Kill a rule

This article first appeared on July 9th, 2012.

Old Taskmaster loved this piece from Inc.com, looking at how to spur a bit of instant innovation in your business by playing a game called Kill a Rule.

The idea is exactly as it sounds – instead of trying to come up with some brilliant new product, you ask employees to form groups and think of the business rules that they would like to get rid of.

It might be a rule about a process you have in place, or a rule about your products or a rule about who can eat what where.

Everything off the table and nothing is sacred – especially not the rules that you came up with, dear company founder.

Once everyone has their list of rules, you pick favourites and start trying to figure out which ones you can kill.

The creator of the game, Lisa Bodell (the founder and CEO of futurethink and the author of Kill the Company) says many of the “rules” won’t be rules at all – they’ll just be things that people don’t like. And some of the rules might actually have to stay.

But if you can find just a few small improvements to make immediately – and a few longer-term ones to work on – you’ll be on the way to a better business.

Get it done – today!