by Alph Bingham, Founder and Board Member, InnoCentive

Recently Dwayne Spradlin and I published a blog titled “Why Challenges will transform the future of innovation, work and business” in which we laid the groundwork for the topic “What is A Challenge?”  In this blog, we described the Challenge as:

We committed to exploring each of these facets in more depth.  In today’s post, we’re going to begin the discussion of the Challenge as the fundamental unit of problem solving.

The Challenge as fundamental unit of problem solving – Part 1

As we worked to create a successful business around this new model, new language sprang up to characterize it.  We have mentioned the coining of the terms “crowdsourcing” by Jeff Howe and “broadcast search” by Karim Lakhani.   Internally InnoCentive used familiar terms in very deliberate ways.  Our customers, providing challenging problems to our network, became “Seekers.”  And our network was one of “Solvers.”  The problems themselves evolved to “Challenges.”  And we used these descriptions as we analyzed questions like:  What was the value proposition to Seekers?  Why did Solvers engage? And how did the properties of the Challenge serve to effectively contribute to its solution?

As we deepened our knowledge of the Challenge and its role and the means of maximizing its service, we recognized that the Challenge shares DNA with the modularity processes, earlier described by Carliss Baldwin and Kim Clark of Harvard Business School. A portion of the global innovation objective is formulated as a Challenge, in which a “Challenge” essentially represents the problem statement for a block of work that can be modularized and in most cases rendered “portable.” That is, such a block of work can be outsourced or insourced as an integral unit.

But “portability’ alone does not a Challenge make.  It needs other features:  it must be constructed in a way that maximizes its ability to speak across cultures and disciplines.  It needs to beckon physicists to solve biological problems and economists to solve healthcare logistical problems and telecomm engineers to solve extraterrestial physics problems.  The challenge needs to be stated in a primal form, but easily accessible to those that might potentially have a contribution to make.  It cannot be a jargon-laden object designed to attract only “non-halogenated benzothiophene synthetic specialists.”  (Well, it can be, but it shouldn’t be.)

Paul Carlile is a professor from Boston University with an unusual background in both social and computer science and a gift for seeing the world through a system’s lens. In 2009, Paul introduced InnoCentive and the authors to the concept of Boundary Objects,which sociologists use to describe powerful compartments of information that are both well defined and that translate naturally across communities and cultures. Examples of boundary objects, discussed briefly in Part I of the book, in the real world would include Laws and Contracts, well defined by their very nature, universally understood, and vital to modern society. But perhaps more illustratively, we all recall the boundary object of the automobile prototype, that light weight plastic or polymer cast with the right swoops and planes and bulges —  that engineers, designers, painters, wind flow experts and afficionados can huddle around to synchronize their efforts and insure an effective focus on the targeted vehicle.  InnoCentive Challenges are boundary objects in every sense of the term. Challenges articulate the need, describe the problem, specify success criteria, and establish the inducements. The inducement is a critically important component because it telegraphs a tangible and measurable value to the world. The best Challenges are universal and thus universally understood.

It is the precision and care taken to define the Challenges that elevate them to the status of true boundary objects. A hallmark is the understanding of how to manage the process to truly engage a highly distributed network and focus that network to drive successful outcomes. Well-defined Challenges must ask the right questions. Practitioners must be meticulously attentive to detail or else they cannot understand and articulate problems in a concise way. Well-defined Challenges anticipate the audience and the conditions for effective engagement. Does the Challenge call for a new idea or a new business plan? Is the Challenge seeking scientific discovery or simply new approaches? Do you want the world to give you the idea or do you want someone to demonstrate something physical? Challenges must also anticipate the cultural and legal realities of the world (for example, is intellectual property an issue?).

A boundary object, is a device, either conceptual or physical, that enables a boundary of some type to be crossed. These could be boundaries of academic disciplines, boundaries of terrain, (that is, water and land,) or boundaries of time. The circumstances of Hiero’s question produced a shift in time and space so that an event occurred during THAT bath of Archimedes and not during the hundreds he had taken previously.  The Challenge WAS the missing ingredient that enabled the time/space boundary crossing.  And it almost always is when innovation occurs.

To get the innovation right, first get the Challenge right.

-alph-

A successful solution contains more than great ideas — the presentation of those ideas is equally vital. Solvers frequently ask us “how should I format my solution?” This is a difficult question, as every Challenge is different and there is no one-size-fits-all solution template (we’ve awarded submissions that range from two paragraphs to over 100 pages). Instead of providing an overly restrictive template or form for submissions, we suggest keeping in mind a few simple guidelines. Below are three past blog posts from our client services teams that highlight some common themes and best practices for developing and presenting a winning solution.

