Thinking about Types of Data
Generally, there are four types of data teams tend to look for:
- Metrics: Data that supports the innovation objective. For example, if our innovation strategy includes being the most innovative technology company, knowing how many breakthrough products are scheduled for release over the next 2 years would be helpful to see if we are achieving our goals. Another example, if our challenge objective includes implementing 5 ideas, knowing how many ideas were implemented and the associated impact on the business would be helpful to understand how decisions impacted the business.
- Reporting: Informative data that tells us where we are at a single point in time or over a specific period of time. This type of data generally supports tactical actions. For example, if we are running a challenge and we report that we've only received 5 ideas in the first week, we know we need to take tactical, corrective action. Another example, if we are running an on-going process improvement challenge and over the past quarter, the number of ideas has dropped by 20% it would be important to understand the root causes to make adjustments.
- Tracking: supports the tracking of something over time. We may want to track the progress of an idea from decision to take action all the way through to entering the market place. We want to understand how long it took to go through this process, as well as the knowledge gained, decisions made along the way and the ultimate impact of the product.
- Analytics: gives us insight and meaning where it's not readily obvious. For example, if we have 1,000 ideas, the ability to cluster these ideas into meaningful groups using an automated analysis is important. This type of tool can lead me to deeper meaning and insights more quickly and efficiently than reading all 1,000 ideas individually.
Where Data is Located in the Innovation Central Environment
Within each instance: The activity & content data specific to the current challenge is most easily found within the Innovation Central Instance, on the Reporting Tab. The analytics related to the people and the content specific to each challenge can be found in the Innovation Analytics function within each instance.
Within Profiles: The information related to the people who have access to your Innovation Central environment, their profiles, points, terms of use and login activity can be found in and reported on through Profiles.
Within Global Dashboard: Global Dashboard brings together Profiles and all Instance data and provides custom reporting options.
Within Results Engine: Results Engine provides data on all of the items being tracked as projects within the Results Engine module.
Within the Warehouse: The Warehouse holds all of the content that has been archived to the warehouse. This includes the ideas, comments, etc. from past challenges.