2.5 Challenge Stages

There are a number of stages to a challenge – below is a guide to help you track where you may be in the process. Be aware that these stages focus on the online part of the challenge; the challenge preparation actually begins much earlier, while you’re making decisions on how it will run, recruiting advisors and partners, inviting a jury panel, and so on.

We’ve pinpointed nine stages to help you keep track of how you’re doing, including some suggested figures (indicators) in the guidelines underneath. However, these target figures will vary according to your challenge needs.

By this stage, you’ll already have made a decision on the target outcomes and process for your challenge. You’re in this phase if you’ve started adding information about your challenge to your chosen platform. As you do so, make sure to complete the following:

• Add a challenge title: include the topic theme in the title, but keep it very short. You’ll be using this a lot – in conversations and communication material – so you don't want it to be cut off in email subject titles or too long for hashtag mentions on Twitter.

• Configure challenge access: make sure you check who can see the challenge before you continue editing, ensuring the platform content is only visible when you’ve finished.

• Write a description of the challenge: aim for two short paragraphs, at most. If people can't understand what the challenge is about quickly, they’ll lose interest.

• Upload an image of the challenge: this will help you promote the challenge and also build a brand around the challenge. Try to choose an image that’s closely related to the challenge theme and doesn’t look like a stock photo. If your budget is tight, search for free images on Google (use the advance-search settings and select “free to use or share” under “usage rights”), or using filtered searches on Pexels and Flickr.

• Edit the participant sign-up form: most platforms will have default questions on their sign-up form. Make sure you edit this to include some questions that would be helpful for you to track. Beyond name and email address, encourage participants to add why they’re joining, how they’d like to participate, and their skills and interests. See here for an example list of questions.

• Configure the idea-submission form: we suggest you keep the idea-submission form short at the initial stages (limit the description to 2,000 characters/500 words), and ask for more detail at a later stage. This will help idea-submitters to get to the point quickly and will make it easier for other participants to read them and offer advice. A lengthy idea tends to lose engagement from participants. See here for a template form.

• Configure auto-emails: some platforms have the function to send emails automatically when certain actions take place: for example, a welcome email might go out at registration, and other emails when submitting a first idea, casting a first vote and reaching a milestone. On registration, it’s important for participants to receive a quick message saying hello and including three task suggestions. Click here for an example. NOTE: Make sure the "from" name on all your emails is a real person – ideally the person running the challenge – rather than the title of the challenge, so that it doesn't get caught by email filters.

• Select the voting method: this may be set, by default, to a thumbs-up icon, but you’ll need to choose the option you prefer. If you’re limiting the number of ideas participants can vote for, you’ll need to state this limitation. Remember, if you’re using “phases” in your challenge, you’ll need to check that the voting limit is set at each phase.

• Set up the homepage: if your platform has a homepage, try to keep the amount of information that appears here clear, concise and challenge-focused (eg, avoid advertising and too many banners).

• Create theme filters: some platforms allow you to create themes in order to organise ideas – participants can then filter the list of ideas related to a specific theme or subject. Themes can be selected by idea-submitters when they add their idea, or assigned by the moderator. Most platforms also allow you to add “tags” to an idea, but these usually need to be typed in manually, which can result in multiple tags under different spellings (the moderator will be able to edit these if they have time). If you keep this system organised, it can be helpful for moderators when connecting participants.

• Test the challenge: invite team members, or a friend who knows nothing about the subject and someone who isn’t familiar with online platforms, to test the online challenge space. During the test, ask people to submit an idea, add a comment, edit an idea or comment, click on all the pages and cast a vote.

This means you’ve chosen to launch your online challenge a little earlier, for a selected group. If you’re prepared to add seed ideas, then it’s important to set up the platform a week in advance, so that participants have time to submit their ideas. Your official challenge launch date will be when you open the online space for all participants.

With Innovate4Climate (which uses the milestone challenge model), we’ve moved to a system where ideas remain visible after a challenge has ended. This solves the problem of finding seed ideas, because the moderator can get in touch with previous participants to check if they still want to pursue their idea, and then move these ideas over to the live challenge.

If you’re using an existing community or network, it’s a good idea to email everyone and inform them that if they want special feedback, they can submit ideas early. This is very transparent and fair, because it means you’re treating all people in the same way.

At this stage, it’s important to:

• reach out to the idea-submitters who’ve confirmed they will add ideas by calling them (do not rely on emails here and ensure they have an earlier "launch" date);

• and help these idea-submitters to get comfortable with the platform by providing an induction, either face-to-face or by Skype.

You may choose to launch your campaign more widely or increase your marketing once the first five ideas have been added.

