Perspectives on Innovation

Elly Madrigal, Seeker Program Manager, compares InnoCentive@Work Challenges with InnoCentive.com Challenges.

InnoCentive has two complementary platforms built upon our Challenge-based Problem Solving Methodology – the original, online InnoCentive.com, and the SaaS platform, InnoCentive@Work, which brings Challenge driven innovation into the boundaries defined by your organization.

Choosing to post a Challenge on one platform as opposed to another is predicated upon certain factors. One goal of a Challenge posted internally on InnoCentive@Work is to not only develop a Solution that meets a strategic initiative of the organization, but to also create collaboration amongst a global network of employees. Because of this, the Challenge scope, duration, and confidentiality can vary significantly, and guidelines to create well-bounded @Work Challenges are often set in conjunction with the organization’s coaching team. These guidelines, though specific to each organization, do have fundamental similarities, such as:

Limited Scope: A Challenge should not require any individual Solver to invest more than 10 hours of scheduled work-time to make a valuable contribution.

Actionable: If successful, your Challenge deliverables should include actionable results that the Challenge owner and his/her colleagues can deploy or utilize in a way that creates value for the organization.

Specific: The question posted in a Challenge should be specific and focused enough that any single individual might have the necessary skills to make a valuable contribution. Challenges that require knowledge of multiple disciplines should be narrowed down and made more specific.

Supported: Challenges should focus on business areas that are supported by management and are actively funded areas of work.

Owned: The person who suggests a Challenge is typically the one who will be responsible for writing and posting it on InnoCentive@Work. Therefore, Challenges should have a clear owner who will also be able to take responsibility for owning and implementing the results. You should not be suggesting Challenges that neither you nor your close colleagues would own.

These guidelines conveniently spell out the word L.A.S.S.O. We recognize that not all Challenges will meet all of these guidelines, but we do strongly recommend that you develop your Challenges with this acronym in mind to yield the best results possible – bringing both collaboration and open innovation to your organization and solving those problems that matter today.

Prodigy is an add-on Challenge feature that allows Seekers to increase Solver engagement on their computational or data-oriented Challenges.  When using Prodigy on computational Challenges, Solvers are able to get instantaneous and quantitative feedback on how well their solution fulfills the Challenge’s objective and how their performance compares with other Solvers.

When should I use Prodigy?

• Crowdsource analysis of any dataset
• Identify the best result or find the best analytical method
• Improve the attractiveness of your Challenge and set clear performance benchmarks
• Business Applications:
  • Market segmentation
  • Optimized product recommendation engine
  • Business analytics and analytical method development.
• Biomedical Informatics Applications:
  • Dx and Rx biomarker discovery based on clinical data
  • New target identification
  • Toxicology modeling
  • Virtual drug library screens
• Apply the Prodigy on proprietary data after masking it, public data or synthetic data

Most computational Challenges involve the dissemination of data for use in analysis or modeling.  The Prodigy works by asking Solvers to use those data to build a model and compare it to a “gold standard” (i.e. known answer, also provided by the Seeker) so that the Solver can track their success against the standard.  Scores provided by the Prodigy are typically a correlation coefficient that quantifies the significance of the solution found.

How does it work, continued:

• Scoring with any reasonably computed method: r, r2, RMSE, etc. are supported.
• To prevent gaming, Solvers are limited on their daily submissions to 5.
• Submissions which are not statistically significant are not displayed on the leader’s table.

InnoCentive introduced this capability to give Solvers greater transparency into the process and allow them to gauge their own progress against the submissions made by other Solvers.  Think of this as a scoreboard of success and intelligence. Seekers will have the benefit of getting the best possible solution out of every participating Solver as Solvers refine and improve their solution.  As the Challenge progresses, it is typical that the maximum Prodigy score will increase steadily until the end of the Challenge.

Elly Madrigal, Client Operations Manager, introduces InnoCentive’s Challenge Process Guidebook

The Challenge Process Guidebook is a reference document that was created to help Seekers understand the actions and steps involved when posting and evaluating a Challenge on the InnoCentive Solver Network.

The Guidebook is divided in the following four parts:

1. Benefits of InnoCentive’s Challenge Process: Lists the key benefits (shared by some of our clients) of using the InnoCentive Challenge process towards problem solving over traditional techniques.

2. Challenge Types with brief descriptions: Describes each InnoCentive.com Challenge Type– Ideation, Theoretical, RTP and eRFP – including key differentiation points.

