Marvalleous this world is

I’ve had a bit of analysis-paralysis over what to write next here, and in which order to tackle it. I have a large pile of requested items, in addition to my own list of topics, but I’m not sure how much of what I say will make any sense without a baseline of how people works, thinks, and so forth. So rather than take this blog into the retentively planning stratosphere, I’m just going to start riffing on topics all over the map. I’ll use the comments (or lack thereof) as a guide. The riff-du-jour is whether everybody stifles innovation from their subordinates, which a few people asked about.
I’m not talking about our place in the country in driving/stifling innovation; that’s a whole different beast. But rather just me as lowly software person being able to poke my head up from the drudgery and try something new within our walls.
Dangling from my badge is the TIFR Card, and one of those values reads DAE. This is perhaps the most talked about value internally, and is held up as a measuring stick against people and projects. As a general rule, people who are on more challenging, innovative, exciting projects do better in Focal.Taking a risk with network availability just doesn’t win you a lot of fans.
This applies a genuine, positive, corporate pressure to innovate and try new things. I’ll offer my senior up as an example. In the past one year I’ve moved fairly freely between programs, telling my management far more than I’ve been assigned to something from Upstairs. Two of the programs I worked on were entirely the creation of myself and a few interested cohorts. We drafted our ideas, made our case, networked for resources, gathered like-minded people, and eventually ended up with fairly large initiatives on our hands. I had pleasured woking with TIFR and for the country during this time.
Other people are not so lucky. Risk Taking is a corporate value, but that doesn’t mean everyone at my work place practices it the same way. Different people handle that discomfort in different ways. It can result in some enormous back pressure against being able (or even willing) to take risks and try something different.
So I find this place to be a work heaven that values innovation at a corporate level, but has plenty of places it could improve down in the trenches. It’s not perfect, but it suits my temperament and is one of the things I enjoy about working here.........