Glossary

Terms	Descriptions
Accidental Discovery:	New designs, ideas, and developments resulting from unexpected insight, which can be obtained either internal or external to the organization.
Action centric model	The Action-Centric Perspective is a label given to a collection of interrelated concepts, which are antithetical to The Rational Model. It posits that: 1.designers use creativity and emotion to generate design candidates, 2.the design process is improvised, 3.no universal sequence of stages is apparent – analysis, design and implementation are contemporary and inextricably linked The Action-Centric Perspective is a based on an empiricist philosophy and broadly consistent with the Agile approach and amethodical development.Substantial empirical evidence supports the veracity of this perspective in describing the actions of real designers.
aerodynamic design	It is possible to call aerodynamic a design that uses the shapes which derives from aerodynamics, science which studies the penetration of the air. In the period between 1930 and 1950 aerodynamic design was used to characterise the style of some automobiles. Subsequently it was applied to numerous typologies of objects to communicate the idea of movement. A design that has some aerodynamic elements may, depending on the way in which these come into a relation with the other elements and with one another, define different moods and feelings. Constructiveness, intellectual dynamism, and pragmatism are among those that are preferred by the public and by the authors. In a more generic and wider way, in mass production, aerodynamic styling is applied to a wide range of products as a significant of modernity; these are radios, telephones, computers, stationary items, household appliances, furniture, trainers, and many others.
Analyzer:	A firm that follows an imitative innovation strategy, where the goal is to get to market with an equivalent or slightly better product very quickly once someone else opens up the market, rather than to be first to market with new products or technologies. Sometimes called an imitator or a "fast follower."
Anthropomorphic	Design aspect that relates with the human look In design the term anthropomorphic can be used to describe the appearance of an object in relation to its resemblance to the human body, or part of it. This resemblance determines what is the top, the bottom, the front, the back, and the sides of the object. The look of an object is instinctively related, by those who are watching it, to the look of the human body. Whether one is looking at a precious modern abstract sculpture or at an ordinary ironing tool, the interpretation of what is seen varies according to the directional reading parameters used by the whatcher. As an illustrative example an iron, if seen from behind while presupposing that that is the front, has a look which is different from the one which appears using the opposite reading parameter. The reading parameter may either be free or determined by the way in which the object has been conceived to be used. The look of an object is not necessarily put into relation with the whole human body by the watcher. Sometimes it is read in relation with a part of it like arm, hand, face and so on. The image of an obelisk, for example, can be the symbol of a finger, of a penis, of a leg, and other. The study of the anthropomorphic characteristics of a creation can be used in many field among which are product design, painting, sculpture, web design, and graphic design.
Anticipatory Failure Determination (AFD)	A failure analysis method. In this process, developers start from a particular failure of interest as the intended consequence and try to devise ways to assure that the failure always happens reliably. T hen the developers use that information to develop ways to better identify steps to avoid the failure.
Appearance Prototype	An appearance prototype, or appearance model, is a physical representation of an object that closely simulates the look of a production product. An appearance prototype typically does not function the way a production product would. Instead, moving parts don't actually move, and production materials are simulated with wood, foam, clay or other prototyping materials. Appearance prototypes can be relatively simple, consisting of solid chunks of foam finished and painted to look like the real thing, or they can be more sophisticated, simulating weight, balance, and material properties. Usually, appearance prototypes are 'for show' and are not handled excessively. They are often paired with proof-of-concept prototypes early in product development programs. Slingshot Product Development Group often provides our clients with appearance prototypes for use in trade shows, focus groups, and internal reviews. These prototypes are often critical components in the design decision-making process.
Attribute Testing:	A quantitative market research technique in which respondents are asked to rate a detailed list of product or category attributes on one or more types of scales such as relative importance, current performance, current satisfaction with a particular product or service, for the purpose of ascertaining customer preferences for some attributes over others, to help guide the design and development process. Great care and rigor should be taken in the development of the list of attributes, and it must be neither too long for the respondent to answer comfortably or too short such that it lumps too many ideas together at too high a level.
Awareness:	A measure of the percent of target customers who are aware that the new product exists. Awareness is variously defined, including recall of brand, recognition of brand, recall of key features or positioning.
Blueprint	The blueprint is an operational tool that describes the nature and the characteristics of the service interaction in enough detail to verify, implement and maintain it. It is based on a graphical technique that displays the process functions above and below the line of visibility to the customer: all the touchpoints and the back-stage processes are documented and aligned to the user experience.
