Design Thinking in Action – A Collaborative Ideation Challenge
39985-Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change: Chapter 6
Chapter 6 explores how innovation arises from knowledge push, need pull, and emerging sources like user-led innovation, regulation, and design thinking. It emphasizes engaging users through co-creation and prototyping and offers a framework to identify opportunity spaces and understand how external triggers shape today’s evolving innovation landscape.
Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. R. (2021). Managing innovation: Integrating technological, market and organizational change (7th ed.). Wiley.
-Entrepreneurship for Dummies: Chapter 3: Preparing to Seek Opportunity & Chapter 4: Testing an Opportunity Before You Leap
These two chapters guide aspiring entrepreneurs in preparing for and evaluating opportunities. Chapter 3 emphasizes mindset, market awareness, and readiness. Chapter 4 focuses on testing ideas through customer feedback, prototyping, and validation to reduce risk and ensure the opportunity is worth pursuing before fully committing.
Allen, K. R. (2022). Entrepreneurship for dummies (2nd ed.). Wiley. https://go.oreilly.com/umgc/https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/entrepreneurship-for-dummies/9781119912637/
Purpose
Empathy, brainstorming, and ideation are essential to design thinking because they center the user in the innovation process. In this discussion, you will begin with customer discovery, identifying a specific user group, understanding their habits, and empathizing with their pain points, while generating creative sustainability solutions. By focusing on a real-world environmental issue, you’ll practice designing with and for the user, not just brainstorming in isolation.
Task
This discussion simulates a collaborative ideation process where you will analyze a relatable environmental challenge, generate creative solutions, and build on your peers’ ideas. Your work here will serve as a foundation for your Unit 4 Assignment.
Step 1: Explore the Challenge (Individual Work)
Redesign a common product, service, or everyday routine to reduce environmental impact while preserving convenience for a specific group of users. This challenge begins with understanding the user: who they are, how they live, and what obstacles they face when trying to be more sustainable. Think about where people encounter waste or inefficiency in their daily routines, and what could be reimagined from the user’s perspective to encourage more eco-friendly behavior.
address the following:
Personal Connection. Share how your personal experience or observation of the issue inspired your ideas. Where have you noticed waste or inefficiency, and how did it affect your thinking?
Identify the User Group. Who are you designing for? Clearly define your target user group using a mix of the following characteristics:
Demographics: Age, income level, occupation, education, family structure.
Psychographics: Lifestyle, values, attitudes, behaviors.
Geographics: Where do they live? Consider how the region, city, or neighborhood, shaped by climate, culture, and local trends, impacts their daily routines, preferences, and sustainability choices.
Behavioral traits: Usage patterns, purchasing behaviors, decision-making habits.
Your goal is to create a vivid picture of the user’s world so your sustainability solution is designed with their context, motivations, and challenges in mind.
Empathize with User Pain Points. Briefly describe one or two barriers this group might face when trying to reduce their environmental impact in this area.
Generate Creative Ideas
Propose three ideas to address the challenge.
Use a brainstorming technique (e.g., SCAMPER, mind mapping, rapid ideation) and explain how it helped you generate your ideas.
Important: Your ideas must be original and not replicate existing products, services, or widely implemented solutions. Think creatively about what hasn’t been done yet—or how something could be reimagined in a new context. Avoid suggesting ideas already on the market or commonly adopted.
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