A Unified Innovation Process Model : A Process Model and Empathy Tool for Engineering Designers and Managers

Leaders in business, engineering and politics consistently preach the need for innovative solutions to solve today's problems and to strengthen the global economy. At the same time, there is relatively little understanding of how people create new concepts during the front-end of innovation. Innovation management research has traditionally been centered around the design process from an economic point of view, whereas engineering research has focused on modeling the path of solution evolution. The research presented combines these two distinct perspectives into a unified model. This model describes how designers gain the insights needed to create novel solutions and how reviewers can have both positive and negative effects on the design process. The supporting research focuses on the largely unacknowledged negative effects. The model is proposed as a possible explanation for the consistent innovative success of companies such as 3M, Google or Genentech. It is also expected to serve as a training tool for managers and designers alike and as an instrumentation map for future research in the fields of both management and design.