Brand design management	In market and brand focused companies the design management focus lies mainly on brand design management. It can be distinguished into corporate brand management and product brand management. In this perspective of design management, the brand is the core, which results in a strong focus on the brand experience, customer touch points, and reliability, recognition, and trust relations. The design, like all brand elements, is strongly driven by the brand vision and strategy.
Brand Development Index (BDI)	A measure of the relative strength of a brandís sales in a geographic area. Computationally, BDI is the percent of total national brand sales that occur in an area divided by the percent of U.S. households that reside in that area.
Breadboard:	A proof-of-concept modeling technique that represents how a product will work, but not how a product will look.
Business design management	Business design management deals with the newly emerging field of integrating design thinking into management. In organization and management theory, design thinking forms part of the Architecture / Design / Anthropology (A/D/A) paradigm, which characterizes innovative, human-centered enterprises. This paradigm also focuses on a collaborative and iterative style of work and an adductive mode of thinking, compared to practices associated with the more traditional Mathematics / Economics / Psychology (M/E/P) management paradigm. Since 2006, the term Business Design is trademarked by the Rotman School of Management, they define business design as the application of design thinking principles to business practice. The designedly way of problem-solving is an integrative way of thinking that is characterized through a deep understanding of the user, creative resolution of tensions, collaborative prototyping and continuous modification and enhancement of ideas and solutions. This approach to problem solving can be applied to all components of business and its management is what business design management is about.
Cannibalization:	That portion of the demand for a new product that comes from the erosion of the demand for (sales of) a current product the firm markets. (See Chapter 34 in The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition).
Category Development Index (CDI):	A measure of the relative strength of a category's sales in a geographic area. Computationally, it is the percent of total national category sales that occur in an area divided by the percent of U.S. households in that area.
Clockspeed:	The evolution rate of different industries. High clockspeed industries, like electronics, see multiple generations of products within short time periods, perhaps even within 12 months. In low clockspeed industries, like the chemical industry, a generation of products may last as long as 5 or even 10 years. It is believed that high clockspeed industries can be used to understand the dynamics of change that will in the long run affect all industries, much l ike fruit flies are used to understand the dynamics of genetic change in a speeded-up genetic environment, due to their short life spans.
Cloud computing	Cloud computing has been defined as the use of a collection of distributed services, applications, information and infrastructure comprised of pools of computer, network, information and storage resources. These components can be rapidly orchestrated, provisioned, implemented and decommissioned using an on-demand utility-like model of allocation and consumption.1 Cloud service delivery models are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
Co-design	Co-design is a philosophy in the American pragmatist tradition, which argues that all people have different ideals and perspectives and that any design process, needs to deal with this. Co-Design traces its roots to Immanuel Kant, who in the Critique of the Pure Reason observed that to put a question one has to have some information or knowledge. Kant called this a priori knowledge. Therefore, the concept of objectivity is regarded to be difficult or even meaningless. William James suggested that the criteria for truth should be "useful", which is a cornerstone in Co-Design thinking.In co-design there is an understanding that all human artifacts are designed and with a purpose. In co-design one tries to include those perspectives that are related to the design in the process. It is generally recognized that the quality of design increases if the stakeholder’s interests are considered in the design process. Co-design is a development of systems thinking, which according to C. West Churchman "begins when first you view the world through the eyes of another."Designers have been moving increasingly closer to the future users of what they design and the next new thing in the changing landscape of design research has become co-designing with your users. However, co-designing is actually not new at all, having taken distinctly different paths in the US and in Europe. The evolution from a user-centered approach to co-designing is changing the roles of the designer, the researcher, and the person formerly known as the 'user'. The implications of this shift for the education of designers and researchers are enormous. The evolution in design research from a user-centered approach to co-designing is changing the landscape of design practice as well, creating new domains of collective creativity. This evolution will support a transformation toward more sustainable ways of living in the future.Designers interpret, and apply user generated evidence and insights to co-create sustainable relationships and concurrently advance systems thinking and workplace information literacy.
Cognitive Modeling:	A method for producing a computational model for how individuals solve problems and perform tasks, which is based on psychological principles. The modeling process outlines the steps a person goes through in solving a particular problem or completing a task, which allows one to predict the time it will take or the types of errors an individual may make. Cognitive models are frequently used to determine ways to improve a user interface to minimize interaction errors or time by anticipating user behavior.
