Complete the Challenge planning checklist

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to complete the Challenge planning checklist. This checklist will provide you with some guidance for planning your Challenge. ​

By the end of this tutorial, you'll learn how to:

• Plan a Challenge

• Design a Challenge workflow

• Write a Challenge description

• Plan your evaluation

• Create a communication plan

Introduction

What is Challenge Driven Innovation?

In its most simple form, a Challenge is a well-formed problem statement with an associated workflow, which allows an organization to find a structured solution to that problem.

What might a Challenge be?

Your Challenge might be; something that affects your insights team, such as “How can we use data to understand our customer's pain points”, an HR question “How can we improve the health and well-being of our staff”, or a thought from your digital team “How can we increase the speed of online transactions”.

Challenges typically address a single problem, which allows the crowd to focus on a real-world solution, rather than abstract concepts.

How do Challenges work?

Challenges follow a straightforward process, that may vary slightly depending on the problem:

1. Identify the problem.

2. Turn it into a problem statement.

3. Share it with potential problem solvers.

4. The crowd submits Ideas on how to solve the problem.

Once ideas have been submitted:

1. An initial assessment is done by SMEs.

2. The Idea is progressed, rejected, or more information is requested.

3. If progressed, the Idea is further developed.

4. Then the Idea is implemented.

What types of Challenges?

The Wazoku Platform has two Challenge types:

• Phased Challenge: A type of Challenge on the Wazoku Platform, where all Ideas move through Challenge stages at the same time.

• Parallel Challenge: A type of Challenge on the Wazoku Platform, Ideas can be moved through Challenge phases individually and at different times.

1. Plan a Challenge

Read each question including the explanation and then answer each question.

Q1. What are you looking to capture?

The first thing to work out is what you’re looking to capture. This might be Ideas to solve a problem, fully formed solutions, or some feedback. Whatever it is, it’s important to let the crowd know.

Q2. What's the topic or “problem”?

The next thing to consider is what topic or “problem” you’re looking for Ideas, solutions, or feedback on. It might be something company-wide, such as how your company can hit your sustainability goals, what processes can you automate, how can you increase your NPS scores or footfall in stores, or how you might encourage customers to spend more online.

Q3. Who is the right audience to come up with the ideas?

Now you know the problem you’re trying to solve and what you’re looking for, the next question to answer is who is the right audience to come up with the Ideas. This could be people within your organization, people in your ecosystem, or it may even be a customer.

Within your organization, it might be a specific team or decision, or even people with a specialized skill set. If it’s people in your ecosystem, you might start with a partner, supplier, or local start-up. If it’s going out to your customers, it could be another business, loyal customers, or even the general public.

Q4. What resources do you have to solve this problem?

The success of your Challenge will in part be influenced by what resources you have available to commit to the Challenge. This ranges from the budget you’ll need to implement the crowdsourced solutions, though to the people needed at each stage of the Challenge workflow, and the time needed to evaluate and develop any ideas.

From a budget perspective, you’ll want to think about the potential cost of implementing and testing a solution, and any budget codes you'll need. In regards to people, you’ll need people to evaluate, develop, and implement an Idea. And from a time perspective, think about how much time you'll need to evaluate, test, and implement a solution.

2. Design a Challenge workflow

What is a Challenge workflow?

The Challenge workflow is a process of steps an Idea, suggestion, or solution to your problem will follow after being submitted to the Challenge. This workflow will take the submission from concept to a fully formed solution.

The workflow always starts with an idea submission stage and ends with a completed stage. Between these stages, ideas can be evaluated, developed to refine the idea, and then followed up by a final evaluation.

Q5. What information do you want the idea creator to provide?

The first thing you need to do is design the idea submission form. This will ensure you have all the information needed to make a fair assessment of an idea. It might include a brief summary of the idea, an outline of the existing problem the idea is trying to solve, any known benefits, or any risks.

You should now list the questions you want to add to the idea submission form.

Q6. Who's evaluating the ideas?

For the initial evaluation stage, you’ll take into account who will be doing the initial review, what information they need to know to make a yes/no decision, and what criteria they’ll use to make the decision.

With this in mind, you might consider having a Line Manager or someone close to the idea creator to work with them on an idea, a panel of subject matter experts who can easily assess the feasibility of an idea, or Innovation Champions who can do a quick assessment as to whether or not an idea can be progressed.

Q7. What information do evaluators need to make a yes-no decision?

The information needed by your initial evaluators is likely going to be everything that’s included on your submission form, which idea creators complete as part of their submission.

Q8. What criteria will they score ideas against?

The next decision to make is how you’re going to score these ideas, to ensure you’re progressing the right ideas and developing them into feasible solutions. Your criteria might consider the strategic fit, feasibility, and cost-effectiveness of each idea.

Q9. Who will develop the ideas?

In some instances, it might just be the idea creator, but if it’s outside their realm of expertise then you may involve a subject matter expert. If your Line Manager is able to help, then maybe it'll be a collaboration between the idea creator and the line manager, or the idea creator and an innovation champion. If it’s only a small idea, then it might be handed over to a continuous improvement representative.

Q10. What information do developers need?

