There are certain benefits to innovation software that are difficult to measure, and others that are quite obvious. This blog post will discuss the innovation KPI (Key Performance Indicator) examples for calculating the success of an idea management platform at 6 key stages within the workflow.
Determining success at each of these stages within the platform will allow you to take appropriate action, and ensure the success of the innovation initiative as a whole.
1. Adoption
This is the first and arguably most important hurdle on the path to innovation; your users need to actually access the system before doing anything else. Firstly, what percentage of your users have actually logged-in? Ideally you would like 100% of your users to login to the system within the first month of it being deployed, however achieving this becomes less realistic with large companies. A realistic goal for a system with 1000+ users is for 75% of them to have logged in within the first month. However we offer a variety of innovation management solutions to maximize adoption, from automated alerts and incentive schemes, to leadership coaching.
2. Engagement
Calculating the audience retention rate can be very useful; are your users actually engaging with the system once they have logged in? There are a number of ways of measuring this using Qmarkets’ built-in reporting functions. A quick way to check engagement is to look at the total number of ideas that have been submitted, there should be an average of 0.75 ideas per person, so if you have 500 users you should expect at least 375 ideas within a month. If you want to monitor participation in general, it is good to analyse the points table: If 60% of users have over 100 points after a month, this means that the majority of your users are participating in the system by commenting, voting, and submitting ideas. Qmarkets’ strong social and gamification features combine with cross-platform integration to ensure that engagement is maximized for all employees.
3. Collaboration
While it is possible to achieve success with just user engagement, an innovation management solution becomes even more effective when there is a high degree of collaboration. Our customers have told us that 95% of ideas are improved by collaboration, so this is why we feel that it is so important to measure this activity.
The quickest way to assess collaboration levels is to check the comments and voting statistics. There should be an average of at least 3 comments and 5 votes per user who has logged in to the system. If your numbers do not match this then action should be taken to encourage users to contribute to the ideas of other users.
4. Projection
A universal method for measuring success is difficult to define, as each organisation has different strategic objectives that they would like to achieve. However the most obvious innovation KPI is undoubtedly profit. Measuring the value of an idea before it has been implemented can be challenging, however the intelligence of the crowd can be utilized again to formulate a more accurate estimation. Utilizing Qmarkets’ Prediction Markets module can be especially useful in this instance, as it can be used to provide highly accurate forecasting regarding any idea or event.
5. Implementation
Once an idea management platform is correctly deployed and configured, it should not take long to start producing ideas that hold potential value. However, transforming these ideas into results is a challenge that many organisations do not prepare for. It is essential to have a pre-configured implementation workflow to utilize the ideas that are produced using the innovation software. Qmarkets provides end-to-end idea management to address this innovation KPI, which includes a project management module that is designed to ensure the success of every implementation project.
6. Results
Once ideas have been implemented and applied, it becomes a lot easier to measure their value. A year after the initial deployment of the system, patterns of profit will become noticeable that can be attributed directly to the software and more importantly, to its users. Qmarkets provides an effective Return on Investment tracking tool which allows you to monitor, examine, and share the ROI figures across the whole process.
To discover how Qmarkets can help you reach your innovation KPI parameters, and transform groundbreaking ideas into game-changing results, contact us today.