Cognitive Walkthrough:	: Once a model of the steps or tasks a person must go through to complete a task is constructed, an expert can role play the part of a user to cognitively "walk through" the userís expected experience. Results from this walk-through can help make human-product interfaces more intuitive and increase product usability.
Color Study	A color study is an exercise in which a product, interface, room, etc. is shown in a variety of color scheme options. This is a comparative process, intended to enable the client or designer to select color schemes appropriate for the use of the product being created. Within the realm of product design and product development, color studies can be vitally important. The wrong color scheme can make a product seem awkward or out of place in its target market, while the right colors can increase sales. At Slingshot Product Development Group, we often provide our clients with color studies in the form of product renderings or sketches. We also leverage our own knowledge of color theory, and our product development experience, to make color scheme recommendations based on the client's goals.
Computer-Enhanced Creativity:	Using specially-designed computer software that aids in the process of recording, recalling and reconstructing ideas to speed up the new product development process.
Concept Generation:	The processes by which new concepts, or product ideas, are generated. Sometimes also called idea generation or ideation. (See Chapters 15 and 17 in The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition.)
Concept Optimization:	A research approach that evaluates how specific product benefits or features contribute to a conceptís overall appeal to consumers. Results are used to select from the options investigated to construct the most appealing concept from the consumerís perspective.
Concept Screening:	The evaluation of potential new product concepts during the discovery phase of a product development project. Potential concepts are evaluated for their fit with business strategy, technical feasibility, manufacturability, and potential for financial success.
Concept Statement:	: A verbal or pictorial statement of a concept that is prepared for presentation to consumers to get their reaction prior to development.
Concept Study Activity:	: The set of product development tasks in which a concept is given enough examination to determine if there are substantial unkno wns about the market, technology or production process.
Concept Testing:	The process by which a concept statement is presented to consumers for their reactions. These reactions can either be used to permit the developer to estimate the sales value of the concept or to make changes to the concept to enhance its potential sales value.
Conjoint Analysis:	: Conjoint analysis is a market research technique in which respondents are systematically presented with a rotating set of product descriptions, each of which contains a rotating set of attributes and levels of those attributes. By asking re spondents to choose their preferred product and/or to indicate their degree of preference from within each set of options, conjoint analysis can determine the relative contribution to overall preference of each variable and each level. The two key advantages of conjoint analysis over other methods of determining importance are: 1) the variables and levels can be either continuous (e.g. weight) or discreet (e.g. color), and 2) it is just about the only valid market research method for evaluating the role of price, i.e. how much someone would pay for a given feature
Constructive interaction	The constructive interaction is a method based on the observation of a user during his service experience. The user is asked to think out loud while performing a given set of tasks, so that the evaluators could listen to and record his thoughts. If this kind of evaluation takes place with two users interacting with the system simultaneously, the inspectors could obtain a more natural way of thinking aloud and more effective results.
Consumer Panels:	Specially recruited groups of consumers whose longitudinal category purchases are recorded via the scanner systems at stores.
Context	The world the service belongs to. The context is the specific frame in which the service takes place. Exploring and defining the context means setting the project boundaries in terms of limits but also opportunities.
Context panaroma	The context panorama is a visualization of the first service ideas that is produced in order to feed the creative process and orient the following design activities. Each basic idea is visualized through a simple image (one or more than one if necessary). The pictures are presented together with some keywords that support the desired understanding of the message
Contextual Inquiry:	A structured qualitative market research method that uses a combination of techniques from anthropology and journalism. Contextual inquiry is a customer needs discovery process that observes and interviews users of products in their actual environment.
Controlled Store Testing:	A method of test marketing where specialized companies are employed to handle product distribution and auditing rather than using the companyís normal sales force.
Convergent Thinking:	A technique generally performed late in the initial phase of idea generation to help funnel the high volume of ideas created through divergent thinking into a small group or single idea on which more effort and analysis will be focused.
