Viewpoint: Design, innovation, agility

✍ Scribed by Bruce Archer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 40 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0142-694X
• DOI: 10.1016/s0142-694x(99)00025-3

✦ Synopsis

I n welcoming you to this Conference, let me try to interpret its title for a moment. In their Introduction to the preprint papers, the Conference organisers, Bob Jerrard, Myfanwy Trueman and Roger Newport equate the term 'Quantum Leap' with the term 'a breakthrough in product development'. They ask the Conference to address questions such as: 'How do successful companies use design in order to reduce risk and uncertainty in developing innovative new products?' and 'To what extent can design be used creatively to make a major breakthrough or quantum leap in successful innovation practice?' These questions clearly lie in the domain of design practice and design management practice. Let me, in my role as President of the Design Research Society, also try to place them in the context of Design Research, and in the climate of ultra-fast moving product development. I hasten to add that Bob, Myfanwy and Roger are