Team Roles can help you understand your roles on a team, along with your team's makeup, imbalances, and what each individual role plays. Innovators are creative, idea generators.
Overview
Innovators are ideas people. There is always a steady stream of new ideas. The innovator team member is great in environments where new and fresh ideas or concepts are regularly needed such as product development, branding and design or envisioning the key activities of a project plan.
Strengths
Creative
Imaginative
Free-thinking
Rich in ideas
Problem solver
Can often use unconventional means
Good listeners
Positioning
Best utilized to challenge conventional and established ways of doing things and provide suggested solutions for solving complex problems.
Innovators are often needed at the beginning of a project or when a project is failing to progress. They can provide a jolt of new thoughts and ideas to get things back on track.
If too many innovators are in the team, bad ideas can conceal good ones and non-starters can be given too much airtime. Be sure there is a clear innovator for the team and reposition others that may be inclined to try and play the innovator role.
Development Opportunities
Set regular reminders to communicate updates to key stakeholders to avoid becoming too preoccupied to communicate effectively. Your ideas are only as good as the people that can act on them.
Look for ways to get support or put process in place for administrative tasks to avoid losing track of incidental details or next steps.
If ideas are impractical or overlook key process realities, pair with an Implementor to find actionable solutions that consider execution.
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