Guiding New Product Idea Generation

Abstract

The creation of innovative ideas is the initial step in entrepreneurial practice and venture management. As the management of technology is now on the priority agenda of higher education institutions, there is a need to develop pedagogic schemes for idea generation. Despite its importance, the idea generation process is hard to systematize or to standardize, since it is by nature an ill-defined and relatively unstructured problem. In this article, the author presents a systematic scheme for idea generation, comprising the additive, subtractive, change, substitutive, converse and concurrent approaches. The proposed set of approaches is by no means exhaustive and the approaches are complementary to each other rather than mutually exclusive. Although the scheme is a general-purpose one applicable to all industrial/technical sectors, sector-specific guidelines are suggested, based on a statistical analysis of successful new product development cases. The proposed scheme was originally developed and practised in an engineering school to enrich management-oriented courses and to foster an entrepreneurial spirit in prospective engineers. Here, in an attempt to enhance the linkage between the academic and industrial settings, sector-based teamwork and consultation with real-world experts are emphasized.