The Open Innovation Series / #3 — Roll Up! Roll Up! — Welcome to the Greatest Show in Assessment

Why Open Innovation Needs Every Performer

The rain had only just stopped when the first families began to gather outside the enormous striped circus tent. Warm golden lights spilled from beneath the canvas, reflecting off the damp grass as children skipped excitedly towards the entrance, clutching brightly coloured programmes that promised an evening of impossible feats and unbelievable spectacles. Parents followed behind carrying coffee, popcorn and coats with the familiar determination of people who knew that, somehow, they were expected to keep hold of everything at once. Somewhere in the distance an orchestra was tuning its instruments, while the smell of freshly made popcorn drifted lazily through the evening air.

It looked, at first glance, like every other travelling circus.

Except it wasn’t.

Hidden amongst the audience were software developers, psychometricians, project managers, customer success managers, regulators, educators, assessment specialists, employers, quality assurance professionals and product designers. None of them knew it yet, but tonight they weren’t simply here to watch the performance.

They were the performance.

The lights inside the tent slowly began to fade until the audience settled into an expectant silence. Conversations became whispers, whispers disappeared altogether and, for a brief moment, several thousand people found themselves looking towards the empty centre ring, wondering what would happen next. Then, without warning, a single spotlight swept across the arena before coming to rest on a solitary figure standing confidently beneath the enormous canvas roof.

Out walked the Ringmaster.

He looked exactly as every Ringmaster should. A magnificent scarlet tailcoat flowed elegantly behind him, polished black boots reflected the lights of the arena and an impossibly tall top hat sat perfectly upon his head. He carried himself with the calm confidence of somebody who had survived more governance meetings than any reasonable person should ever experience, navigated software implementations that had somehow acquired three extra phases, chaired procurement exercises measured in geological time rather than calendar months and still found the enthusiasm to smile at the beginning of every Monday morning.

He stood quietly for a moment, looking around the arena as though greeting old friends.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced warmly, his voice carrying effortlessly around the enormous tent, “boys and girls, innovators, educators, assessors, developers, psychometricians, project managers, regulators, customer success teams, learners and anyone who has ever survived a steering committee…”

He paused.

A smile slowly spread across his face.

“…welcome to the Greatest Show in Assessment.”

The audience erupted into applause.

Not because they were particularly surprised to find themselves at a circus.

But because they recognised the audience they had just become.

The Ringmaster removed his hat, bowed graciously and continued.

“Tonight’s performance has taken three years to prepare, seventeen governance meetings, eleven steering committees, six procurement exercises, four regulatory reviews, three software releases, one cyber security audit and approximately eighteen thousand cups of coffee.”

The applause grew louder.

Not because anyone was especially impressed by the governance meetings.

They were simply relieved the performance had actually started on time.

The Ringmaster glanced down at a small card in his hand.

“Oh… before we begin, a quick announcement. If anyone happens to discover Version Twenty-Seven of the project plan labelled Final – FINAL – Definitive Version – This Time We Really Mean It, would you kindly return it to the Product Team? They appear to have accidentally started working from Version Twenty-Six, and we’d all rather avoid another steering committee.”

Laughter rolled effortlessly around the tent.

The Ringmaster laughed too.

“I thought that one might land well.”

He waited patiently while the audience settled.

“It’s a curious thing,” he continued. “People imagine that the circus is all about the performers they can see. They applaud the trapeze artist. They marvel at the magician. They cheer for the lion tamer. They laugh with the clowns. What they rarely think about are the hundreds of people working quietly behind the curtain. The people building the stage, testing the lights, rehearsing every movement, checking every rope, planning every act and solving problems before anyone in the audience ever realises there was a problem in the first place.”

He slowly turned, looking towards the enormous red curtain behind him.

“The greatest performances always look effortless.”

Then he looked back towards the audience.

“They never are.”

For a moment the entire tent fell silent.

The Ringmaster smiled knowingly.

“You may be wondering what any of this has to do with assessment.”

He paused again.

The silence lingered just long enough for the audience to begin asking the question themselves.

Then he answered it with a single word.

“Everything.”

Because assessment, like every great circus, is a performance that only appears simple from the audience. Learners experience a straightforward journey. They register, prepare, complete an assessment and receive a result. Employers see competent professionals entering their organisations. Regulators see standards being maintained. Customers see software that works, support that responds and qualifications that arrive when they should. From the outside, it all appears remarkably ordinary.

