hogeschool van amsterdam interactieve media creative product development hoorcollege marketing blok...

Hogeschool van Amsterdam Interactieve Media

Creative product development

Hoorcollege marketing blok 2 week 3


Learning goals

By the end of the colleges and reading you should:

Understand why new product development is important to organizations

Know the stages of a NPD process Understand some of the barriers to creative thinking Be aware of some of the tools available to help creative

thinking


Agenda

Why is NPD important to organizations

The NPD process

Creativity and NPD

Barriers to creativity

Summary


Why is NPD important to organizations?


1. The marketing environment creates pressure to innovate


2. Products have a limited life(A “product lifecycle”)

The “classic” product lifecycle


So new products maintain sales and profit


So NPD is the lifeblood of most organizations

It helps maintains profitability

It allows them to stay at least one step ahead of their competitors

It ensures customer needs are being met

And it is often part of their image


Successful new product development is usually based on a process


Creativity essential to NPD

To develop remarkable products organizations must… Generate remarkable ideas

and Capture these ideas

This requires creativity


One view of creativity and the barriers to achieving it


What is creativity?

One definition of creativity might be that it is: the ability to think of original solutions to problems

Creativity involves creating new ideas by associating existing ideas in new ways to generate alternatives

The advantage of this definition is that creativity is not about being an “artist” You can be a creative marketer, programmer, parent or

accountant


Barriers to creativity


The creative process


What’s the problem?

Creativity is a process that involves Understanding the problem - Problem definition Generating possible solutions - Divergent thinking Selecting the best solutions - Convergent (convergerend)

thinking

We are all able to do this, however, we make assumptions and have habits of thought that prevent us from doing so These assumptions and habits can be broken into 8 issues


8 barriers to creativity

1. I am not creative

2. Creativity is all about inspiration

3. I cannot generate good ideas

4. I already know the problem

5. I already know the solution (or know how to work it out)

6. We live in the real world

7. I am an expert

8. Focus on what is


1. I am not creative

Negative thinking Often reinforced at school (especially if you are not

“artistic”)

Creativity is not about painting or drawing it is about thinking and associating existing ideas to create new ones If you dream, solve problems or have ambitions, then you

are creative

Lose the negative thinking Say to yourself “I am creative”, then relax and let the ideas

flow


2. The “romantic notion”: Creativity is all about inspiration

Creativity can come from inspiration, but in reality this is rare

Being creative involves Practice Enjoyment and having a sense of fun Using tools to help the process Having the willingness to try and daring to fail

"Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done

all of his or her homework.”

Thomas A. Edison (attributed)


3. Most of my ideas are rubbish

Again negative thinking

Creativity is a process and an important stage is generating lots of ideas

Most of these will be rubbish, but if you work at it a few of them will have the potential to be good

The moral here is don’t give up Even geniuses have bad ideas

“God does not play dice” Albert Einstein Edison’s wax phonograph


4. I know the problem

This is a barrier to creativity because it stops you thinking about what the real problem is You make assumptions about what the problem is

Sometimes it is important to redefine the problem PIN automaats were introduced by banks as a result of

surveys that showed that customers wanted banks to open longer hours and in weekends

The banks worked out the cost and realized this wasn’t worth it

Someone then redefined the problem from “how can we stay open longer and still make a profit” to “why do our customers want us to stay open longer”


Example

A donkey is tied to a rope 2m long, there is food 3m away. How can the donkey get to the food without biting through or untying the rope?

A man in a black car is driving on a blackened road without street lights, when a black cat walks out in front of him. He still manages to stop the car without hitting the black cat. How is this possible?


Answers

The rope is only tied to the donkey!

It is day light :-)


5. I know the answer (or can work it out easily)

Which line is longer?


Answer

If you have seen this problem before, then you are likely to say they are both the same and they look different because of an optical illusion

In fact the answer here is B (try measuring them) This is in fact a different problem with a different answer


The problem here is again assumptions

Because you think you know the answer, you do not actually think about other solutions You jump to conclusions, which is an enemy of creativity

When trying to think creatively you should not assume that you know the answer already If you think you do, write it down and then explore other

solutions too


6. We live in the real world

The Gemeente Amsterdam is planning to open a multimedia tourist attraction As IAM students you have been asked to generate ideas

for this solution Your first task is to think about the opening hours

With the people around you try to think about as many possible opening hours as you can in 2 minutes Aim for at least 6


What have you got?

How about these? Only if there are at least 20 people in the queue Only if everyone is wearing red Only if half the queue is under 10 years old The first 15 minutes of the hour on Sundays Only on the full moon Only if there is an R in the month If someone in the group is from Brazil Etc.


The “real world” solution is not necessarily the most creative

The point of the creative process is to generate lots of ideas and then evaluate them Real-world thinking gets in the way of this During divergent thinking there are no bad ideas

You judge them later during the convergent thinking


7. I’m an expert

Expertise is a very important thing However, in creativity it can get in the way

It can cause you to forget to define the problem It can cause you to jump to conclusions and not do the

divergent thinking


The Paris Metro map

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.


The London Underground map


Sometimes an non-expert has better ideas

The London Underground map was designed by Harry Beck an electrical draftsman, not a map-maker He realized that geographical accuracy was not important

when you are underground

Being an expert can sometimes be a problem During idea generation try to forget your expert

assumptions and listen to non-experts, they can have more original ideas.


8. Focus on what is

Sometimes we focus on what is presented to us We see what is and we miss what things could be

To be creative we have to play with what is and see what it could be “Child-like” play is a useful tool


What are the next three numbers in this sequence?

1 8 15 22 29

5 12 19

Answer


Why?

1 8 15 22 29

Mon18

15 22 29

If there were 31 days in this month then the answer is 5 12 19


Thinking about what could be is essential to creative thinking

When thinking creatively it is important to think about what could be not just what is Child-like play and not judging are important tools


Guidelines for thinking creatively

1. Go quantity not quality at first

2. When generating ideas do not judge or evaluate them

3. Capture all ideas: write everything down or record them somehow (PCs have microphones and recording software)

4. Have an objective: aim to generate lots of ideas to solve a particular problem

5. Enjoy half answers: sometimes with a bit of time they can be the best - so capture them and then wait for a while

6. Play with ideas and have fun

7. Relax

8. Use creativity tools


Creative tactics

1. Try to rephrase the problem or issue

2. Look at answers that don’t help and ask why not?

3. Keep asking questions (e.g. what is the real problem, why doesn’t this work, what problems are similar to this?)

4. Look at the problem from another’s perspective (the target customer, your tutor, your father, a doctor, a person driving a car etc.)

hogeschool van amsterdam interactieve media creative product development hoorcollege marketing blok...

Documents

creativity slide

creativity summary slide

creative thinking slide

creative process slide

profit slide

accountant slide

image slide

inspiration creativity