3 Steps to Define an Innovation Challenge

1. Name and describe the innovation challenge

It is advised to use questions when naming the challenge title like: How…? What can we…? This could encourage participation and creativity, inviting others to explore the potential to solve the challenge. This is the most important part since it is the most visible and will guide the subsequent ideas.

It is advised to include in the description one or some of these items (it is not required to include all of them, just the most relevant information):

• Explain the challenge context, i.e. the current situation that generated the challenge.
• Is it associated with some existing or future process, product, or business model?
• Who benefits from finding the solution? Is it some specific user, client, or market? *** Relevant figures **related, or other useful information. *** Goals **that you want to achieve by solving the challenge. *** Restrictions **on the type of ideas you want to receive. It is important to define and allow ideas that could be feasible and solve the challenge. *** Incentives: **Will you reward the most innovative and creative idea? Will you reward participation? *** Criteria: Are you looking for a new efficient solution, at a low cost, or is the esthetics more important? *** Expectations: You should clarify to the participants that they should wait until the challenge completion, in case they could benefit from the final result. This is important since recording an idea does not mean it will become a reality. Every idea will go through a filter, so some will be discarded based on their priority and feasibility. Even the remaining ones could be dismissed.

2. Define who can participate in the innovation challenge

What kind of people do you want to help you with the challenge? There are two types of challenges: open and closed. The closed ones are only meant for company members. And in the open ones, unaffiliated people can participate as well.

On Colectidea (our innovation management software) you can find both types:

Closed Challenges

Those registered in the app can participate. They would be invited from an administrator account and then log in. This type of challenge is ideal for brainstorming.

Open Challenges (Open Innovation)

Teams of unaffiliated innovators can participate in the open challenges. For instance, members of universities, branch organizations, or other entities could be facing the same challenge. This could help increase the quality and quantity of ideas.

The members of universities have profound knowledge that could be applied to solve the challenge. While the branch organizations and other entities could be in a similar situation, so they could have a better understanding of the problem. The ideas shared in the open challenges can benefit all the participants.

3. Define when will the innovation challenge end

There are several criteria when deciding to end the challenge.

*** Completeness level:** The challenge can end when you have enough high-quality ideas. *** Deadline:** Do you have a deadline to solve the challenge? If that is correct, it is important to determine for how long the innovation challenge will take place. To achieve this, you must consider the established methodology and innovation process, meaning the stages and their respective duration. *** Hybrid:** You can designate a deadline for every stage of the process (for example: for the innovation challenges created with Colectidea, the stage of receiving ideas lasts 2 weeks) or you can base it on the completeness level (following the same example, the stages that prioritize the ideas ends when assessing the Top 10. At the same time, a 1 week deadline is established).

Colectidea helps you innovate and improve the innovation challenges performance since this tool allows you to:

• Design and publish different challenges
• Invite those involved or others who can help you explore innovative solutions
• Gather innovative ideas that can contribute to solving the challenge
• Promptly prioritize and have the most useful ideas, so you can allocate more time to carry out the best solutions
• Assess the feasibility and viability

Credits:

Cover photo: pxhere