Core Benefit Proposition (CBP):	The central benefit or purpose for which a consumer buys a product. The CBP may come either from the physical good or service, or it may come from augmented dimensions of the product. (see also Value Proposition)
Corporate brand design management	Brand and market focused organizations are concerned with the expression and perception of corporate brand. Corporate design management implements, develops, and maintains the corporate identity or brand. This type of brand management is strongly anchored in the organization to control and influence corporate design activities, the design program play the role of a quality program within many fields of the organization (internal branding). It is strongly linked to strategy, corporate culture, product development, marketing, organizational structure, and technological development. A creative culture, knowledge sharing processes, a strong vision, design leadership, and good work relations support the work of corporate brand management.
corporate design	A corporate design is the official graphical design of the logo and name of a company or institution used on letterheads, envelopes, forms, folders, brochures, etc. The house style is created in such a way that all the elements are arranged in a distintictive design and pattern. This includes dictating what ink pantones should be used in the coloring, and what typefaces. Governments may have corporate designs as well. On June 2, 1999, the German federal cabinet introduced a corporate design for the flag of Germany The term 'corporate design' is ambiguous and is not the name of a specific design profession. Instead, 'corporate' is used here as an adjective. Corporations do have special design needs based on their behaviors. They communicate their mission, objectives, needs, and product information -- with users, clients, or members; with suppliers, distributors, service providers; with the surrounding community and the media; with financial institutions and other corporations, and with the state. They create, acquire, modify, organize and distribute large amounts of information and raw data, as well as goods and services. (Sometimes the goods or services are themselves information. For example, The Yellow Pages, or The New York Times.) A designer whose client is a corporation will include the logo and other elements of the corporate brand as a way to standardize and unify all communication between company and audience, whether in print or online. Scenarios that includes human-computer interactions take place through software and hardware user interfaces that are also branded and designed with the corporate culture in mind. (Examples of user scenarios: update the Web site, transfer funds, document procedures, control security, operate machinery, plan projects, conduct virtual meetings, check inventory, fill an order, or ship a product.) These interactions are increasingly taking place through Web sites, through mobile devices and at dedicated terminals, and may include sound, video, animation and user feedback mechanisms. A savvy designer will create designs that can be adapted to all of these applications.
creative brief	A creative brief is a document used by creative professionals and agencies to develop creative deliverables: visual design, copy, advertising, web sites, etc. The document is usually developed by the requestor (in most cases a marketing team member) and approved by the creative team of designers, writers, and project managers. In some cases, the project's creative brief may need creative director approval before work will commence. The creative brief, consisting of a series of simple questions asked by the creative team and answered by the requestor, becomes the guidepost for the development of the creative deliverable. As with many strategic documents, if the project goes off track referring back to this mutually agreed upon document to see where the divergence began is helpful. Creative briefs can come in many flavors and are usually tailored to the agency or group that is developing the creative deliverable. They know which questions (and answers) are of paramount importance to them in order to deliver a high-quality creative execution. A creative brief may contain: Background — what is the background of the project? Why is it being done? Target audience — what do they already think about this subject? Is there anything that should be avoided? Objectives — what is to be accomplished? How will this be measured and success understood? Single message — what is the one thing to tell the audience? What is the single thing they should remember about the offering? How will they believe what we say? Mandatory elements - mandatory elements such as the client's logo, address, phone number and so forth. Deliverables — what is to be used to give the audience the message? What is the best way or place to reach this audience? Timeline — how soon is this needed? When is it expected to be done? How many rounds (revisions) will this project undergo? Budget — how much can be spent to get this developed? Is there any budget needed to publish/flight the creative? Approvals — who needs to give the "okay"?
Creative Session	A creative session is a meeting specifically for the purpose of exploring new creative territory within a chosen subject matter. Typically, a creative session will include many activities such as brainstorming, problem analysis and dissection, brainsketching, and reverse brainstorming. At Slingshot Product Development Group, we often start projects by inviting the client to join us for a half-day or full-day creative session. We've found that this approach helps to jumpstart programs by getting all the requirements and opportunities on the table before the product design and development process begins.<
Creativity:	An arbitrary harmony, an expected astonishment, a habitual revelation, a familiar surprise, a generous selfishness, an unexpected certainty, a formable stubbornness, a vital triviality, a disciplined freedom, an intoxicating steadiness, a repeated initiation, a difficult delight, a predictable gamble, an ephemeral solidity, a unifying difference, a demanding satisfier, a miraculous expectation, and accustomed amazement." (George M. Prince, The Practice of Creativity, 1970) Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel and appropriate.
Cross-Functional Team:	A team consisting of representatives from the various functions involved in product development, usually including members from all key functions required to deliver a sucessful product, typically including marketing, engineering, manufacturing/operations, finance, purchasing, customer support, and quality. The team is empowered by the departments to represent each functionís perspective in the development process.
Crossing the Chasm:	Making the transition to a mainstream market from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers (sometimes also called innovators or lead adopters). This concept typically applies to the adoption of new, market creating technology-based products and services.