Now you’ll want to think about what information to capture when developing your ideas. This might be an additional form with some simple questions about the benefits, risks, and potential costs of the idea. Alternatively, you may want more structured information, such as the structure provided by a Challenge canvas.

Q11. Who will be the final decision maker(s)?

Before ideas are approved and progress to the completed stage, they’ll need a final evaluation. This starts with deciding who the decision maker(s) will be that will make the final yes/no decision on whether to implement the idea or not.

Q12. What information do the final evaluators need?

The information needed by your final evaluators is likely going to be everything that’s included in your submission and development forms. They might also benefit from a business case or information provided in a Challenge canvas.

Q13. What criteria will they evaluate the ideas on?

Lastly, you’ll need to know how you’re going to score the ideas, to ensure the ideas still have a good strategic fit and can progress to implementation. Your criteria might consider the strategic fit, feasibility, and cost-effectiveness of each idea.

3. Write a Challenge description

What to include in the Challenge description?

A good Challenge description should contain the following: a clear and well-explained problem or objective, well-defined criteria for submissions, and an overview of the end-to-end process.

An example of a problem

In 2010, 19% of funding was cut to UK Police Forces. This put up to 45,000 police staff jobs in jeopardy, meaning the force had to do more with less. Removing repetitive tasks was identified as an area in which one force could drive efficiency and savings. A challenge was launched to capture ideas on tasks that could be stopped or streamlined to free up time.

How was this problem presented to the audience?

Title: Removing Waste and Repetition

Description: Lots to do, and limited resources. Sound familiar? If you've ever been frustrated by a task you have to do "just because", when there's no good reason for it to happen, then this is the challenge for you. We're looking for Ideas of things that we should STOP doing, or do differently, that will cut out unnecessary repetition and make things work quicker or slicker, easing the burden upon yourself or colleagues. This will prevent us from spending time on an activity that doesn't help us achieve results.

Q14. What are you looking for ideas, suggestions, or solutions on?

Explain the problem or objective clearly to help the crowd understand what they’re being asked to solve.

Q15. Why will this help you solve the problem?

Explain why you’re looking for ideas, suggestions, or solutions and how they might help you solve the problem.

Criteria for submission

You may be looking for ideas that fall within a certain budget range for implementation, that don't contribute to any regulation or legislation, or that don't require any new rules or technology to implement.

An example of criteria for submission

What and why: For this challenge, we're looking for ideas that are: quick to put in place, sustainable, don't have a negative impact on others (we want to reduce waste and remove repetition, not move it around), don't contravene any legislative requirement, and not cost prohibitive.

What to consider when submitting your idea: This is all about being practical, so when you are submitting your idea, please think about the following and include as much information as you can to help us understand how your idea can be put into practice.

• What will it take to turn your idea into a reality? (what would you need?)

• What would need to change to make it happen? (is it a change in process, tool, technology, or training)

• What are the benefits to you, your colleagues, and the Force?

Q16. What are your criteria for submissions?

Now write down the criteria that idea creators should follow when submitting an idea.

An example of the end-to-end process

The challenge is relevant to everyone in the Police Force.

You have six weeks to submit an Idea. All the ideas can be seen by everyone within the participating trail units, and you can "like", comment on, or follow ideas you're interested in.

Your idea will be assessed by the Continuous Improvement team to see if it meets the aims of the Challenge, and if it does we'll then work with you to develop it before a final evaluation is made on whether we can take it forward.

Your idea will be rated in one of two ways:

• Great idea - let's get on with it.

• Thanks for submitting, but it's not one we'll be implementing (If this is the result we'll explain WHY)

So, if you want to reduce any unnecessary frustration, get thinking and submit your idea now.

Q17. Explain how the Challenge will work

It's clear in the example: who the challenge is for, how long it'll be open to submissions, what else you can do if you don't submit an idea, who will evaluate the ideas, and what the decisions will be.

4. Plan your evaluation

Q18. Which evaluation method will you use?

We offer three ways to do an evaluation:

• Weighted scoring (recommended): Evaluators are asked to score an idea on a scale of one to five for each criterion. Benefit: You can quantify the evaluation and progress ideas that score over a certain threshold.

• Checkboxes: Simple way to check if or not an idea meets the criteria.

• Freeform text: Evaluators can provide qualitative information about the idea in relation to a specific set of questions.

5. Create a communication plan

Before launching a Challenge

Before launching a Challenge, we recommend sending out some communications that include:

• What the challenge is about and when it starts.

• Why it's important that people take part.

• Any reward or recognition associated with the challenge.

• How to take part.

Challenge is live

Once the challenge is live:

• Remind people to continue submitting ideas.

• Encourage people to come and like, vote, or comment on ideas.

• Let people know when idea submissions close.

Challenge has finished

When the challenge has finished:

• Thank everyone for participating.

• Inform people which ideas are being taken forward and how they can stay up to date.

• Recognize the people whose ideas have been taken forward.

Example communication plan

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to:

• Plan a Challenge

• Design a Challenge workflow

• Write a Challenge description

• Plan your evaluation

• Create a communication plan

Next steps

Consider completing some other common tasks, such as:

• Create your first Challenge

 

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