Yet behind that apparently effortless experience lies a remarkable collection of people performing extraordinary roles, each depending upon the other with absolute trust. Product teams imagine what does not yet exist. Developers quietly transform impossible requirements into elegant software. Customer success teams translate complexity into confidence. Psychometricians balance fairness with innovation. Quality specialists protect standards while encouraging progress. Project managers somehow persuade hundreds of moving parts to arrive in the same place at exactly the right moment. Every one of them performs a different act, but every one of them shares the same stage.

The audience sees the applause.

They rarely see the rehearsals.

And perhaps that is the greatest misunderstanding of all.

Assessment has never simply been about examinations.

It has always been about people.

The Ringmaster adjusted his gloves, looked slowly around the arena and smiled as though he knew a secret that nobody else had yet discovered.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “every great circus has its stars. The audience remembers the trapeze artist soaring high above the crowd, the magician pulling the impossible from an empty hat and the lion tamer walking fearlessly into the cage. But the real secret of every great circus is that none of those performers could succeed alone. The trapeze artist never leaves the platform without someone checking every rope. The magician never steps into the spotlight without someone preparing every illusion. Even the clown, who appears to spend the evening making magnificent mistakes, has rehearsed every stumble so perfectly that even his accidents happen exactly where they were supposed to.”

He paused, allowing the thought to settle.

“Sound familiar?”

A ripple of laughter spread around the audience.

The Ringmaster tipped his hat, stepped gracefully to one side and, with a flourish of his hand, invited the first act into the centre of the ring.

The orchestra changed tempo. A drum roll echoed beneath the enormous canvas roof as a team of jugglers wandered confidently into the spotlight. They looked remarkably calm despite carrying what appeared to be an impossible collection of brightly coloured balls. At first they all looked identical, but as the audience peered a little closer they began to notice words carefully painted onto each one. Candidate Experience. Accessibility. Cyber Security. Product Releases. Compliance. Budgets. Assessment Windows. Customer Success. Stakeholder Management. Deadlines. There was even one simply labelled Urgent, although anyone who had worked in assessment for more than a week suspected there were probably another six hiding somewhere backstage.

Without saying a word, the performance began.

The balls climbed effortlessly into the air, each one weaving gracefully between the others until it seemed physically impossible for another to be added. Yet, almost as if following one of the unwritten laws of business, a gentleman sitting comfortably in the front row politely raised his hand.

“Excuse me,” he called with genuine enthusiasm. “Would it be possible to add just one more?”

The audience burst into laughter.

Not because the request was unreasonable.

Because everybody recognised it.

The lead juggler smiled warmly, nodded with impeccable professionalism and calmly introduced another brightly coloured ball into the performance. Internally, however, he was privately calculating whether human evolution might be persuaded to provide another pair of arms before next Tuesday. Somehow the pattern continued uninterrupted. Every ball remained suspended in the air, moving with such elegance that the audience almost forgot how astonishingly difficult the performance actually was.

Perhaps that is one of the greatest compliments anyone can pay the people working in assessment.

When everything works, nobody notices.

Learners complete their assessments. Centres carry on with confidence. Results are issued on time. Employers recruit talented people. Regulators remain reassured. Technology quietly does exactly what it was designed to do. Success has a curious habit of becoming invisible because excellence rarely demands attention.

It is only when one tiny ball briefly slips that everyone suddenly becomes an internationally recognised expert in juggling.

Someone confidently announces that they would have planned differently. Another wonders why nobody spotted the issue sooner. A third quietly observes that “it can’t really be that difficult.” The juggler hears none of it. His attention remains fixed on the dozens of other priorities still moving above his head because he understands something that the audience is only beginning to appreciate: every ball depends on every other ball. Ignore one for long enough and eventually they all begin to fall.

The Ringmaster slowly wandered back into the centre of the arena as the applause echoed around the tent.

“Remarkable, aren’t they?” he said. “People often think juggling is about keeping lots of things in the air. It isn’t. It’s about knowing which ball needs your attention next. That’s rather different.”

He smiled again.

“Assessment works in exactly the same way.”

He pointed towards the performers, who were now taking a well-earned bow.

“Those jugglers are your project managers, your customer success teams, your operations specialists, your implementation consultants and every professional who somehow manages to keep dozens of priorities moving without ever allowing the audience to see how close some of them came to touching the floor. Every learner represents another ball. Every centre, another responsibility. Every software release, another challenge. Every regulatory update, another adjustment. They make the impossible look routine, and perhaps that is why we so rarely stop to applaud them.”

The orchestra began to play once more, softer now, as the jugglers disappeared behind the curtain. The audience applauded enthusiastically, but the Ringmaster simply watched them go with a quiet smile. He knew there were many more performers waiting patiently behind the curtain, each convinced that someone else’s act was more important than their own.

