Can experienced designers learn from new tools? A case study of idea generation in a professional engineering team

Abstract

Generating novel ideas is a challenging part of engineering design, especially when the design task has been undertaken for an extended period of time. How can experienced designers develop new ideas for familiar problems? A tool called Design Heuristicsprovides strategies that support engineers in considering more, and more different, concepts during idea generation. Design Heuristics have been shown to help novice engineers create a set of more diverse and creative candidate concepts. In this case study, we extended this approach to a group of professional engineers who had worked on a specific product line for many years. In a workshop format, a small group of engineers worked with the heuristics in two separate sessions and generated ideas collaboratively. Video recordings were analyzed to reveal how the heuristics were used to stimulate new designs for their product line. We found that Design Heuristics bring order in ideas and elaboration on ideas, perhaps through coordinating effort on idea evaluation, increasing capacity to improve the ideas of others, and facilitating interaction between participants. This case study shows using Design Heuristics can assist even expert engineers to increase the variety of concepts generated, resulting in a larger set of ideas to consider. Keywords engineering design, idea generation, teamwork in design Disciplines Industrial and Product Design Comments This is a manuscript of an article from Can experienced designers learn from new tools? A case study of idea generation within a professional engineering teamGenerating novel ideas is a challenging part of engineering design, especially when the design task has been undertaken for an extended period of time. How can experienced designers develop new ideas for familiar problems? A tool called Design Heuristics provides strategies that support engineers in considering more, and more different, concepts during idea generation. Design Heuristics are strategies for idea generation based on empirical analyses of idea generation from professional and student engineers and industrial designers working on a wide variety of product designs. Design Heuristics have been shown to help novice engineers create a set of more diverse and creative candidate concepts. In this case study, we extended this approach to a group of professional engineers who had worked on a specific product line for many years. In a workshop format, a small group of engineers worked with the heuristics in two separate sessions, and generated ideas collaboratively. Video recordings were analyzed to reveal how the heuristics were used to stimulate new designs for their product line. This case study shows using Design Heuristics can assist even expert engineers to increase the variety of concepts generated, resulting in a larger set of ideas to consider.

The Absence of a Creative Focus in the Conventional Engineering Design Process: Identifying Research Opportunities to Address This

“…Examples of such literature include the following: Kukushkin and Churlyaeva [41] present an interesting case study, discussing possible reasons for a lack of technological creativity in Russia; Lin [42] presents research on the influence of individuality relatedness and cognitive flexibility on team creativity in an engineering context; Eckert et al [43] use a case study to investigate the effect of an averseness to risk on creativity in engineering design, and concludes that "the emphasis on reliable and repeatable processes causes creativity to be displaced backwards into R&D and forwards into 'emergency innovation' during integration"; Jagodzinski et al [44] use case study research to demonstrate "the adverse effect of organisational and technological change on the creativity of design engineers"; Wang [45] investigates factors influencing the adoption and use of creativity techniques by individuals, specifically in an organisational context, with the aim of informing the use of these techniques in an engineering context; Chakrabarti [46] analyses biographical information of a number of eminent engineering designers to identify the common influences and factors that are likely to have led to their success; and Yilmaz et al [47] present a tool (Design Heuristics) aimed at supporting engineers in considering a larger number of diverse concepts during the idea generation phase of design.…”

The Impact of Teaming and Cognitive Style on Student Perceptions of Design Ideation Outcomes

“…Other methods derived from brainstorming vary: brainwriting 24 allows team members to generate solutions in a written format and share the ideas anonymously, while the nominal group technique 25 provides facilitation to rank each other's ideas after a brainstorming or a brainwriting activity. These three methods rely heavily on the notion that an environment in which ideas are allowed to flow freely will result in more creative output, compared to other systematic approaches to ideation that would facilitate a more structured environment to force the team to stay on track 26 .…”

Case Studies of Problem Exploration Processes in Engineering Design

“…48 Recent work argues that heuristic use is highly advantageous in most situations; [49][50][51] more specifically, in the idea generation phase of design. 47,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58] Behavioral research also shows that experts utilize heuristics effectively, and that heavy use of heuristics distinguishes experts from novices. 59 Some research even suggests that heuristics can sometimes lead to optimal solutions when they are focused on key variables in the problem space.…”