Blog post: 10 Tips for Writing a Winning Solution

Not sure where to begin? Start with these 10 tips based on previous winning solutions. Remember if you have a Challenge-specific question, you can communicate with the Seeker using the “Messages” tab in the Challenge Project Room.

Blog post: Habits of Winning Solvers

“The most successful Solvers usually ask a few direct questions early on [via the "Messages" tab in the Challenge Project Room] to make sure they understand the problem correctly. They may also mention an idea of two briefly to see if I think they are reasonable in my and the Seeker’s opinions. They are not looking for yes or no if it will be a winning solution, but just making sure there is not some “red flag” item that they are missing where they might be wasting their time from the start.”

Blog post: The Importance of Solution Requirements

“I find it very helpful when Solvers conclude their proposals with a special section where they repeat every individual requirement – one by one — followed by a short summary of how the solution addresses this point.”

We’ve also recently updated out Solver Resources page to include several free online tools for information gathering, analysis, and collaboration.

Let me know in the comments if these guidelines are helpful, and what further direction we can provide for you. Are there any other online tools that you frequently use for developing solutions? To the winning Solvers out there: what other guidelines or suggestions would you give to a less experienced Solver?

Best of luck!

Tim

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.

When you click on the External Challenges tab you will see a list of the almost one hundred challenges we’ve processed so far. These challenges have been pulled from all over the web, by organizations ranging from Starbucks to NASA, and are updated regularly. If an opportunity presents itself, you can find out about it here.

The types of challenges range from colossal projects like the NASA Centennial Challenges, to student technical paper competitions and awareness projects geared towards children (which are a great way to get kids involved in open innovation!). These challenges welcome participants from almost any background.

Open innovation is about finding creative solutions to problems, and the world is teeming with problems. We’re going to make it as easy as we can to connect you with those problems. Good solutions need to be found for these challenges, and you’re the best community to do it.

Today we’re featuring a solution we received from InnoCentive Solver, Joseph Pegna, which focused on freezing MC252 while it was still blasting oil into the cold waters at the bottom of the Gulf.

The purpose of Pegna’s solution was not to contain the leak from the ocean floor indefinitely, but rather to contain it efficiently until such time as a more permanent plug could be found.

The solution takes advantage of the relatively stable and low temperature of the sea floor to provide a temporary obstruction to the leak by freezing locally available materials: oil and water.

A back-of-the-envelope estimate of leak flow-rates indicates that a few ten’s of cubic meters of liquid Nitrogen would be sufficient to stop the oil in its track. Subsequent freezing of the surrounding water, either by additional liquid N2 or by lowering an industrial refrigeration unit to the ocean floor, would keep an ice plug over the leak.

Summary

This proposal takes advantage of the following conditions that exist at the depth of the leak:

1. Local temperature is about four degrees Celsius.
2. High salinity and pressure means that the surrounding water will freeze at around -25C below the surface freezing point.
3. At -25C, oil becomes so viscous that it will behave like tarmac.

The prevailing conditions of the water at the ocean bottom, along with the flow rate of the oil spill indicates  that the amount of “cooling” necessary to bring water to its freezing point in the well’s vicinity is relatively modest. While I have not performed an extensive analysis of the heat exchange, it appears that between 10 and 100 cubic meters of liquid nitrogen would be sufficient  to block the flow of oil long enough to maintain a local frozen cap with an industrial refrigeration unit. The refrigeration unit can be powered from the surface but will be operating on the sea floor. This refrigeration can be used to contain the leak for a long enough time that alternative, permanent plugs can be inserted, or an alternative relief well can be drilled.

An initial injection of liquid N2 is envisioned by inserting a delivery nozzle as far down into the well as possible. This initial burst of liquid N2 can turn the surrounding oil into an increasingly hardened material, resembling a tar-like foam,  that will hold off the flow. As this foam comes into contact with water, it is expected that it will create a surrounding shell of ice.

The addition of an industrial refrigeration unit  would then be sufficient to maintain the temperature locally low enough to preserve the temporary blockage.

The main risk of this proposal resides in the fact that the composite ice and solidified oil foam will have a density much lower than the surrounding liquid water. Hence, to prevent the foam’s buoyancy force from tearing off the ice cap, sand or any other high density material would have to be added as the ice forms to increase the composite density.

Alternatively, this ice cap could be easily captured at the surface to prevent oil from spreading after the cap is released.