Creative ideas are a central part of design thinking, whether solving engineering problems, generating interesting art, as well as developing successful products and innovations. Idea generation methods are a well-researched topic, there is significant research that focuses on specific idea generation methods and how they perform. Further, several method classifications have been suggested to help understand the cognitive mechanisms involved in creative ideation as well as the differences between methods. Yet, the discourse is usually on which ideation method outperforms another or how to improve an ideation method rather than the elements, rules, constraints, and activities that comprise ideation methods. In this study 88 well-documented idea generation methods are reviewed and analyzed. We find all analyzed methods consist of 25 basic mechanisms. The mechanisms are discussed and classified into idea promoting and implementation mechanisms. We suggest that rather than focusing research only on methods, there should be a parallel track of research on these mechanisms and their interactions to help increase our understanding of creativity methods, add understanding for practitioners on how to get the best advantages out of creativity methods and lastly improve the way that practical creativity is approached in education.
Idea generation is an integral part of creative problem solving that happens in all businesses developing products — whether they were services or physical products. Idea generation methods have been studied against one another to create an understanding on how to produce most novel and innovative ideas or how to use certain mechanisms such as incubation or analogies in order to promote idea generation. This paper presents a study comparing two idea generation mechanisms used as interventions during an alternate uses test. A group of 61 participants either classified or combined their ideas from the first round of ideation to come up with more ideas on a second round of idea generation. An outcome-based approach was used to evaluate the data and two metrics, quantity and novelty were used to evaluate the resulting ideas per group and round and unique ideas produced after the intervention. The results suggest that at least when ideating alone, it is useful to stop and use some time to either classify or stop, observe and start combining the ideas already produced. Both have a positive effect on idea novelty, but classifying ideas results in significantly higher novelty scores over combining ideas. There was no difference in the novelty of unique ideas between the two groups, but both had a positive effect on novelty of unique ideas. Classifying ideas into categories produced significantly more unique ideas than combining ideas.
Adopting design thinking and innovation-oriented approaches in organizations is crucial but not always simple. New practices of collaboration, user-orientedness and exploration require a compatible culture to be successfully integrated into product development. This paper presents a case study based on 12 interviews of employees and managers in a large Finland-based technology company, introducing new ways of working to product development. Silos, focusing on inventions, and a lack of resources for exploration were highlighted as key challenges in transitioning from incremental development to innovations. Perhaps counterintuitively, introducing new ways of working requiring a collaborative culture - the most widely recognized shortcoming in the current practice in the case - were best received, and support and feedback could be found for pilot projects in these arenas. When the gap between the practice and culture was smaller, change efforts could perhaps be more challenging, as there was less of a consensus on a need to change. The results suggest than developers need not automatically shy away from piloting new ways of working even when existing cultures are not compatible.
Engineering education traditionally emphasizes technological solutions that focus heavily on students' technical skills. However, for innovations that create an impact, it is essential to link this technical knowledge to societal considerations. This paper describes a problemcentered approach towards introducing mechanical engineering students to sustainable, ethical and collaborative innovation, through an analysis of student work and feedback gathered from a ten-week long pilot conducted as part of a compulsory, Master's level, academic year-long Mechanical Engineering course. During the pilot, student groups worked on broadly phrased challenges derived from an ongoing EU project on developing societal applications for technology, choosing one of seven challenges ranging from changing rain patterns in cities to IoT technologies and data security. Teaching was divided into three interconnected sections on sustainable development, technology and ethics, and collaboration. Each of these sections combined theory with practice through panels with experts from academia and industry and hands-on workshops, encouraging the students to consider multidimensional aspects of their chosen challenge and its consequences for the entire system it links to. A variety of design thinking methods were introduced for exploring the challenges holistically to define and reframe the problem at hand, identify ethical dilemmas and understand the needs of stakeholders for successful collaboration. At the end of each section, students were asked to reflect on their incorporation of societal considerations to the challenge they were working on in the form of group reports. At the end of the pilot, the students presented a project proposal of a direction for solving their challenge. This paper looks at how engineering students operationalize multilayered aspects of societal issues through these reports and project proposals for 19 teams that completed both the first and last group assignment. The results of this study suggest that introducing creative, holistic, problem-solving skills into engineering education in a hands-on manner creates numerous advantages for supporting the understanding of systemic, innovative solutions that have a societal impact and go beyond solving the technological problem. Nine sub-themes to sustainability, ethics and collaboration were identified from the deliverables; environment, economy and culture, fairness, privacy and responsibility, stakeholders, diversity and co-creation. The students' ability to identify and apply these nine measured sub-themes of sustainability, ethics, and collaboration improved statistically significantly in seven out of nine themes. The results of this study encourage linking engineering courses to societal issues through minor interventions, in order to encourage engineering students to apply a broader range of considerations in scoping innovation projects. Additionally, the coding scheme developed here can be used to gauge the level of consideration for societal issues given by st...