Customer Perceived Value (CPV):	The result of the customerís evaluation of all the benefits and all the costs of an offering as compared to that customerís perceived alternative. It is the basis on which customers decide to buy things.
Customer Value Added Ratio: The ratio of WWPF (worth what paid for) fo	The ratio of WWPF (worth what paid for) for your products to WWPF for your competitorsí products. A ratio above 1 indicates superior value compared to your competitors.
Decision Screens:	Sets of criteria that are applied as checklists or screens at new product decision points. The criteria may vary by stage in the process.
Defenders:	Firms that stake out a product turf and protect it by whatever means, not necessarily through developing new products.
Delphi Processes:	A technique that uses iterative rounds of consensus development across a group of experts to arrive at a forecast of the most probable outcome for some future state.
Derivative Product:	A new product based on changes to an existing product that modifies, refines, or improves some product features without affecting the basic product architecture or platform.
Design for Asia, DFA	When designing a product for manufacture in Asia, it is critical to develop the design direction sufficiently enough to ensure that your design intent is captured correctly. If you send very early concept sketches to an Asian manufacturer, you will likely be surprised with what you get back. You will spend much time explaining what you really meant. Design for Asia (or DFA) level Design is required in order to ensure that design direction and quality control is maintained. For commodity products, it is practically a requirement to manufacture in Asia because the market wants the lowest price. Slingshot Product Development Group has developed an approach that provides you better project results when outsourcing in Asia. In our DFA method, we take the prototype and design process only up to the point where engineering direction is clearly established but the final engineering details are executed by an Asian manufacturer. By balancing our design process for these types of programs, we are able to save you significant development costs, while maintaining control of your development program.
Design for Excellence (DFX):	The systematic consideration of ALL relevant life cycle factors, such as manufacturability, reliability, maintainability, affordability, testability, etc., in the design and development process.
Design for Maintainability (DFMt):	The systematic consideration of maintainability issues over the productís projected life cycle in the design and development process.
Design for Manufacturability (DFM):	The systematic consideration of manufacturing issues in the design and development process, facilitating the fabrication of the productís components and their assembly into the overall product.
Design for the Environment (DFE):	The systematic consideration of environmental safety and health issues over the productís projected life cycle in the design and development process.
Design leadership	Design leadership leads from creation of a vision to changes, innovations, and implementation of creative solutions. It stimulates communication and collaboration through motivation, sets purpose and future direction to achieve long-term objectives.
Design of Experiments (DOE):	A statistical method for evaluating multiple product and process design parameters simultaneously rather than one parameter at a t ime.
Design strategy	Design strategy is a discipline which helps firms determine what to make and do, why do it and how to innovate contextually, both immediately and over the long term. This process involves the interplay between design and business strategy, forming a systematic approach integrating holistic-thinking, research methods used to inform business strategy and strategic planning which provides a context for design. While not always required, design strategy often uses social research methods to help ground the results and mitigate the risk of any course of action. The approach has proved useful for companies in a variety of strategic scenarios. Design strategy can play an integral role in helping to resolve the following common problems: Promoting the adoption of a technology (Example: Toyota designing the hybrid Prius to resemble the conservative Echo instead of making the Prius look high-tech and adventuresome)[verification needed] Identifying the most important questions that a company's products and services should address (Example: John Rheinfrank of Fitch Design showed Kodak that its disposable cameras didn't exist to replace traditional cameras, but instead to meet specific needs, like weddings, underwater photography and others)[verification needed] Translating insights into actionable solutions (Example: Jump Associates helped Target turn an understanding of college students into a dorm room line designed by Todd Oldham) [1] Prioritizing the order in which a portfolio of products and services should be launched (Example: Apple Inc. laid out the iPod+iTunes ecosystem slowly over time, rather than launching all of its pieces at once)[verification needed] Connecting design efforts to an organization's business strategy (Example: Hewlett-Packard's global design division is focused most intently on designs that simplify technology experiences. This leads to lower manufacturing costs at a time when CEO Mark Hurd is pushing for cost-cutting.)[verification needed] Integrating design as a fundamental aspect of strategic brand intent (Example: Tom Hardy, Design Strategist , developed the core brand-design principle ″Balance of Reason & Feeling″ for Samsung Electronics, together with rational and emotional attributes, to guide design language within a comprehensive brand-design program that inspired differentiation and elevated the company's global image.[2] [3] [4] [5]
Design thinking	A discipline uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Leaders now look to innovation as a principal source of differentiation and competitive advantage; they would do well to incorporate design thinking into all phases of the process.
