The Open Lab Proposal and Action Plan

Concept

• Innovation Manager leads an internal Contact Centre voluntary initiative to build an open lab within the NAPC
• 100% Voluntary
• Run by open source-style committee with zero management involvement
• Zero startup costs, reuse and recycle existing resources– e.g.  utilize free office space
• Team provides Demos to SLT, Managers, Connections Meeting  to prove out their work and demonstrate the lab’s learnings

SLT and Manager Asks

• Employees who participate are able to dedicate 5% of their work week to the open lab–  dreaming up new ideas and test them (just like Google)
• For every $20k savings, or every 0.5% increase in LEI, the SLT will agree to contribute $5000 to the Open Lab’s budget (placeholder numbers)
• SLT supports the lab and promotes the lab from the top down– not exert political pressure to control the lab

Benefits

• Zero upfront cost
• Fund with a low risk, as the Open Lab shows benefits, the investment will be given
• SLT, Managers. and take no risk
• Voluntary involvements that builds innovation skills  and culture within the NAPC
• Build momentum for Innovation
• Some ideas can be spun off into NAPC innovations
• Recycle and reuse resources smartly- e.g. empty office space, software we already have licensed for testing, a test environment that isn't being used
• Apply open source and skunkworks  approaches
• Projects with issues we want to tested can feed their requests into the Open Lab backlog
• The backlog is managed by the entire Open Lab team
• Open Lab prioritizes incoming requests applying organization’s Principles and Vision