Business News

Océ designer highlights importance of collective thinking in PhD thesis

Thursday 13. September 2012 - Research extends body of knowledge on design, visualization and team cognition in new product development projects

Océ designer Guido Stompff highlights the importance of collective thinking and the facilitating role of designers in New Product Development (NPD) projects in his PhD thesis, which he defended at the Delft University of Technology on 11 September 2012. This research underlines the value that Océ, an international leader in digital document management and a Canon Group company, places on understanding and optimizing the multidisciplinary process by which complex new products are developed and brought to market.
Teams need to “think collectively”
“Traditionally, the emphasis in NPD projects is put on aspects like communication, shared understanding and use of a common language,” Stompff explains. “My research indicates that NPD teams need to go much further than these aspects alone. Team members have to learn to think collectively, a process I refer to as ‘team cognition’. This is the binding mechanism through which the activities of the team are aligned and coordinated into a seamless whole: a product. It is how team members interact and deal with the inevitable changes as the world turns during the project.”
Designers help to visualize the desired outcome
As members of multidisciplinary NPD teams, designers play an important role in building and facilitating collective thinking and team cognition, Stompff found. One way they do this is by creating vivid images of the intended system. These images provide valuable anchors for other specialists on the team in visualizing the desired development outcome.
Bridging multidisciplinary boundaries
In addition, designers can – often unknowingly – help to bridge the multidisciplinary boundaries that normally form a barrier to the transfer of knowledge and ideas. These barriers, which typically prevent team members from understanding each other’s language and practice, exist between the hardware and software disciplines, and between marketing and R&D. Through their expressive language, understandable to all, designers can help interpret the work of others and translate it into the intended project outcome.
Establishing “joint practice”
A key factor in the NPD process is establishing and developing a “joint practice” – activities and experiences that are shared by all team members. This goes much further than conceptual thinking alone. It involves “hands-on” aspects such as interacting with tangible objects like prototypes, exploring potential solutions and taking part in specific events like customer trials.
Importance of interacting with tangible objects
Guido Stompff has a number of recommendations for organizations engaged in high-tech, multidisciplinary NPD projects. “First of all, innovation is often a new concept. Innovation typically arises through interaction between specialists, because when their knowledge is combined new ideas arise that no-one thought of before. Enabling effective collective thinking is therefore vital for high-tech organizations. Bridging the boundaries that normally separate the various specialists is a pool of constant and valuable innovations that can change the rules of the game. In order to generate optimal results, especially when team members are based all over the world, it’s vital to establish mechanisms for them to collaborate effectively.”
Developing compelling and expressive imagery
“Most of us tend to believe that communication is key if we want to align and coordinate what we do,” Stompff concludes. “Without dismissing the importance of communication, the crucial aspect is developing a joint practice. Consider prototypes accessible by all, or usability testing, as a team effort. The value of tangible objects is underestimated, even though being creative with them often sparks unconventional ideas. In addition, designers have an important role in facilitating and supporting the overall NPD process by developing compelling and expressive representations that help other team members to ‘see’ the intended project outcome.”