How We Develop Idea Management Platform
One can observe, on the market of Enterprise solutions, a definite boom of interest to automation of processes of employees’ efficiency suggestions submission and realization. And literally 5 years ago such solutions practically did not exist.
In 2013, our client, the industrial giant, asked us to develop such a system. Leaders are always a little bit ahead of trends, and the need to manage the creative potential of “collective intelligence” in the company was felt before the general business community started thinking about it.
Gradually, First Line Software formed a department of corporate crowdsourcing systems for creative office processes organization. We also continue to develop the crowdsourcing platform for our client.
Project statistics for five years
30 thousand employees — registered in the system
15% — personnel involvement
50,000 ideas submitted during the entire project
Platform’s process core
Crowdsourcing platform for collecting, evaluating and implementing ideas is based on the Bitrix CMS solution which is a popular content management solution among Russian state-owned enterprises. It meets the requirements for government accepted personal data security. The system has allowed us to build a secure digital space as a single online environment in which employees of 70 geographically distributed divisions of the customer work together. The solution is written in Java and PHP.
The platform consists of two large layers. The core is responsible for processing, systematization, analysis and storage of ideas. The top layer is a marketplace of various components that provide ideas, voting and polling mechanisms, gamification, ratings and data visualization to the teamwork of expert panels.
Functional
The platform’s main functional is as follows: ideas submission and their marking and sorting according to criteria, ideas library (repository), expert analysis, adding comments, feedback from the author, experts and community, as well as polling, chip and bonus bar accrual and a news block.
Thanks to the use of big data technologies and machine learning, the developed solution supports following ideas management indicators:
“On-the-fly” ideas processing: sorting, prioritizing and distributing their incoming flow, which amounts to 100–200 formalized proposals from employees per day;
Consolidation of all proposals into a single information field and analytical transformation of ideas — uniting ideas into a single channel as well as searching for interrelationships and identification of trends;
Enrichment of ideas with internal information: organization regulatory basis, similar ideas, projects on related topics currently being implemented by an organization etc.
Easy interface and adaptive layout
To what extent the IT-decision can really influence indicators of profit and decrease in costs of a business, depends on quality of the software product components which are: business logic, architecture, design, realization, deployment of user scenarios, convenience and usability, refinement of gamification tools, motivation and feedback. Well-designed product almost always guarantees the company the prospects of creating a really cool and productive community of employees.
The crowd source platform central task is to involve the widest possible range of users. As far as our case was concerned, we had to take into account that interaction with the system should be equally convenient for both office managers and working personnel of all ages. Therefore, the emphasis was made on an ascetic, intuitive interface and adaptive layout without superfluous entities, so that the user could enter the system from any device and would not have to download the application.
Detailed scenarios of ideas growth
It all starts when an employee notices a defect in a process and makes a suggestion for improvement. The system is designed in such a way as to quickly identify efficient proposals and send them to implementation. A smart form with prompts is designed to present the idea. Each proposal is tagged so that it can be quickly found or tracked.
The completed card is sent to the coordinator in charge of the thematic unit. He/she assists the author if necessary and prepares ideas for consideration by the expert council. Thus, the ideas are provided with a description, the necessary materials are attached to them, and they are directed to be evaluated by the experts.
Concepts with high indicators of refinement or compliance with the business strategy are automatically moved forward, formalized and implemented in production. Others are subject to further consideration. As ideas evolve, their status is automatically updated: the system reacts to any change, even if a new comment or a liking appears.
Gamification, promotion, social networking
Well-designed feedback tools generate and maintain an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration. Involvement is one of the basic parameters of a good crowdsourcing system at the stage when culture of non-indifference is being created at an enterprise. Material bonuses, ratings, recognition programs — all contribute to motivate people. Active participants become experts and receive bonuses that can be exchanged for material benefits: theatre tickets, books, smartphones.
In the guise of a summary
William Toffler, author of the book “The Third Wave”, says that in the coming information age, computers increase the strength of the human brain, just as machines increased the strength of man’s muscles in the industrial age. Information and imagination become the main raw material. The new principles of production organization require new employees with ingenuity and inventiveness, and not those accustomed to perform routine activities.
The most visionary corporations understand this. Ideas management platforms for employees are the first signs of the new era in the field of office workflow innovation, where companies focus on all employees, encourage and welcome random ideas, each of which can be a breakthrough.
