Much has been written in blogs and in the news media about Best Buy’s Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). And while the idea (do whatever you want, work however you like, as long as you get your work done.) is cool and it is nice to see a big company embracing some agile ideas, this is not a post about ROWE*.

As a follow-up to my post earlier this week, I wanted to post some pertinent bits of a recent discussion I had with Geek Squad founder and current Best Buy executive, Robert Stephens. He is implementing a plan to “think small” from inside the behemoth that is Best Buy. Stephens’ plan addresses each of the points that Mike Speiser of laserlike.com concludes are important advantages that startups have over large organizations in terms of innovation, namely: the investment model, incentives, and risk taking.

His idea would focus on technology and software solutions developed by small teams or individuals within Best Buy (or failing that, using small teams or individuals from the outside). The first step would be to create an infrastructure that allows for projects to get up and running with very limited administrative or technical setup. Once a problem or opportunity is identified, employees are encouraged to bid for the opportunity to tackle a problem by offering up their solution and what it would take in terms of time and money. The best ideas are funded (in the form of a bonus) or, in some cases, combined into teams. We aren’t talking about large “corporate-type” budgets either - these could be a couple thousand to twenty thousand dollar budgets. The goal is to side-step the typical flow of events in corporate business: get an idea, meetings and discussion, document the idea and discussions, sending the idea “up the flagpole”, having more meetings, having the idea morph, incorporate additional ideas, and finally either get the “green light” or be canceled weeks, if not months after the solution would have ideally been implemented.

This concept allows Best Buy to act like a startup in all the ways that are important. It allows for “distributing investment and other decisions” (a new investment model) across the organization allowing for risk-taking by individuals who are incetivized by the ability to create something great and get paid extra for their efforts.

* For more on ROWE, check out this Tim Ferris post for more on ROWE or the blog of ROWE instigators Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson.