Abstract
The Front-end of Innovation (FEI) is the innovation process phase where new products are defined prior to development. The outcome of this process is of great importance for the innovation and design phases that come after the FEI (Backman et al., 2008). The FEI is a lightweight process with a huge impact on the New Product Development (NPD) process that follows the FEI. Still, the FEI is considered a difficult to manage process, both in industry and academia. Although FEI is mainly considered a strategic process, it could benefit from a more design driven approach where divergent thinking is implemented on different levels throughout the innovation process. The results of this research provide more clarity on the concept of exploration and exploitation in the FEI and point at possible improvements in the approach of the FEI, starting from a model where abstraction levels are clearly defined and possible sub-phases can guide the approach to search field generation and idea generation. That way, the early phases can be approached as a creative activity where both divergent and convergent thinking are involved, and where the process can be adapted to the specific context.
Keywords
Front-end of Innovation, design methodology, exploration and exploitation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.072
Citation
Jacoby, A.(2013) Adapting the Front-end of Innovation to its context: a methodological approach, in Reitan, J.B., Lloyd, P., Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Digranes, I., & Lutnæs, E. (eds.), DRS // Cumulus: Design Learning for Tomorrow, 14-17 May, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.072
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Adapting the Front-end of Innovation to its context: a methodological approach
The Front-end of Innovation (FEI) is the innovation process phase where new products are defined prior to development. The outcome of this process is of great importance for the innovation and design phases that come after the FEI (Backman et al., 2008). The FEI is a lightweight process with a huge impact on the New Product Development (NPD) process that follows the FEI. Still, the FEI is considered a difficult to manage process, both in industry and academia. Although FEI is mainly considered a strategic process, it could benefit from a more design driven approach where divergent thinking is implemented on different levels throughout the innovation process. The results of this research provide more clarity on the concept of exploration and exploitation in the FEI and point at possible improvements in the approach of the FEI, starting from a model where abstraction levels are clearly defined and possible sub-phases can guide the approach to search field generation and idea generation. That way, the early phases can be approached as a creative activity where both divergent and convergent thinking are involved, and where the process can be adapted to the specific context.