT managers and the relevant business line. Many ideas are discarded, but some pay off in spades, such as an electronic application system that replaces paper forms for American Family agents. This system, once explored and adopted, "had a heavy positive impact," says Pete Frey, application technology manager. And it has subsequently been "purchased" from IT by several American Family divisions.
Read more about Careers in Computerworld's Careers Topic Center.
Free Insider GuideCopyright © 1994 - 2012 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Computerworld Inc. is prohibited. Computerworld and Computerworld.com and the respective logos are trademarks of International Data Group Inc.