At this stage, the first participants begin to respond to questions raised by the community manager. Don't worry if most of the activity at this time is carried out by your team – the moderator needs to help participants get comfortable with using the platform and understand the challenge process.

To encourage participants you could:

• Follow or subscribe to their profiles.

• Send an email to explain the basic functions of the platform, and post this as a blog if the functionality is there (we highly recommend automated emails for this along with an FAQs blog).

• Send an email about the challenge process, including dates for submitting an idea, dates for planned activity, when they will need to collect votes, and so on. Post this as a blog, too, and link to it in your "welcome email" so that new participants can access it.

• Add important dates to the homepage of your chosen platform if there’s space for this (don't forget to send reminders of these dates).

• Add a blog with guidance on how to spread the word about the challenge/their idea.

Even though many participants are not yet active, some will start giving feedback to each other.

Use this opportunity to build engagement in the following ways:

• If the platform allows you to “like” comments, do this to the comments that are good examples.

• Add follow-up questions and tag active participants into your comments, to encourage participants to respond.

• Ask idea-submitters to complete a short interview and share it as a “community blog”, tagging in the users who are already participating.

• Share links to news and opportunities that may be relevant to the idea, and “tag” the active participants to encourage them to do the same.

• Email idea-submitters, asking them to give each other feedback. Tell them that those who write the largest number of helpful comments usually get the most votes!

NOTE: this is a good time to document the number of votes being cast, to determine a baseline.

The core of active participants – those who are responding to other participants – is growing. As we're concentrating on impact, we suggest you spend your time attracting participants who are passionate about the issues and want to create real change. While it’s impossible to have 100% engagement, your moderator should try to reach out to 10% of the community on a daily basis. Understandably, this becomes more difficult when your figures increase.

When your community grows you can:

• Create user segments: many platforms allow you to create email groups. It’s a good idea to spend some time organising your users in this way and then send a targeted email to each group: for example, add everyone who said they were interested in submitting an idea and send them a reminder to get it up early, listing the benefits of doing so. Alternatively, create a group of participants interested in, say, “flood prevention” and email them about an idea addressing this, asking them for feedback.

• Connect participants: moderators can introduce participants to each other with a recommendation of why they should connect. This can be done as a private message (if the function is there) or as a comment under an idea.

• Ask participants to invite their friends for feedback: although most people will start mobilising their friends later, it’s good to encourage participants to reach out to their network. You could provide a sample text for them to share, so that they don't just ask their network to vote, but also request advice and feedback.

When the first participants start incorporating feedback from other participants into their ideas, moderators usually assess the changes manually. Some platforms will add a “last edited by (username)” date, which can help with this. It can be a bit tricky when platforms with character limits make it impossible to edit the main text, because people will put their updates into the comments section, which can be difficult to track. Additionally, not all platforms will alert moderators when an idea has been edited.

Sometimes, the number of comments and responses to questions is so high that moderators can no longer follow them all. We suggest you calculate the percentage of comments written by moderators and exclude this. While it may be difficult to respond to all comments at this stage, it’s important for moderators to be aware of inappropriate comments, as well as those that steer conversations in a helpful direction. If you’ve recruited a "super-user" group or “challenge champions”, this is when they come into their own.

We also suggest you send an email reminder and post a blog on “how to vote”, so that participants are prepared for Stage 8.

The number of participants jumps when people start voting for ideas and idea-submitters start inviting their networks to join the challenge (if it is open), as does the number of votes. If the challenge is open, moderators need to keep an eye out for cheating.

If this is your first challenge, count who voted in an unbiased way by taking a look at how many “friends” they have (<1) who invited them to the challenge, and also whether they voted for more than one idea. You can contrast the online-voting result to that of a core group of people that you trust (like your team). Obviously, you cannot simply average the different results, but they will give you a pretty good overall picture of whether any cheating has been going on.

NOTE: Counting whether a participant has voted for more than one idea only works for a “conventional” challenge; when the challenge has phases or milestones, it’ll be difficult to use this as an indicator.

If this is your second or third challenge, we recommend you start by looking at how those community members voted in previous challenges.

Additionally, look at the number of people who are joining the platform and who are voting but not commenting.

Communication is key at this stage. Make sure you remind idea-submitters that the challenge will only run for another X days, and that “now is a good time to refine your ideas”.

This phase typically runs with little commenting (though this will differ from community to community). This stage also depends on how you will be selecting finalists – if the community vote decides on any of the finalists, you should send out email reminders to the community to vote for their favourite ideas.

Here, communication depends on what you want to achieve. You can really push people to invite all of their friends, but that usually results in a long tail of inactive users. It’s better not to push too much. Instead, just remind them that the challenge will only run for X more days.