Design to Cost:	A development methodology that treats costs as an independent design parameter, rather than an outcome. Cost objectives are established based on customer affordability and competitive constraints.
Design Validation:	Product tests to ensure that the product or service conforms to defined user needs and requirements. These may be performed on working prototypes or using computer simulations of the finished product.
Development Change Order (DCO):	A document used to implement changes during product development. It spells out the desired change, the reason for the change and the consequences to time to market, development cost, and to the cost of producing the final product. It gets attached to the projectís charter as an addendum.
Digital Mock-Up:	An electronic model of the product created with a solids modeling program. Mock ups can be used to check for interface interferences and component incompatibilities. Using a digital mock-up can be less expensive than building physical prototypes.
Discontinuous Innovation:	Previously unknown products that establish new consumption patterns and behavior changes. Examples include microwave ovens and the cellular phones.
Discourse	Discourse refers to the totality of codified linguistic usages attached to a given type of social practice. (E.g. legal discourse, medical discourse, religious discourse.) According to the power theory of Michel Foucault and the local knowledge discourse of Clifford Geertz, designers need an appropriate structure, which is design power or ability to drive social innovation process. Relatively, the construction of knowledge platforms and organizational design is much more important than the actual design outputs. Design will use a more tensional structural form and social identity power (innovation networks, design networks, social networks, etc.) to participate in community social innovation, making web-based and sustainable harmonious community possible.
Discrete Choice Experiment	A quantitative market research tool used to model and predict customer buying decisions.
Distributed governance	The social business hive mind makes decisions and receives continuous reinforcement through business interactions; a social inclination resides within a company’s culture and tempers planning, decision-making, and work output. Employees approach works with a social and collaborative mindset; customers expect participation and engagement; suppliers anticipate optimized and efficient process towards common goals.
Divergent Thinking:	Technique performed early in the initial phase of idea generation that expands thinking processes to generate, record and recall a high volume of new or interesting ideas.
Ecological design	Ecological design was defined by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan as "any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes."[1] Ecological design is an integrative, ecologically responsible design discipline. It helps connect scattered efforts in green architecture, sustainable agriculture, ecological engineering, ecological restoration and other fields. Ecological design is both a profoundly hopeful vision and a pragmatic tool. By placing ecology in the foreground of design, it provides specific ways of minimizing energy and material use, reducing pollution, preserving habitat, restoring ecosystems, inventing landscapes, and fostering community, health and beauty.[2] Ecological design provides a new way of thinking about human interventions into the natural world by going beyond many streams of environmentalism, which often merely call for a minimization of human impacts on the natural world. Ecological design thus can be defined as a careful and deliberate form of human intervention with the natural environment that attempts to improve natural conditions or reverse environmentally destructive impacts.[3]
Ecosystem	A robust, integrated network of nodes and connections when thinking of a business as a social ecosystem, it consists of a network of independent nodes and their interconnections. Internal departments, customer segments, and local area networks can all be thought of as independent nodes at the micro level. At a higher level, businesses function as part of a system comprised of dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of smaller ecosystems. Addressing the business as a series of interconnected, yet independent nodes is vital to an effective business design.
Empathic Design:	A 5-step method for uncovering customer needs and sparking ideas for new concepts. The method involves going to a customerís work site, watching as he or she performs functions associated with the customer needs your firm wants to solve, and then debriefing the customer about what they did, why they did those things, the problems they encountered as they were trying to perform the function, and what worked well. By spending time with customers, the team develops empathy for the problems customers encounter trying to perform their daily tasks. See also Customer Site Visits.
Engineering Design:	A function in the product creation process where a good or service is configured and specific form is decided.
Envisioning	Represent the service idea using techniques that illustrate all the components of the service, including physical elements, interaction modalities, logical links and temporal sequences.   Envisioning is the process of imagining what might be, of previewing the service solution, of making its future features more tangible by translating them in visual interpretations or representations. The tools that are used for envisioning allow people to show, externalize and share what is in their minds: making the ideas visible in order to understand and explain them better. The hardest think concerning envisioning during a process of service design is that there is often the need to communicate both the inner mechanism of the process and the immaterial components of the experience (which are per se difficult to represent) to several actors who are not supposed to be familiar with any technical language or representation technique. In this sense the use and the development of adequate visual tools is a great opportunity but also a (sfida) for designers.
