Fostering Innovation in Conceptual Product Design through Ideation

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Karni, Reuven | Shalev, Semadar

Affiliations: Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel, Tel.: +972 4 829 4511; Fax: +972 4 829 5688; E-mail: rkarni@ie.technion.ac.il | Nilit Israel Ltd., Ramat Gavriel, POB 276, Migdal HaEmek 23102, Israel, Tel.: +972 4 6544666; Fax: +972 4 6541688; E-mail: shalevds@barak-online.net

Abstract: Creativity sessions for enhancing innovation comprise six basic constituents: issue – the problem and its characteristics; ideation mechanism – the technique to enhance creativity; creators – the group providing ideas; judges – the group evaluating ideas; innovativeness – characteristics for evaluating idea quality; and measures – parameters for determining the worth of the session. We detail research on conceptual product design in terms of these factors. We apply several creativity measures: the rate of idea generation (1) determines the number of ideas produced at a creativity session (2). The total number of ideas (3) is determined by the number and length of sessions held. A certain percentage (4) is very creative – the more ideas provided, the higher the possibility that outstanding ideas (5) will emerge. "Quantity" leads to "quality". Our findings are intended to guide organizations who wish establish creativity sessions for encouraging and fostering creativity in those involved in new product or service development.

Journal: Information Knowledge Systems Management, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 15-33, 2004