In my humble opinion the television program ‘X-factor’ understands innovation better than the average company in the Netherlands. This may sound strange, but let me explain this by a simple example.
Do you think you could pick the eventual winner of the X-factor out of 14,000 contestants upfront? Do you think an expert like Gordon, one of the Dutch jury members, can pick the winner upfront? And lastly, would you put money on his ability to pick the winner upfront? Personally, I wouldn’t bet much money on his ability to pick the right one out of the more than 14,000 candidates. The funny thing is, that a lot of companies take these low-chance-of-success-bets in regards to their innovation processes. The X-factor program however, has a very efficient innovation process.
In a lot of companies, two or three ideas are selected out of all the ideas that exist within the company. The other ideas do not get a chance of growing or showcasing progress. The ‘innovation’ budget is divided among these two or three ideas and these ideas are developed until launch. If you would be able to pick the two or three right ideas at the start, you would be one of the worlds best predictors and you could make a lot of money at the bookies with that gift. But personally I don’t believe that anybody is that good. Apparently, The makers of X-factor don’t trust Gordon to be that good either. They have set up a process to select the winning idea/singer.
Would you put your money on this contestant, in Britain’s got talent
(the English version of X-factor), after only seeing her?
Innovation process at the X-factor
The 14,000 candidates go through a first screening phase in which a large portion falls off. But also quite a large number of contestants progress from this first phase and they start a continual process of training and showcasing progress. Each time the best ones are selected to progress to the next round. This process goes on until the best candidates reach the finals and in the last episode the ultimate winner is chosen. In the final steps of the process, public voting by text-messages is introduced next to the judgement of the jury.
Organise innovation the X-factor way
The process described above reflects the way an innovation process at a company should be as well. At the first stage of the innovation funnel, very liberal selection criteria should be in place. In that way you will not dispose a ‘rough diamond’ idea, which does not look like a good idea at the beginning, but might potentially evolve into a killer idea. In the next steps, the continuous learning process of evolving the ideas throughout the innovation funnel ensures that ideas will develop to their full potential. The lessons learned from ideas that do not make it along the process, fuel the further development of ideas that are still in the process. The public voting done at the X-factor show translates to asking your customers for input on the ideas in development. If companies organise innovation in the X-factor way, they will become more efficient in their innovation process.
I can agree to a certain extent with the article. Allow me to add some comments:
- The submitted candidates get their feedback immediately, which is very important; The management must commit himself to give feedback in a short notice
- The captation of ideas is organised and limited in time (and not an unpersonal idea box somewhere in the building)
- de candidates know upfront what the reward will be (”giving incentives to employees”)
- the competition is open: X-factor could for example only allow professional and educated singers instead. The drawback of this “crowsourced”-like open approach is that it takes a lot of effort to select the ‘diamant’. X-factor understands that selecting the best takes time and a good preparation. You need to select the right people in the jury, design the selection process itselfs, discuss in group about the submitted ideas
- some remarks:
– “X-factor” is by definition very intuitive and emotional. In business more hard values can count: Return on investment, position in the value chain etc…
- the submitted candidates or ideas are not that liberal as proposed. It must be a performing art (no painters allowed) to begin with. Furthermore the producers know exactly what they are looking for: surpising perfomances that give great television moment which attracts a lot of viewers. So the jury is brieved upfront in order to know what to look for. They are been giving a “focus” and selection criteria. It’s not that “liberal”, certainly not for the jury and to some extent not for the candidates.
October 22nd, 2009 by Arnout Van den Bossche
Hi Arnout,
Thanks a lot for your contributions.
I completely agree with your additions. Maybe an addition to the incentive part might be that in internal challenges it is better to not include money rewards, but for example time to develop the idea further. In another blogpost (http://www.innovationfactory.nl/blog/2008/11/25/incentives-to-activate-community-members/) I wrote about the fact that when you reward active participation with money it simply becomes work. Next time, people will evaluate whether it is worth their time to be active in the community.
About your remarks in the end: I think you understand the term “liberal” in a different context. I meant the term “liberal” in the sense that the selection criteria should not be strict yet in the first stage(s). A lot of ideas still go through to the next round to be further developed, as opposed to selecting two or three projects at the start that get full funding to be developed until the end.
Greetings,
Jurjan
October 23rd, 2009 by admin
small question: why don’t you add an RSS feed or a newsletter option to you blog? The article are interesting enough to share actively with the world?
October 29th, 2009 by Arnout
hi Arnout,
Good suggestion!
You can already subscribe to our RSS here: feed://www.innovationfactory.eu/feed/rss/
I realise that there is no quick link to that page, so I’m going to look into that asap!
We don’t send out newletters yet, but we might do that in the future… When we do, it will surely be announced on this website
Oh, and of course we’re on Twitter: twitter.com/innovationfctry
Thanks, and keep reading and replying
ebbe
November 3rd, 2009 by Ebbe Nieuweboer