Hacking HR to Build an Adaptability Advantage

In April 2013, CIPD and the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) invited HR and business leaders to crack the adaptability challenge through a hackathon—an online problem-solving event designed to harness the collective intelligence of progressive HR and management practitioners from around the world.

The hackathon was a hands-on, collaborative effort focused on finding, developing, and implementing real-world solutions that could be experimented with in real-world companies. During the hackathon, we focused on tackling the following question:

How can HR become a catalyst for proactive change in organizations?

More than 1700 participants joined forces in this effort hailing from a amazing variety of organizations and countries. Hackers were coached by a staff of leading business thinkers and doers, including Peter Cheese, Gary Hamel, Daniel Pink, Lynda Gratton, Paul Sparrow, and many others.

Our hackers worked together over the last few months following a phased approach. During the first phase of the hackathon, participants worked together to develop a shared definition of adaptability. They also brainstormed and prioritized the critical barriers to adaptability and developed the design rules for creating adaptable organizations.

In the second phase, we began early idea generation by developing over 150 “mini hacks”—short yet provocative ideas for changing HR practices and processes (e.g., talent acquisition, talent development, performance management) to overcome one or more of the enemies of adaptability while drawing inspiration from the key design principles.

In the third phase, participants fleshed out their ideas further—over 60 teams formed around the most promising mini-hacks, and these were developed further into full management hacks.

We’re kicking off the last phase today by releasing our hackathon report, which distills the key insights and shares some of the hacks developed to date.  We expect to do much more in the coming months to promote real-world experimentation of the most promising hacks, so please stay tuned.  In the meantime, please download a copy of the report and help spread the word!