Creativity and the product concept Flashcards
what are the obstacles to idea generation? (6)
Group think: We think we are being creative, when in reality we are only coming up with ideas that our group will find acceptable.
Targeting error: We keep going back to the same simple demographic targets (for example, the under-35 or under-50 markets.
Poor customer knowledge: Lavish research spending doesn’t guarantee that customer research was done well.
Complexity: Creative types within organizations, as well as senior management, often think that the more complex the idea, the better it is (or the smarter and more promotable they seem).
Lack of empathy: These same managers are also well-educated, high-income individuals accustomed to an upscale lifestyle. They may simply not understand the “typical” customer.
Too many cooks: A small new product team works fine, but large companies especially are prone to internal competition for power and influence.
What are the barriers to firm creativity? (4)
Cross-functional diversity: Diversity leads to more creative stimulation but also to problem solving difficulties.
Allegiance to functional areas: Team members need to have a stake in the team’s success, or won’t be loyal to the team.
Social cohesion: If interpersonal ties among team members are too strong, candid debate may not occur, resulting in less innovative ideas.
Role of top management: Management should encourage the teams to be adventurous, otherwise only incremental changes will occur.
What is the role of management in stimulating creativity? AND what do techniques include? (3 & 5)
- Recognise individuality
- Be tolerant of mistakes
- Be supportive under stress
Techniques include:
- Competitive teams (a race to the deadline)
- Free time (Google’s 20% rule)
- Flextime
- Idea bank of unused ideas for possible reuse (refrigerator of ideas)
- Encourage interaction – even in how offices are laid out
What are the required inputs to the creation process? (4)
- Form - the physical thing created, or, for a service, the set of steps by which the service will be created (e.g. new steel alloy – form is the actual bar or rod of material)
- Technology - the source by which the form is to be attained (e.g. the steel and other chemicals used, product forming machines, etc.)
- Benefit/Need - benefit to the customer for which the customer sees a need or desire
- Technology permits us to develop a form that provides the benefit.
Explain the designer decaf example (3)
- Benefit: “Consumers want decaffeinated espresso that tastes identical to regular.”
- Form: “We should make a darker, thicker, Turkish-coffee-like espresso.”
- Technology: “There’s a new chemical extraction process that isolates and separates chemicals from foods; maybe we can use that for decaffeinating espresso coffee.”
Why would each of these taken individually not be a product concept?
What is a product concept? and what is the rule? (2)
A verbal or prototype statement of what is going to be changed and how the customer stands to gain or lose.
Rule: You need at least two of the three inputs to have a feasible new product concept, and all three to have a new product.
why do you need a product concept and not just an idea? (2)
- Needed to judge whether it is worthy of development
- Potential customers do not have enough information to judge the worthiness of an idea: the product concept gives them the required information.
What are the two broad categories of methods for generating product concepts? (2)
- Gathering ready made product concepts
2. Using a managed process run by the new product team
What are the best sources of ready made new product concepts? (11)
- Inside sources (employees)
- New Products Employees
- Technical: R&D, engineering, design
- Marketing and manufacturing
- All others - Outside sources
- End Users
- Lead Users
- Resellers, Suppliers,Vendors
- Competitors
- The Invention Industry (investors, etc.)
- Idea exploration firms and consulting engineers
- Miscellaneous (continued)
Explain what and how crowd sourcing functions as a creative source? (6)
- Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model.
- Users–also known as the crowd–typically form into online communities based on the Web site, and the crowd submits solutions to the site or produce its contents.
- The crowd can also sort through the solutions, finding the best ones.
- These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place–the crowd sourcer
- The winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded.
- Many individuals in the crowd participate just for intellectual stimulation or because of emotional ties to product or service
What are the benefits of crowdsourcing to companies? (5)
- Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost.
- Payment is by results.
- The organization can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organization
- Turn customers into designers
- Turn customers into marketers
What are the problems with crowdsourcing? (6)
- Quality
- Intellectual property leakage
- No time constraint
- Not much control over development or ultimate product
- Ill-will with own employees
- Choosing what to crowdsource & what to keep in-house
Explain how lead users work as a creative source. (4 + ex)
- An important source of new product ideas.
- Customers associated with a significant current trend.
- They have the best understanding of the problems faced, and can gain from solutions to these problems.
- In many cases, have already begun to solve their own problems, or can work with product developers to anticipate the next problem in the future.
- Example: X-Games athletes for new high-performance snowboards.
They provide design requirements and also are early adopters and good at stimulating word-of-mouth.
Explain what open innovation is and its benefits? (5)
- The process by which a firm searches for research, innovation, technologies, and products.
- Increases speed of research and innovation, cuts risks, and generates new innovative ideas.
- Viewed by some as the dominant innovation model of the 21st century.
- Inputs can come from internal sources (marketing, strategic planning) and external ones (customers, market information, etc.).
- Sources such as inventors, startup companies, or university laboratories are actively sought out.
What is closed innovation? (1)
it uses only internal resources to innovate.