3. Challenge Process Steps: Describes each step that a Challenge Owner will experience when posting a Challenge. Those steps are:

a. Challenge Identification – brainstorming and completing the template.
b. Challenge Development – drafting and approving the Challenge Details and Requirements.
c. Challenge Posting & Solution Development – posting periods and InnoCentive’s initial evaluation of Solutions provided by our Solvers.
d. Solution Evaluation / Award / Transfer – evaluation periods and criteria for evaluating each Challenge type.

4. Challenge Closeout and Questionnaire: The handbook describes the final step in the process – Challenge Closeout. Here we present a sample survey that is conducted by InnoCentive to help capture any learnings and improvements that can be made to your organization’s innovation process.

We hope that this short guidebook will help your Challenge Owners understand the basic concepts of the InnoCentive Challenge Process, and like always, if you have any questions, general or specific to your account, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

We are currently experimenting with adding content that is also relevant to our Seekers. Even though this is more Seeker-oriented, we hope all our readers find these posts informative.

Evaluation of Solver Proposals is the most exciting, important and time consuming part of working with InnoCentive.  While you’re trying to determine the value of the Proposal based on its technical or business merit, you’re also trying to determine its novelty, strategic value, intellectual property standing and cost of integration.  To help with the evaluation, we’ve provided some helpful tips that have been time-tested by some of our most effective Seeker Clients.

Evaluation Tips

1. Try to limit the number of people who review the submissions to protect yourself from IP contamination. Usually, the owner can make a first pass and filter out a number of the submissions that are not relevant or viable. Then a larger group can spend more time on the top tier Challenges
2. Make a checklist of requirements so you can see which ones are met or addressed by the submissions. This will help differentiate submissions quickly.
3. TAKE NOTES: good notes as you filter solutions will be very useful when you go to write evaluations later on. Otherwise you will end up having to re-read all the submissions because you cannot remember why you rejected it in the first pass. This will save lots of time.
4. Usually, you can group them by approach as several will use the same type of approach even though they are very different. You can then pick the best one using that approach and put the others aside. Then you can compare the best of each approach.
5. You may want to make a matrix or a spreadsheet listing the submissions, approach, requirements met, notes etc. This allows for direct comparison on one sheet.
6. Talk with your InnoCentive IPM (Innovation Program Manager) before you make your final decisions to discuss. (Note: the Solvers will not see anything you do until the IPM approves your evaluations.

Evaluation Differences by Product Type

Ideation Challenges:

1. You retain the rights to ALL solutions but must distribute the entire award amount.
2. You just need to pick the winners and do not have to evaluate each non-winner. You should rate them with a number, but do not have to give reasons for rejection.
3. You receive the contact information of all of the Solvers that are awarded.

Theoretical Licensing Challenges:

1. The submission shall be evaluated on a theoretical basis only. You cannot conduct or require any reduction to practice or experimental validation of the proposal before a monetary award has been paid for the right to do so.
2. You can choose whether or not to purchase any of the proposed solutions for the award amount.
3. You will be granted a non-exclusive license to use any of the technology purchased.
4. You must provide reasons for rejection as described above.
5. You receive the contact information of all of the Solvers that are awarded.

Theoretical IP Challenges:

1. The submission shall be evaluated on a theoretical basis only. You cannot conduct or require any reduction to practice or experimental validation of the proposal before a monetary award has been paid for the right to do so.
2. You can choose whether or not to purchase any of the proposed solutions for the award amount.
3. You will be granted Intellectual Property Rights for any of the technology purchased as submitted in the Proposal.
4. You must provide a number rating and reasons for rejection as described above.
5. You receive the contact information of all of the Solvers that are awarded.

RTP Challenges:

1. The submission can be experimentally validated within the evaluation period.
2. You can choose whether or not to purchase any of the proposed solutions for the award amount.
3. You will be granted an exclusive license to use any of the technology purchased.
4. You must provide a number rating and reasons for rejection as described above.
5. You receive the contact information of all of the Solvers that are awarded.

eRFP Challenges:

1. InnoCentive will provide you with all of the proposals and you may contact the individuals/companies that submitted them.
2. You should discuss with the IPM whether you think you will or will not contact each Solver.
3. Contact information will be included in each submission.

We hope that the tips and guidelines above will help you manage your process of evaluating the Solver proposals that you receive.  As always, if you have any questions or need further assistance during the evaluation stage, please contact the Innovation Program Manager that worked with you during the Challenge development process.  S/he will be able to provide further guidance so that you select the proposal that will add the most value to your organization.