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Hack: Internal bidding for task assignment

by Fanfeng Si

November 30, 2010 at 12:08pm
4 Comments

6 Ratings:

  • Overall 3.335
  • Innovative 3.5
  • Detail 3.17

Contribution Summary

Summary

The idea is that employees no longer work according to the job descriptions, but they bid for each task. Thus the firm can fully utilize all human capital and employees can learn more through this task rotation.

First, the company will distribute the tasks and also the value of the task, accompanying with it the task description and required skills. Depending on how the bidding system is deployed, it can be either within in a department or globally.

Then, the employees can bid based on their personal assessment by revising the value (the lower value means they are more qualified for the task and thus less effort). If the task requires a team, then the employees can either choose to bid as a team.

Next, the task creator evaluates all the bidding entries and select the best candidate based on their bidding value, profile and past performance and so on. Once decided, the task creator may debrief the selected employee(s) and they can get down to work.

Yet, it is also important for the task creator and task executor to provide feedback. The task creator may focus on the quality of the result while the executor may focus on whether the task description and assigned value are fair enough.

And performance review will be based on how many value points does the employee earn and also the quality of the result.

Moonshot(s)
Problem
This will help solve problems from both employer's and employee's perspective.

First, it will help the firm find the best talent to crack each task. This will not only help reduce potential cost, but more importantly, develop next stage leaders.

Secondly, the employee can always find the most interesting job for them. It will create natural rotation opportunities and will keep their work energy high. Oftentimes, employees get bored after six months on the job and they lose their interest. Through the bidding system, employees can always find new and challenge task.

Solution
See the description in setup
Challenges
The first challeng is to creat the task list and coampe up with a fair description and value points. This will require huge effort as each task may be different and it's quite difficult to balance the value points.

The second challenge is how to select the best candidate. To earn the most value points, an employee may only bid what he/she is good at, but the firm have to prevent this from happneing. So the selection should not be only based on the bidding value points, but it is also quite difficult to design a framework that best suits this situation.
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Comments

can ocal

January 19, 2011 at 5:54am

Dear Fanfeng Si
This is interesting opinion, I was wondering what can you suggest for assignments for which there is no volunteer at all? Or some popular assignments for which there will be more supplier than the demand in the job.
Did you ever had a chance to apply this in a group?
Best Regards
Can Öcal

Deborah Mills-Scofield

December 4, 2010 at 12:20pm

Very interesting - of course this is pretty cultural dependent to start with, and you can start with a small group. When I was at Bell Labs (years ago), we did something like this but not with bidding - we just knew as a group (about 20 of us) what had to get done and we divided up who did what by combining passion + talent/expertise and sometimes we'd hand off at certain points or review with each other - very ad hoc, but very successful and extremely fun & fulfilling. It was never formalized.

David R. Koenig

December 3, 2010 at 2:28pm

Dear Fanfeng,

This is very interesting and it would be helpful to have you expand your idea a bit further above. Are you familiar with Elance? How does this idea compare to a market for freelancer workers like Elance?

Does the originator of the idea/task also need to assign some level of capital to the task to cover the risks or do the task-bidders assume all risk?

Looking forward to learning more...

Kind regards,

david

Fanfeng Si

December 4, 2010 at 12:42pm
I didn't know Elance before, and after a quick look at the website, I'm sure there are more difference than similarities. First, my system does not only focus on the final price/value points, will also incorporate personal developments and many other factors to decide who should do the task. This will not only create a place for innovative ideas, but also a good platform to develop next generation leaders. What's more important is my believe the bidding system should be more twisted to tough tasks rather than routine jobs. Only by this will the company be able to leverage the best expertise avaiable.

Also add to my above points on how the system work:
1) A internal team should be established to monitor all the tasks and coordinate between the creator and doer if necessary. They may also act as a filter for the tasks.
2) Just as said, the double-loop feedback system is very critical not only to the doer but also to the creator. And others can browse the historical result of particular creator, doer and similar tasks. By this, the creator will also bear the risk of unfareness.