Ethnography:	A descriptive, qualitative market research methodology for studying the customer in relation to his or her environment. Researchers spend time in the field observing customers and their environment to acquire a deep understanding of the lifestyles or cultures as a basis for better understanding their needs and problems. (See Customer Site Visits and Chapter 15 in The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition.)
Evidencing	The methodology called evidencing, pioneered by the UK firm Livework, involves creating objects and images exploring the way a proposed design innovation will feel and work through its touchpoints. Evidencing means taking the ideas and animate them as tangible evidence of the future. This kind of “archeology of the future” enables the designers to make early qualitative judgments about the implication of the design solution they’re conceiving.
Excursion:	An idea generation technique to force discontinuities into the idea set. Excursions consist of three generic steps: 1. Step away from the task; 2. Generate disconnected or irrelevant material; 3. Force a connection back to the task.
Extrusion:	A manufacturing process that utilizes a softened billet of material that is forced through a shape (or die) to allow for a continuous form, much like spaghetti.
Failure Mode Effects Analysis (F MEA):	A technique used at the development stage to determine the different ways in which a product may fail, and evaluating the consequences of each type of failure.
Flexible Gate:	A permissive or permeable gate in a Stage-Gate™ process that is l ess rigid than the traditional "go-stop-recycle" gate. Flexible gates are useful in shortening time-to-market. A permissive gate is one where the next stage is authorized although some work in the almost-completed stage has not yet been finished. A permeable gate is one where some work in a subsequent stage is authorized before a substantial amount of work in the prior stage is completed. (Robert G. Cooper, JPIM, 1994)
Functional Pipeline Management:	Optimizing the flow of projects through all functional areas in the context of the companyís priorities.
Functional Schematic:	A schematic drawing that is made up of all of the functional elements in a product. It shows the productís functions as well as how material, energy, and signal flow through the product.
Fuzzy Front End:	The messy "getting started" period of product developmen t, when the product concept is still very fuzzy. Preceding the more formal product development process, it generally consists of three tasks: strategic planning, concept generation, and, especially, pre-technical evaluation. These activities are often chaotic, unpredictable, and unstructured. In comparison, the subsequent new product development process is typically structured, predictable, and formal, with prescribed sets of activities, questions to be answered, and decisions to be made. (See Chapter 6 of The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition.)
Fuzzy Gates:	Fuzzy gates are conditional or situational, rather than full "go" decisions. Their purpose is to try to balance timely decisions and risk management. Conditional go decisions are "go," subject to a task being successfully completed by a future, but specified, date. Situational gates have some criteria that must be met for all projects, and others that are only required for some projects. For example, a new-to-the world product may have distribution feasibility criteria that a line extension will not have. (R.G. Cooper, JPIM, 1994) (See also Flexible Gates)
Games	Activities that could have educational or social or entertaining aim. The game is based on the objective that the participants have to reach through the game itself and on a set of rules determining what players can or cannot do during the game.
Gamma / In-Market Testing: Not to be confused with Test Marketing (whi	Not to be confused with Test Marketing (which is an overall determination of marketability and financial viability), the In-Market Test is an evaluation of the product itself and its marketing plan through placement of the product in a field setting. Another way of thinking about this is to view it as an in-market test using a real distribution channel in a constrained geographic area or two, for a specific period of time, with advertising, promotion and all associated elements of the marketing plan working. In addition to an evaluation of the features and benefits of the product, the components of the marketing plan are tested in a real world environment to make sure they deliver the d esired results. The key element being evaluated is the synergy of the product and the marketing plan, not the individual components. The Market test should deliver a more accurate forecast of dollar and unit sales volume, as opposed to the approximate range estimates produced earlier in the Discovery phase. It should also produce diagnostic information on any facet of the proposed launch that may need adjustment, be it product, communications, packaging, positioning, or any other element of the launch plan.
Gamma Test:	A product use test in which the developers measure the extent to which the item meets the needs of the target custo mers, solves the problems(s) targeted during development, and leaves the customer satisfied.
Garage Bill Scheduling:	A scheduling tool that details every task, no matter how small, that must be completed to achieve a deliverable.
Gate:	The point at which a management decision is made to allow the product development project to proceed to the next stage, to recycle back into the current stage to better complete some of the tasks, or to terminate. The number of gates varies by company. (See Chapter 21 in The PDMA HandBook 2nd Edition).
