I have always believed that "Designing for Excellence" is a better approach than "good enough" new product thinking. I guess learning to be a designer at Rolls-Royce Aeroengines does affect one!
Designing for Excellence does not mean designing for perfection which means nothing gets launched but it does mean Designing for Quality as well as quality. The small q is about fitness.. fit for purpose and fit together, business fit; big Q quality is about affective quality,,, does it look good, feel good and do me good? are we proud to have created it?
Big Q is a Query, little q is a state.
Metacool's two blogs, one on the D-type Jag and one on Designing for Contagion reminded me of a model we created to refine multi-functional innovation team thinking and accelerate the progress of new products and services which is a manifestation of the Design Journey:
INSIGHTS
the penetrating understanding from which many ideas can be generated; usually a consumer benefit could be a technology opportunity.
IDEAS
a possible consumer story or a possible technology/business
solution that could become a concept
CONCEPTS
a plausible consumer story linked to a possible technology/
business solution that could become a product.
PROTOTYPES
a valid consumer story delivered by a
valid and viable technology/business solution.
PRODUCTS/SERVICES
a valid and viable consumer story delivered by a
valid and viable technology/business solution.
When we used this way of thinking combined with
Design Pyramid and
Design Space we found we could communicate much better with project sponsors as we could make our presentations tell better stories that connected with and evoked faster action. It also meant that when we were out of our own disciplinary comfort zone we could still present in a way that was relevant to the listener.
Of course another critical success factor was 'Design Fast Action' based on the observation that making things tangible early meant faster better quality decision making i.e. using tools for sketching, CAD, modelling- both digital (e.g. Moldflow, FEM) and physical (card, foam RPT) , as early as possible speeds things up.
Q,S,I is much easier with great (relevant) stories.
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