Innovation Is a Team Sport—But Most Teams Are Playing Solo

Here’s something I see all the time.

A company hires top-tier talent across departments: product managers, engineers, designers, marketers.
Each team does great work—on paper.
But the actual product?
Confusing. Clunky. Slow to evolve.

What happened?

Everyone was playing their position.
But no one was playing as a team.

The Siloed MVP

I once worked with a company that spent months building their “minimum viable product.”
Product had defined the feature list.
Engineering had built to spec.
Marketing had no idea it was even launching.

No one had asked:

• “What’s the actual customer pain here?”
• “How will we measure success?”
• “Are we solving the right problem?”

What they launched was functional—but forgettable.

Not because they lacked talent.
Because they lacked alignment.

Siloed Excellence = Collective Mediocrity

You can’t innovate in isolation.
Innovation is a team sport—it requires constant handoffs, collaboration, and course correction.

But most organizations are optimized for efficiency (or at leas they think they are), not co-creation.
We prioritize speed over shared understanding.
Specialization over shared ownership.

And that’s why most teams default to “build what we know,” not “explore what’s possible.”

You Can’t Pass the Ball If You’re Not on the Field Together

When teams never collaborate early, they get locked into assumptions.
The product team solves one version of the problem.
Design makes it pretty.
Engineering makes it real.
Marketing spins it to sound like what customers wish it did.

No one is lying.
But everyone’s telling a different version of the truth.

Real innovation happens when those perspectives collide before anything is built.

That’s why practices like Design Sprints work so well—they bring diverse minds into the room to solve the same problem together.

Build Together, Win Together

Next time you’re kicking off a project, ask:

• Have we clearly defined the problem across disciplines?
• Are we aligned on success metrics before building?
• Does everyone understand the user pain we’re solving?

If the answer is no—you’re playing solo.
And no matter how good your individual players are, the outcome will feel disconnected.

Try This With Your Team

Pick a current initiative and gather one rep each from product, design, engineering, marketing, and ops.

Then ask this question:

“What are you solving for?”

You’ll be amazed how many different answers you hear.

Use that as the starting point—not the indictment.
From there, you can align, refine, and accelerate together.

Innovation isn’t just about good ideas. It’s about building shared momentum.