Participatory innovation: the BNP Paribas platform achieves a record 45% participation rate
The initiative spearheaded by BNP Paribas CIB known as “Jump” uses collective intelligence to come up with great ideas by identifying in-house innovators and communities of experts.
Jérôme Dubois, Innovation Manager at BNP Paribas CIB, tells us about “Jump.” The idea is to share the work of analyzing innovations among as many people as possible and get innovators involved.
He also noted that three issues come into play with corporate innovation:
- Employees have excellent ideas, but do not wish to discuss them for fear of losing ownership of the idea.
- Middle management has no direct interest in its teams wasting time on innovation.
- The Innovation managers do not have enough time to manage the communities and give feedback to innovators.
To respond to this three-fold challenge, Jérôme Dubois and his team introduced a platform that is accessible to all employees.
The "Jump" process
The first time they log on, employees list their skill areas and their interests. When an idea is submitted, 50 experts are automatically detected. Experts and innovators have access to a work platform for 10 days. After 10 days, innovators must decide whether to continue or stop, depending on the feedback they have received. If they decide to continue, the project is finalized and sent to the evaluation committee, made up of the Executive Committee.
Anonymity, the key to success
This system, inspired by the scientific review publication system, encourages constructive criticism. Firstly, experts cannot rely on their reputation and therefore have to justify their comments, and secondly, the innovators react more positively to criticism, since it is not perceived as being personal. Anonymity also stops employees from censoring themselves and makes them more likely to think out of the box. Lastly, anonymity ensures broader participation from employees.
“The participation rate is 45% thanks to the anonymity factor, whereas it is less than 20% for traditional corporate social networks, which, unlike Jump, are based on enhancing a digital identity” – Jérôme Dubois, Innovation Manager at BNP Paribas CIB