Welcome to the Innovation Design Workshop!
Welcome to the Innovation Design Workshop for Penn State Startup Week 2021!
In this workshop, we will use structured creative problem-solving techniques to design an innovation related to online learning.
Participants will learn how to:
- Use the Idea Space technique to analyze an existing product or market and generate innovative ideas
- Apply de Bono's Six Thinking Hats to evaluate a product innovation for FREE prior to prototyping
- Access entrepreneurship information, services, and resources available from Penn State
- Slides: Innovation Design WorkshopPresentation slides for the Innovation Design Workshop (via Google Slides).
- Worksheet: Innovation Design ProcessDownload this worksheet to use throughout the workshop. The Innovation Design Process worksheet includes fill-in-the-blank fields for the Idea Space and do Bono's Six Hats activities. Save a copy for future use!
Idea Space
Idea Space is a structured innovation design technique. It supports a morphological analysis of a product (or market) by breaking it down into attributes, environment, and general information. Then, values brainstormed for each of these categories are recombined to generate a new idea.
Brainstorm freely during Idea Space! There are no 'wrong' answers. You will combine the best or most promising answers at the end to produce your innovative idea. Remember, even 'outrageous ideas' have a market!
Product / Market: online learning
Attributes: What are the characteristics of online learning systems? What technology is needed?
Environment / Context: Where does online learning happen? Who participates in online learning? When does online learning occur? When could it occur?
Information: What works about online learning? What does not work about online learning? What opportunities exist for online learning?
IDEA: Combine values from the Attributes, Environment / Context, and Information boxes to generate an innovation related to online learning.
Example of Idea Space structured innovation design technique for the product: driveways.
de Bono's Six Thinking Hats
de Bono's Six Thinking Hats is a structured evaluation technique. You can use the Six Thinking Hats to 'test' a product for FREE, even prior to prototyping. The Six Thinking Hats will give you ideas on what might need to be tweaked about your product design, where you need to do more research, or what potential risks and pitfalls you should plan for.
Respond honestly to the prompts for each of de Bono's Six Thinking Hats. Which hat/s do you tend to wear most often? Which hats or perspectives do you need to seek out for honest feedback about your ideas?
White Hat: neutral and objective, concerned with facts and figures. What do I know? What do I need to find out?
Red Hat: a 'gut reaction' from the emotional perspective. How do I feel about this idea?
Black Hat: careful and cautious, the "devil's advocate" hat. What could do wrong?
Yellow Hat: sunny and positive. What works?
Green Hat: associated with fertile growth, creativity, and new ideas. What's new?
Blue Hat: the logistician or 'meta' hat. What should we do next?
Example of de Bono's Six Thinking Hats for the product innovation: green driveways.
Six Thinking Hats image credit: Persimmon Group.
