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Whitepaper - Scrum : Agile innovation @ FedEx


Lighting Corporate Passion: Everything you need to know about FedEx Day



Introduction 


 A FedEx Day is a 24-hour event in which employees deliver innovation to the company they work for.
It is called FedEx Day, because you have to deliver overnight, like the parcel delivery company. A FedEx Day is a fixed time box in which people are not disturbed for regular work. Within this time box, employees have total autonomy over the project they are enthusiastic about. They decide for themselves what they will be working on, who they are going to work with, and how they are going to do it.

Only one rule applies: 

 People who sign up show the results to the company at the end of the FedEx Day. In short, a FedEx Day is about boosting motivation and creativity overnight by getting out of people’s way.


Business Model

The traditional business model regarding motivation is built around external motivators, the carrot and-stick motivation scheme. For simple, mechanical tasks, punishments prevent bad performance and higher incentives lead to higher performance. However, in more complex work, the majority of tasks in business require conceptual, creative thinking.

The traditional motivation scheme does not apply to these types of tasks. If you promise people higher rewards for better performance, scientific evidence shows that the results are worse. A FedEx Day can result in a boost of motivation and performance of your employees in only 24 hours (12 business hours).

Additionally many employees have great ideas for improving their work and the products of the company. Traditional management often does not provide the autonomy for employees to implement these ideas. Business is often hectic and the pressure on delivery is always there.
However, these employees often have the best innovative ideas, since they are the ones closest to the work. Organizing a FedEx Day provides a short time box of high-intensity work in which employees implement their ideas and present them to the company.



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