The shift to knowledge economies and the boom of knowledge-intensive organizations with their expert employees pose new challenges for leadership and management of development work. What is the appropriate amount and form of managerial control that is needed in knowledge-intensive development work? This paper focuses on illuminating the kind of leadership and management efforts that either support or hinder advancing development projects. The results highlight the paradoxical role of power and control, and reveal that employees need freedom and yet strong guidance and managerial commitment to develop work in order to stay motivated. Implications for leading knowledge-intensive development are discussed.Keywords: power, control, innovation, management, responsibility, leadership . 1 Works as a researcher at Aalto University Design Factory, focusing on development work and the formation of business concepts. Her background is in industrial and strategic design and international design business management. P.O. Box 17700, FI-00076 Aalto. E-mail: senni.kirjavainen@tkk.fi, 2 Is the head researcher of Aalto University Design Factory research team. Her work focuses on proactivity, expertise and entrepreneurial behavior. Björklund's background is in cognitive science and work psychology. P.O. Box 17700, FI-00076 Aalto; Aalto University Design Factory, Finland. E-mail: tua.bjorklund@tkk.fi, 3 Has a background in educational psychology. Her work at Aalto University Design Factory focuses on work wellbeing and time effects. P.O. Box 17700, FI-00076 Aalto. Aalto University Design Factory, Finland. E-mail: meri-maaria.eloranta@tkk.fi, 4 Works as a researcher at Aalto University School of Science and Technology. He has a background in interdisciplinary product development, and his research focuses on interdisciplinary co-operation in the front end of innovation.
Ideation methods have been extensively studied, and several ideation methods can be beneficial in different contexts, but it is not understood what makes a specific method work. Previous work has shown that all the ideation methods comprise of 25 fundamental ideation mechanisms in two categories: idea implementation and idea promoting mechanisms. In this study, we try to understand how individual mechanisms affect idea generation outcomes. We chose four idea promoting mechanisms: two from the process category (Classification & Combination) and two from the idea sources category (Building on Others and Stimulation). These mechanisms were selected as they are examples of comparable mechanisms that could easily be integrated into any other ideation method. We conducted four experiments and assessed idea quantity, novelty, and originality. Our study showed that the chosen mechanism increased ideation performance. For the most part, the mechanisms are statistically equivalent, but we found evidence that classification outperforms combination in a simple ideation exercise. We also found the building on others can be more useful than the type of stimulation used in engineering concept generation, but the difference was not found in a simple ideation exercise. Overall, we find evidence that all mechanisms improve ideation effectiveness and could be incorporated into any ideation method, but further studies are needed to build more comprehensive understanding
As design research expands its horizon, there has been a recent rise in studies on nontraditional designers. Previous studies have noted the positive effect of diversity in generating ideas. Among different sources of influence, peers outside the design team have been noted for their positive impact on the design process, yet the research on this topic is still in its early stages. Using qualitative data from 40 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the American and Finnish food and beverage industries, the current study examines their interactions with other SMEs, shedding light on the influence of peers on creating new design solutions. The findings suggest that peer companies can act as a frequent and impactful source of inspiration for product design ideas. The most prevalent forms of interaction were co-creating products, sharing information, and sharing ingredients. Furthermore, the interactions were voluntary, organic, and improvisational in nature, and physical proximity or previous connections often initiated the interactions. Taken together, a great number of peer influences contributed towards creative new solutions.
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