Innovation Shark Tank

This template includes a submission contest format for individual entrants, a judge panel voting mechanism, and rank-based points for the top ideas. It is designed for short video pitches or written proposals, with scoring centered on feasibility, impact, and originality. The template also excludes managers, which helps keep the contest peer-driven and more approachable for frontline staff.

Use it when you want employees to submit practical ideas that can be reviewed and selected for follow-up funding or implementation. It works well for culture, operations, process improvement, and employee experience ideas. It is not a fit for open-ended brainstorming without judging, or for situations where you need a cooperative team threshold instead of ranked winners.

The template is set to 21 days, which fits a short idea campaign with enough time to promote the contest, collect submissions, and review entries. That duration is long enough for thoughtful pitches but short enough to keep momentum. If your organization needs more time for video production or cross-site participation, you can extend it, but avoid leaving it open-ended.

A judge panel is better when you want ideas evaluated for feasibility and business value rather than popularity. It reduces the risk of a flashy pitch beating a practical one and helps keep scoring aligned to implementation potential. It is also easier to control than open voting when you need a fair review process across departments or locations.

This template excludes managers, which is useful when you want to surface ideas from the people closest to the work. That makes the contest feel more inclusive and can reduce the perception that leadership will dominate the rankings. If you want a mixed audience, you can change that setting, but keep the judging criteria consistent.

Use a judge panel, publish the scoring rubric before launch, and score only the submitted pitch on the stated criteria. Keep the contest time-bound and award points by rank rather than by random draw. If you want to improve fairness further, ask judges to score feasibility, impact, and originality separately before combining the results.

The best practice is to move the top ideas into a clear follow-up path, such as review, pilot, or funding approval. The template is strongest when the contest produces a visible next step, not just recognition. If you do not have a process to act on winning ideas, participants may stop submitting in future rounds.

An idea box collects input, but this contest adds a deadline, a judging structure, and a visible outcome. That makes participation more intentional and helps leaders compare proposals on the same criteria. It is a better fit when you want a curated pipeline of ideas rather than a passive inbox.

Yes. You can keep the core contest structure and adjust the pitch format, scoring rubric, and point values to match your goals. Many teams add prompts for problem statement, expected impact, cost, and implementation steps so judges can compare entries more consistently.