[vlovich123]

I’ve seen both. I’ve seen individuals pull magic out of their ass. I’ve also seen teams innovate. The latter though really happens when there’s a shared vision and domain experts from different parts are tackling disparate parts of the problem. That usually looks like “we’ll if I had X, y could be really easy” “oh I solved most of X a while ago but I’m stuck on this little part” etc. I don’t think I’ve observed team innovation directly but I’m sure it’s possible or I didn’t look correctly.

However. The most important part of innovation on a large project. Getting the team motivated by the vision and having each individual feel free to try to innovate. Otherwise individual problems being solved mean jack all and no single individual is going to build a very complicated project. There are some people who try but they are quickly outrun by dedicated teams. At a minimum it’s to have team members help you stay focused and motivated when you have moments of disbelief.