Making Innovation a Team Sport

The story of the FMCG Sprint

It all started with a vision. My vision for our department has two parts. First, we need to keep excelling at what we deliver to PepsiCo today. Second, at the same time, we need to develop our capabilities so we can create greater value for PepsiCo tomorrow.

Our first experiment, and what it taught me

Our first approach was simple. We gave Faiz and Pranav an experimentation role for about two weeks. Team members would find customer opportunities and pass them on, for example turning a slide deliverable into a Clipchamp video. Customers liked it, and the team liked it too.

But I started seeing two gaps. Our team members weren't really identifying opportunities themselves; there were times Pranav had to ask, “if you see any opportunity, can you share it with me?” And the knowledge stayed with Faiz and Pranav. When knowledge sits with one or two people, that's not how you scale capability. Slowly it becomes a dependency culture. I wanted everyone in the team to become curious about the work coming in from our customers.

So we built the sprint

We formed smaller teams within the department. Each team looks at one or two customer requests a week, tries to understand what the customer is really trying to achieve, and experiments as part of the normal work, not as something extra. We designed it like levels in a game, and we keep adding new challenges so it doesn't become routine. When energy drops, I bring the team back to the vision and challenge them: do we want to be the best team or not?

It shows in the small things

One of my favourite stories: a customer gave us a picture of an award to use on a slide. One of our team members looked closely at the other event photos and noticed that the real award was different from the one the customer gave. So he recreated the actual trophy and used that instead. The customer appreciated that he noticed such a small detail.

Another team member made a presentation interactive so the customer could move from one section to another. The customer didn't ask for it. He took the risk because he felt it would help, and the customer really appreciated it. Just last week, the team had around ten opportunities, mostly about using Copilot to work faster or produce better results.

For me, the big achievement is this: our team members are moving from being order-takers and executioners to being solution providers and thinking partners.

Could this become a new service?

When we delivered one piece of work really fast, the customer asked how we did it. We told them we used Copilot, and they asked us to show them the process and the prompt. Because we know PowerPoint and Excel deeply, we can write very specific prompts for guidelines, spacing and alignment. If customers are struggling to do this work themselves with Copilot, maybe we can train them to write better prompts, or create prompts for them. Customers are looking for vendors who know how to use Copilot.

What I learned about leading a big team

For me, the biggest lesson is work design. We were dealing with many connected problems at once: customer value, collaboration, curiosity, engagement, and growing our capabilities. Instead of solving each one separately, we designed one way of working that addresses them together, step by step, and lets us see progress every day, week and month.

What's next

The next stage is about getting closer to our customers: more direct calls and building relationships so we understand them better. I also want our team members to connect their stories to Chillibreeze's principles, and I want to learn from what's working in the Pharma and Microsoft teams. The sprint is still evolving.

What I'd share with other leaders

Start with a vision that connects today's delivery with tomorrow's value.
Don't keep experimentation with a few people. Make everyone curious.

Design the work so one practice solves several problems at once.