This is especially good advice if you work in a large company. Banging your head against the wall is often more pleasant than getting permission to do something new or different. So my solution is to just mock up a prototype before I tell anyone about it. It's easy to say "I want to do this, and can prove it's not all that difficult". Even better if you can say "I had this idea that was so great I went ahead and wrote it!" People are a lot more likely to take your work seriously after it's already been written than before.