He also knew they were all wrong

As the applause gradually faded, the Ringmaster walked quietly back into the centre of the arena. For the first time that evening, he wasn’t smiling. He removed his top hat, held it gently in his hands and looked slowly around the audience. The orchestra, sensing something different, allowed the music to soften until only a single violin could be heard beneath the great canvas roof.

“You’ve been wonderfully generous this evening,” he said. “You’ve applauded the jugglers because they somehow kept every ball in the air. You’ve marvelled at the tightrope walkers because they balanced courage with precision. You’ve cheered the magicians because they made impossible things appear effortless. You’ve even laughed with the clowns because they dared to ask questions that everyone else thought were too ridiculous to consider.”

He paused for a moment before looking towards the enormous red curtain behind him.

“But I’d like to introduce you to the most important performers in the circus.”

The audience instinctively leaned forward.

“They’re the people you never see.”

He slowly gestured towards the shadows beyond the stage.

“The people who built the ring before any of us arrived. The people who tested every light, checked every rope and made sure every seat was exactly where it should be. The people who rehearsed long after the audience had gone home. The people who solved problems before anybody knew there was a problem to solve. The people who quietly stayed behind after everyone else had left, determined that tomorrow’s performance would somehow be even better than today’s.”

His voice became quieter.

“They’ll never receive a standing ovation. Most of the audience will never know their names. Yet without them, there would be no circus.”

For a few moments, the tent fell completely silent.

Then the Ringmaster smiled once more.

“That’s assessment.”

He let the words settle.

“It has never simply been about examinations. It has never been about software, regulations, policies or procedures, however important those things undoubtedly are. Assessment has always been about people. People who care enough to spend countless hours creating opportunities for other people they will probably never meet. Every qualification earned, every apprentice who begins a new career, every student who discovers a passion, every professional who takes the next step in their journey—none of those moments happen by accident. They happen because hundreds of dedicated people, each with different skills and different perspectives, quietly work together behind the curtain.”

He placed his hat back on his head.

“And that,” he continued, “is why Open Innovation matters so much.”

For the first time that evening, he didn’t need to explain the phrase.

Everyone understood.

Open Innovation wasn’t another strategy document or another fashionable business expression. It wasn’t a project with a beginning and an end, nor was it a new piece of technology waiting to replace the old. It was something far simpler and infinitely more powerful. It was the belief that the best ideas rarely belong to one person, one team or one organisation. They belong to conversations. They belong to curiosity. They belong to people who are prepared to listen before they speak, to collaborate before they compete and to ask, with genuine humility, “What can we learn from one another?”

The Ringmaster looked around the audience one final time.

“I hope,” he said softly, “that the next time you walk into a meeting, attend a conference, visit a customer, speak to a colleague or simply share a coffee with someone from another organisation, you’ll remember tonight. Because the next great idea probably won’t arrive wearing a name badge that says ‘Innovation’. It might arrive disguised as a casual conversation. It might come from somebody who’s new to the profession. It might even come from the person sitting quietly in the corner who hasn’t spoken all afternoon.”

A gentle smile crossed his face.

“Please don’t overlook them.”

The orchestra began its final piece.

One by one, the performers returned to the centre of the ring. The jugglers stood beside the magicians. The tightrope walkers stood beside the lion tamers. Even the clowns, no longer hiding behind oversized shoes and painted smiles, stood proudly shoulder to shoulder with everyone else. There were no stars now. No leading act. No supporting cast. Just a remarkable collection of people who had created something extraordinary because each had trusted the others to play their part.

The audience rose instinctively to their feet.

Not because one performer had stolen the show.

But because every performer had made the show possible.

The Ringmaster took one last bow before walking slowly towards the curtain. Just before disappearing, he stopped, turned back towards the audience and smiled.

“The greatest show on Earth,” he said quietly, “was never the circus.”

He paused.

“It has always been the people.”

The lights faded.

The orchestra played its final notes.

The curtain closed.

And somewhere, perhaps over a cup of coffee, perhaps at the end of a meeting, perhaps in the corridor after a conference, someone quietly turned to a colleague and said the six words that have changed the world more times than history can count.

“I wonder if there’s a better way.”

Because every great performance eventually ends.

But the conversation that inspires the next one has only just begun.

The Open Innovation Series
#3 — Roll Up! Roll Up! Welcome to the Greatest Show in Assessment.

Jonathan Franklin at Coelrind, builders of XAMS, a regulated online assessment platform serving awarding bodies across the UK and Ireland.