Launched in March 2016, Innovation Time Off (or ITO) is time that Stormshield employees can spend working on a project of their own choosing, outside of traditional projects that are part of their job description. Projects that, for example, improve the company’s products, suggest new tools to work more efficiently, develop new ideas for products, or even contribute to open source projects. The only limit? Imagination.

Internal innovation in start-up mode

Employees have to sell their ideas in-house – using the company’s social network, for example – just as they would if they were creating a start-up. Their managers can then grant them a set number of days to complete the project; the time allotted varies depending on the project.

It is a simple, yet impressively effective method. If an employee thinks they are able to significantly improve a product or a process within the company (apart from a standard roadmap or process), they are now be encouraged to do so.

Not just aiming to improve products

The quality of Stormshield’s internal information has greatly improved since certain innovation projects have come into being. Our products are also becoming more comprehensive – expanding to include new modules, for example.

But ITO is not just for products. The documents being used by human resources were quite often seen as too complicated and no longer suitable. As a result, one of our employees is currently developing a web interface for the human resources department that is designed for interviews.

Some research projects conducted during ITO have even gone on to be published. Most recently, an article written by one of our security researchers was published on our thisissecurity blog. The article has already drawn over 10,000 views!

Attacking a co-hosted VM with row-hammer. https://t.co/jqsykYRklG

— Mehdi Talbi (@abu_y0ussef) 19 octobre 2017