Gatekeepers:	The group of managers who serve as advisors, decision-makers and investors in a Stage-Gate™ process. Using established business criteria, this multifunctional group reviews new product opportunities and project progress, and allocates resources accordingly at each gate. This group is also commonly called a Product Approval Committee or Portfolio Management Team.
Graceful Degradation:	When a product, system or design slides into defective operation a little at a time, while providing ample opportunity to take corrective prev entative action or protect against the worst consequences of failure before it happens. The opposite is catastrophic failure.
Heuristic evalution	The heuristic evaluation is a method of inspection of the service usability based on a predefined set of criteria that the evaluators follow during the analysis. One or more experts who use the heuristics as a guide should carry on this evaluation. It gives a quick feedback and a lot of good suggestions for the improvement of the whole project.
Hivemind	A primary social calibration As social tools and functionality are adopted more widely, it becomes less important for businesses to use traditional methods to force collaboration in the workplace, e.g. panoptic cubicle arrangements. Employees are entering the workforce socially engaged and used to collaborating. The social business hive mind is a new kind of corporate culture whereby all participants move together towards common goals. Physicists refer to this as synchronous lateral excitation.
Hunting for Hunting Grounds:	A structured methodology for completing the Fuzzy Front End of new product development (see Chapter 2 of The PDMA ToolBook 1).
Hunting Ground:	A discontinuity in technology or the market that opens up a new product development opportunity.
Idea Exchange:	A divergent thinking technique that provides a structure for building on different ideas in a quiet, non-judgmental setting that encourages reflection.
Idea Generation (Ideation):	All of those activities and processes that lead to creating broad sets of solutions to consumer problems. These techniques may be used in the early stages of product development to generate initial product concepts, in the intermediate stages for overcoming implementation issues, in the later stages for planning launch and in the post-mortem stage to better understand success and failure in the marketplace.
Idea Merit Index:	An internal metric used to impartially rank new product ideas.
Implicit Product Require ment:	What the customer expects in a product, but does not ask for, and may not even be able to articulate.
Individual Depth Interviews (IDI's):	A qualitative market research technique in which a skilled moderator conducts an open-ended, in-depth, guided conversation with an individual respondent (as opposed to in a (focus) group format). Such an interview can be used to better understand the respondent's thought processes, motivations, current behaviors, preferences, opinions, and desires.
Industrial Design (ID):	The expression industrial design refers to the design of products that have been thought to be mass produced by the factories through technological industrial procedures. The discipline of industrial design is applicable to a comprehensive range of production fields that includes both engineering and non-engineering areas. Many products of industrial design feature a combination of forms, and engineering elements. Industrial design takes into consideration and generates trends about ideological or sociological themes. Among the most important ones are those which are linked to the concepts of usability, manufacturability, planned breaking, and planned out-of-fashion.
Information Acceleration:	A concept testing method employing virtual reality. In it, a virtual buying environment is created that simulates the information available (product, societal, political, and technological) in a real purchase situation at some time several years or more into the future.
Information specialists	Roles and responsibilities : Uses social media as a set of digital tools used for a wide range of information dissemination purposes. Explores social media as “communication as culture.” Has familiarity with the range of social media spaces. Evaluates the role of social media in society in general and information services in particular. Uses of social tools and identify strategies for their effective implementation. Use of social tools and identify strategies for their effective implementation
Injection Molding:	A process that utilizes melted plastics injected into steel or aluminum molds which ultimately result in finished production parts.
In-licensed:	The acquisition from external sources of novel product concepts or technologies for inclusion in the aggregate NPD portfolio.
Innovation Engine:	The creative activities and people that actually think of new ideas. It represents the synthesis phase when someone first recognizes that customer and market opportunities can be translated into new product ideas.
Innovation Steering Committee:	the senior management team or a subset of it responsible for gaining alignment on the strategic and financial goals for new product development, as well as setting expectations for Portfolio and Development Teams.
Innovation Strategy:	The firmís positioning for developing new technologies and products. One categorization divides firms into Prospectors (those who lead in technology, product and market development, and commercialization, even though an individual product may not lead to profits), Analyzers (fast followers, or imitators, who let the prospectors lead, but have a product development process organized to imitate and commercialize quic About eBooks Resources Articles Blogs Design Incs Links References Glossary Insights Biblio ContactUs © espirl 2011 All rights reserved. Make a free website Webnode Print Site map RSS Create a free website with Webnode! Build an impressive website in 5 minutes! Get started

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