Design thinking as practical approach for boundary objects creation among non-designer engineers in idea generation

• Designers’ creativity is nowadays targeted towards creating opportunities for creative collaboration among different people. We introduce design methods as a mediating process and the produced artefact as a boundary object between different stakeholders. This paper seeks the answer to the explorative qualitative research question: how to help non-designers make sense of design methods applied in their own context? We suggest that design thinking is a way to make the boundary object concept tangible. The data has been collected from workshop observations and survey questionnaires among non-designer engineers from industry. The research was conducted between 2009-2010. This paper is multi-disciplinary, based on studies in innovation management, knowledge management and utilization of design processes in industrial management. The concepts of the boundary object is introduced in the conceptual part of the paper. Even though design is widely seen as an integrative discipline it is still searching for its autonomy as an academic discipline. The ability of design to communicate with established disciplines such as economics or engineering on an equal basis remains challenging. This paper combines design practice with more familiar theories for managers, those of innovation management and organizational learning. We suggest collaborative processes based on design thinking methods to make the boundary object concept more tangible. The value that design may provide is that people should be able to benefit from more efficient use of their tacit and embodied knowledge in contexts where this kind of knowledge is not often recognized.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik med samhällsvetenskaplig inriktning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Information Systems, Social aspects (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

idea generation

boundary object

design thinking

art-based initiative

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)