Pragma will be hosting its annual Innovation Day on Wednesday, 7 November 2012.
The day provides Pragma’s employees with the opportunity and time to innovate and present back to their peers the ideas that they come up with such as process improvements, new products, features in On Key and more.
Silja Bake, System Development Manager of Pragma, explains how the idea came about and how it has turned into such a huge success: “There are many talented and creative individuals in the company who don’t always have the opportunity to pop out of their day-to-day work to express their creativity. We often let our clients drive the way our products and services improve, yet the people in our organisation who work with these on a daily basis, often have better ideas and are seldom asked for them.”
Twice a year, Pragma explicitly creates the time and forum for people to have the undivided attention of the rest of the organisation to share their ideas at the Innovation Day. Pragma sets aside time for people to think and then take over the Learner in the Cape Town office for a few hours. “We essentially set up a science fair type of room and invite the rest of the organisation to join in and share the ideas they come up with. They browse between the people who share prototype applications, or PowerPoint presentations, or brochures, or simply just chat about their ideas. I then gather views from the attendees on what they most appreciated and prioritise these ideas accordingly. On Key changes go into my pool of work and other changes are routed to the appropriate people in the organisation to implement,” says Bake. There are also several excellent ideas that have already been implemented in On Key and therefore add value to clients.
Those involved in the day include everybody in Products and hopefully a growing number of others within Pragma to contribute ideas. Adds Bake: “Most people in the Cape Town office attend the actual Innovation Day in the Learner to see the ideas that are shared. The Innovation Days are a great way to harness the innovation and creativity of our people.
“The Day gives people the opportunity to have fun, think out of the box, not to worry about their current workloads, and allow their minds to wander to greater things. And at the end of the day we even get some brilliant ideas to take forward as a bonus,” concludes Bake.
