I scream, you scream, we all scream for… innovation!

Wilmington, Delaware — Planbox, the pioneering agile innovation management platform, is excited to serve up its latest round of Innovation & Improvements (I&I) to its top-ranking platform. Following up on the Spring 2023 release, this Summer scoop of I&I introduces a refreshing twist on familiar features, alongside novel additions aimed at making the life of innovators a whole lot easier.

Kickstart a hackathon in no time

Hackathons Made Hassle-Free

In our previous update, we introduced Challenge Gallery, which boasts a vast selection of pre-designed and configurable templates that allow you to launch challenges in an instant, eliminating the need to manually copy over form fields, business rules, and workflows. Want to run a challenge for continuous improvement? Done. How about launching a more impactful challenge that addresses sustainability goals? Also done. Or, maybe you want to kickstart something a little more eventful like a hackathon? Done and done.

As far as innovation activities go, hackathons are a popular way to realize business results in a short period of time, while also generating a great level of excitement and engagement. The catch? It could be time consuming to set it up just right, especially for the novice innovator. However, with the latest addition of our hackathon template to the Challenge Gallery (designed with 20+ years of experience in mind), you can launch your next hackathon event, hassle-free, in virtually no time—and with the confidence of a veteran innovator, too.

Visit the challenge gallery, select the hackathon template, make adjustments, and launch your challenge:

Attract top talent to your innovation challenges

Build Your Dream Team

Speaking of hackathons, one of the fundamental elements of an online innovation event is the formation of teams, specifically when the most promising ideas are selected for presentation to senior management. Referred to as the “pitch”, this decisive moment can seal an idea’s destiny, so it’s important that you assemble a top-notch team capable of framing your concept’s business case in the most persuasive way possible.

Fortunately, recruiting the right people for the job is no longer limited to the people you know. Our unique Call for Talent feature empowers you to openly share your needs with a diverse pool of talent within your organization, or with a 20,000+ network of multidisciplinary expert solvers from all corners of the world. This not only invites a multitude of viewpoints into your project, but it also breaks inter-departmental silos to foster a more inclusive culture of innovation. As individuals heed the call of duty, you can review their applications and decide to accept or reject them based on their expertise, making the process of building your dream team a breeze, and the likelihood of creating the perfect pitch an achievable reality.

Set a timeframe, specify your requirements, and review applications as they come in:

Develop business concepts in a fresh new way

It’s Canvas Version A.W.E.S.O.M.E

When crafting a business concept, it’s important to centralize all the essential components in one place, or your idea risks going nowhere really fast. Just as a painter needs a canvas, so does an innovator, which is precisely where our Real-Time Collaborative Canvas comes in. While the tool has been around, what’s fresh is its awesome new look, along with some nifty new features that elevate the overall experience of the business case development process:

Get the picture: Now, you can link your canvas or a canvas card to an existing idea or challenge, boosting transparency and traceability. This way, everyone’s on the same page about the objectives your canvas and cards are tackling.
See it your way: Stick with the classic canvas look or switch to a list view when things start to get crowded. It’s all about making sure you can easily read and navigate, no matter how much you’ve got going on.
Show your colors: Spruce up your canvas by changing the colors of the background, columns, column headers, and cards. Not only does it give your canvas some personality, but it also helps you distinguish between different parts or spotlight specific elements.
Repeat the magic: Got a custom canvas that really knocked it out of the park? Don’t let it go to waste—save it as a template and recreate that success whenever you want.
Share the love: Get everyone involved by enabling voting on your canvas. Let users upvote the cards they think are game-changers in pushing the idea forward.

Explore new business opportunities with your team in an easy-to-read, one-page format:

Capture actionable data from ideas

Seize the Data

When we rolled out our I&I update for Spring 2023, we amped up our Innovation Dashboard with four new sections (Users, Tasks, Location, and Pipeline), turning it into the ultimate tool for tracking and analyzing innovation activity across the entire innovation management system.

Now, we’re unveiling Idea Explorer, a practical addition offering a do-it-yourself reporting feature that gives you the power to manage, analyze, and communicate data related to your ideas like never before. Simply choose the fields, columns, and data parameters you want to report on, and share insights tied to ideas in a way that boosts decision-making, performance tracking, and stakeholder alignment. All in all, it’s about seizing the data and making it work for you.

Create, edit, and save an idea list view, and then simply export your data:

Innovate incognito with custom avatars

It’s Peak Innovation Fun

We saved the best for last: Avatar Mode. This thrilling new feature kicks your innovation journey into high gear in the most exhilarating way possible: it allows contributors to express their unique personality and expertise using anonymous personas, creating an immersive and upbeat atmosphere where everyone feels motivated to express their creativity. What’s more, top-level executives can discreetly participate in the forefront of innovation while maintaining their anonymity. Get ready for a wave of unconventional ideas, honest exchanges, and endless excitement!

And best of all? Avatar Mode fits like a glove in a variety of scenarios. Use it to fuel friendly competition among teams, spark creativity in brainstorming sessions, or even to host company-wide events that everyone can be a part of. What’s more, it helps remote teams feel closer to each other in the virtual realm, making geographical barriers a non-issue. It’s peak innovation fun like you’ve never experienced before. Just explore this real-world use case featuring a multinational pharmaceutical firm, and you’ll know what we mean!

Let users define their digital identity and share ideas without constraint:

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About Planbox

Innovation is at the heart of becoming Future-Fit. Built on ISO 56002 and AI, our end-to-end agile innovation management platform and services empower medium and large-sized organizations to become more adaptive, creative, and resilient. Planbox helps you turn creative ideas into winning projects and integrate everyday tools to collaborate smarter with your community of employees, customers, partners, startups, governments, academia, and expert solvers. Planbox has offices in Canada, UK, and USA, with customers around the world in over 140 countries.