When most people think of play, they think of children. We all played as kids. It was a way for us to explore the world around us, invent and learn new things.

As adults, we tend to be much more regimented about play and very often refrain from play in the workplace.

Play tends to be what we do on our spare time, with our daily drive and routine mostly getting in the way.

Demands impose aversion to failure. People take fewer risks, we become less inventive and in some cases, really boring.

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist (1908 – 1970) was once quoted as saying “Almost all creativity involves purposeful play”.

I whole heartily agree.

This is why we have introduced Hack Friday at SessionM.

On Hack Friday, everyone involved in the product development process is given the entire day to work on whatever they would like. People come together as teams, or work independently. So far, teams have researched and tested languages such as GO! and Scala,  experimented with new technologies such as RedShift and OpenStack and built tools that make our jobs easier. In the most extreme case, HackFriday has produced a brand new product for the company.

So far, Hack Friday has produced some really amazing innovations for the team. We believe that this proves play is extremely powerful.

Has your team implemented “purposeful play” like Hack Friday? If not, consider it.

Play has the potential to transform how you innovate.