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15.356

Lead User Innovation Methods

4-0-5 units · Graduate

Explains both the theory behind lead user innovation development methods, and how they can be profitably used in practice. Covers lead user searches, internet-based crowdsourcing, design by customers using innovation toolkits, and more. Includes visits from industry experts who present cases that illustrate the art required to implement each method.

Spring 2012 · How to Develop Breakthrough Products and Services

Firms must develop major innovations to prosper, but they don't know how to. However, recent research into the innovation process has made it possible to develop breakthroughs systematically. _15.356 How to Develop Breakthrough Products and Services_ explores several practical idea generation development methods. To convey the art required to implement each of these methodologies, experts are invited to present real cases to the class.

Readings

Spring 2004 · How to Develop "Breakthrough" Products and Services

Topics

  • Who Develops Breakthrough New Products and Services - Users or Manufacturers?
  • Systematic Generation of Ideas for “Breakthrough” New Products and Services - the “Lead User Method”
  • Finding out What Users Really Need: The “Sticky Information” and “Learning by Doing” Problems
  • Systematic Generation of Incremental Improvements to Existing Products and Services
  • “Brainstorming” and Creativity Training Techniques Lecturer: Jeff Mauzy, Principal, Synectics, Inc. Cambridge, MA
  • The MIT Media Lab Approach: “Build It and They Will Come.” Lecturer: Joe Paradiso, MIT Media Lab
  • Determining Average Users’ Needs Ethnographically and Then Developing Solutions Lecturer: Dr. Harry West, VP, Design Continuum
  • Why Users Share Innovations with Each Other and with Manufacturers: Informal Know-How Trading, Collective Invention and Voluntary Revealing
  • Toolkits for User Innovation Lecturer: John Wright, International Flavors and Fragrances
  • User Innovation Communities - No Manufacturer Required
  • Resistance to Adopting Radically New Innovations - Even in Firms that “Want To”

Readings

  • LEC #: 1 · TOPICS: Who Develops Breakthrough New Products and Services - Users or Manufacturers? · READINGS: von Hippel, Eric. “Overview” and “Users as Innovators.” Chapters 1 and 2 in The Sources of Innovation . Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN: 0-19-504085-6.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 2 · TOPICS: Systematic Generation of Ideas for “Breakthrough” New Products and Services - the “Lead User Method” · READINGS: Brief videos on the lead user method in practice, available to students on the Sloan class server.
    Reading assignment
  • von Hippel, Eric, Stefan Thomke, and Mary Sonnack. “Creating Breakthroughs at 3M.” Harvard Business Review (Sept-Oct 1999): 3-9. Reprint No. 99510.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 3 · TOPICS: Finding out What Users Really Need: The “Sticky Information” and “Learning by Doing” Problems · READINGS: von Hippel, Eric. “Sticky Information and the Locus of Problem Solving: Implications for Innovation.” Management Science 40, no. 4 (Apr 1994): 429-439.
    Reading assignment
  • von Hippel, Eric, and Marcie Tyre. “How ‘Learning by Doing’ is Done: Problem Identification in Novel Process Equipment.” Research Policy (Jan 1995): 1-12.
    Listed reading
  • Traditional Marketing Research Concept Generation Techniques Dahan, Ely, and John Hauser. “Product Development - Managing a Dispersed Process.” MIT Sloan School of Management working paper, 2003: 9-25.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 5 · TOPICS: “Brainstorming” and Creativity Training Techniques Lecturer: Jeff Mauzy, Principal, Synectics, Inc. Cambridge, MA · READINGS: Gordon, William. “The Operational Mechanisms.” Chapter 2 in Synectics, the Development of Creative Capacity . Collier Books, 1961: 34-56. ISBN: 0060324309.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 6 · TOPICS: The MIT Media Lab Approach: “Build It and They Will Come.” Lecturer: Joe Paradiso, MIT Media Lab · READINGS: Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. “The Flow of Creativity.” Chapter 5 in Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention . HarperCollins Publishers, 1996. ISBN: 0-06-017133-2.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 7 · TOPICS: Determining Average Users’ Needs Ethnographically and Then Developing Solutions Lecturer: Dr. Harry West, VP, Design Continuum · READINGS: Leonard, Dorothy, and Jeffrey F. Rayport. “Spark Innovation through Empathic Design.” Harvard Business Review (Nov-Dec 1997). Reprint No. 97606.
    Reading assignment
  • LEC #: 8 · TOPICS: Why Users Share Innovations with Each Other and with Manufacturers: Informal Know-How Trading, Collective Invention and Voluntary Revealing · READINGS: Allen, Robert C. “Collective Invention.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 4, no. 1 (Mar 1983): 1-24.
    Reading assignment
  • Schrader, Stephan. “Informal Technology Transfer Between Firms: Cooperation Through Information Trading.” Research Policy 20 (1991): 153-170.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 9 · TOPICS: Toolkits for User Innovation Lecturer: John Wright, International Flavors and Fragrances · READINGS: Brand, Stewart. “‘Nobody Cares What You Do In There’: The Low Road.” Chapter 3 in How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built. Viking Penguin, 1994: 24-33. ISBN: 0-670-83515-3.
    Reading assignment
  • Thomke, Stefan, and Eric von Hippel. Customers as Innovators: A New Way to Create Value . _Harvard Business Review (_Apr 2002): 74-81. Reprint No. R0304F.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 10 · TOPICS: User Innovation Communities - No Manufacturer Required · READINGS: Franke, Nik, and Sonali Shah. “How Communities Support Innovative Activities: An Exploration of Assistance and Sharing Among End-Users.” Research Policy 32 (2003): 157-178.
    Reading assignment
  • von Hippel, Eric. “Innovation by User Communities: Learning from Open Source Software.” MIT Sloan Management Review 42, 4 (Summer 2001): 82-86. Reprint No. 4248.
    Listed reading
  • LEC #: 11 · TOPICS: Resistance to Adopting Radically New Innovations - Even in Firms that “Want To” · READINGS: Groopman, Jerome. “Annals of Medicine: The Reeve Effect.” The New Yorker , Nov 2003, 82-93.
    Reading assignment
  • Morrison, Elting E. “Gunfire at Sea.” Chapter 2 in Men, Machines and Modern Times . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1966. ISBN: 0-262-13025-4.
    Listed reading

Prerequisites & course information

Prereq: None G (Spring; second half of term) Not offered regularly; consult department 4-0-5 units

Sources