Design Thinking

Chapter 8Integrating Design into the Fuzzy Front End of the Innovation Process

Giulia Calabretta

Delft University of Technology

Gerda Gemser

RMIT University

Introduction

Managers recognize the importance of the fuzzy front end (FFE) for successful innovation (Reid & De Brentani, 2004). During the FFE, the innovation team identifies and selects interesting innovation opportunities, generates and selects ideas addressing these opportunities, and integrates the most promising ideas into product or service concepts for further development (Koen, Bertels, & Kleinschmidt, 2014).

A well-managed FFE will result in better innovation outcomes. However, the FFE remains a challenging step in the innovation process, due to its intrinsic uncertainty and the need to make choices based on incomplete information. Design professionals are particularly helpful for dealing with FFE challenges. Design professionals combine a sense of commercial purpose with a positive attitude toward change, uncertainty, and intuitive choices. Indeed, companies increasingly recognize the important role design professionals can play in the FFE and use them not solely for executing new product/service concepts resulting from the FFE but also for co-creating solutions during the FFE.

In this chapter, we provide guidelines on how design professionals and their practices and tools can help companies overcoming FFE key challenges. These guidelines (and the related examples) are derived from an analysis of prior literature ...