Top 5 Barriers to Creating Innovative Solutions
And How to Overcome Them
Internal Myopia
Forced by the wrong sponsor level inside the organization and the pressures of internal interests can lead to posing a question that is not really wicked, which focuses the crowd on incremental short-term “burning fires” problems (process improvement) rather than solving strategically critical wicked problems.
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Who should be the Sponsor to signal the importance of crowdsourcing?
How should crowdsourcing be sold to internal constituents in an organization?
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Establish the innovation ground by getting the right level of executive sponsor, signaling the importance of the crowdsourcing event internally and focusing on wicked problems with long-term implications.
Establish a planning committee to craft an all inclusive innovation process that puts into place actions pre-, during, and post- crowdsourcing to go from selling the process (inside and outside the organization) to Collective Production of solutions, selection of solutions, and then, implementation of the chosen solutions.
Collaboration Disincentives
Focus attention on “individual ideas” over Collective Production of “innovative solutions” for most strategic wicked problems.
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How to identify individuals interested in being crowd participants?
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Identify where to find individuals “passionately engaged” with the wicked problem or “deeply impacted” by the wicked problem. Broadcast an open call to attract these individuals to participate in a Collective Production process to solve the wicked problem.
Grandstanding
Leads to some in the crowd wanting to just pose their under-developed ideas rather than work with others to collectively develop innovative solutions and create learning opportunities for all involved.
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What kind of behaviors should the participants be encouraged to display?
And, what participation structures should be put in place to enable participants to exhibit the right behaviors?
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Promote Collective Production of Innovation by:
Emphasizing the needs to consider the knowledge contributions of others.
Stressing the variety of knowledge perspectives to be shared, rather than just ideas.
Using dual incentives—top solutions and top collaborators—to reward and recognize contributors.
(Option) Create psychological safety through anonymous participation:
Emphasizing the need to consider others’ knowledge contributions.
Making everyone feel valued by encouraging them to share any and every perspective they might have, related to the wicked problem.
Domination by “Experts”
Inside or outside the organization, those with resources and “experience” to “tend to crowd out” those who are not “experts,” but may have the real knowledge to make a difference.
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Should crowds be monitored and moderated? If so, how?
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Include “experts”, but as another voice or for their on-demand expertise.
Anonymous posting allows “innovation experts” in the organization to participate without overwhelming the crowd with their “expertise” authority.
The role of “experts” may be on-demand background knowledge. Crowd to be given background information from “experts” on an “as-asked” basis.
“Internal experts” trained for the moderation role rather than ideation role.
Outcome Uncertainty
Doubt about how the best solutions will be determined as well as what happens to those solutions in the organization, foment skepticism that nothing will “ever happen” with these newly conceived solutions. These doubts and concerns tend to keep individuals from participating and contributing their knowledge.
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Who should evaluate the crowd's solutions, and based on what criteria?
What should be done with the best solutions?
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Implement a post-crowdsourcing follow-up plan, and inform the crowd at beginning of the event of the follow-up plan with the following elements:
Steering committee of implementers and decision-makers to review solutions.
Confirm criteria for reviewing solutions: novelty, usability (e.g., contribute to competitive advantage or helpful for problem), and ease of implementation; recognize that weighting of the three criteria may differ for different steering committee members and for different types of challenging problems.
Winners won’t be announced like a contest, but rather a report will be prepared indicating what the steering committee learned from reviewing all the solutions and their next steps.