Agencies are increasingly using competitions to drive innovation and find novel solutions, but in cases the prize is winner-take-all, agencies need to be careful not to encourage the worst competitive instincts among participants, such as releasing misinformation to other contestants.
Offering some lessons-learned, GSA’s challenge and prize competition program manager, TammiMarcoullier, said her team advises agency managers to require contestants to share their questions and any response or information they receive from the agency with others.
However, it’s important to understand and respect the need for competitors to maintain their intellectual property, which is a major part of their reason for participating. When posting solutions managers must decide how much and what kind of information to display for public voting, notes Marcoullier.
She also recommends that mangers think about whether they want to include restrictions on cheating, hacking or other types of adverse behavior.
