Ran a tournament to stop teams rebuilding the same tools
150 engineers took part; 40% of internal tools reached the top standard
Teams at Intuit build capabilities, which are internal tools and widgets meant to be reused by other teams. When they aren't findable, documented or tested well enough to be picked up self-serve, the next team that needs one builds it again. I pitched an InnerSource tournament to fix that, and ran it with the AI and Data organization.
Also in this role
- Built a framework and process for engineers to submit CFPs to high-leverage conferences, reviewing content through run-throughs and editing external blog posts
- Presented new product releases internally to a global engineering organization of 7,000+
Mandates don’t work here
Nobody disagreed that duplicated tooling was worth fixing. It just never rose above whatever was already on someone’s plate. Requiring it wouldn’t have changed that, it would only have made people resent the thing I wanted them to care about.
So I made it a tournament
It ran over a couple of months, with each team completing a task every week against a published criteria model, so “ready” was a definition anyone could check themselves against, rather than an opinion someone else held.
I tallied points and kept a running leaderboard. At the end, teams presented to a panel of judges, and the winning team took internal budget, swag, and praise routed to their managers. That last one was the part that actually moved people.
The real design problem was the two hours
Every participant was giving up a couple of hours a week on top of their existing workload. That’s the whole constraint. None of this works unless what you’re asking for is visibly worth more than the time it costs, so the leaderboard, the weekly cadence and the judged finale weren’t decoration. They were what made the cost legible and made progress feel like it was going somewhere.
Sourcing workshop hosts was harder than expected, because the org spans India, California and the East Coast. Some workshops I ran twice; others I recorded. A program that only works in one timezone isn’t a program, it’s a meeting.
What it produced
150 engineers took part, and 40% of capabilities reached the highest tier of the criteria model, meaning documented, covered, and ready for another team to pick up without asking anyone’s permission.
It ran a second time
I was asked to run another tournament shortly before I left, and participation was higher. Teams had heard about the first one and wanted in.
That’s the result I’d point at over any percentage. The strongest evidence that an optional program worked is being asked to run it again by people nobody told to ask.