Stimulated ideation sessions in product planning: assessing quantitative results of individuals and groups

Many literature sources mention Product Planning as a critical phase in engineering design, although its actual meaning is not shared by the whole scientific arena. In design context, the most popular definition refers to the meaning attributed by Pahl et al. [2007], whose schematization of New Product Development cycles is largely accepted. The authors adhere to their definition. Consistently, the thrust of Product Planning is the identification of new product features capable of creating new market opportunities through increased customer benefits. The paper focuses on strategies to support companies, R&D teams, engineers and designers in the creative process of idea generation. Among the different techniques adopted in industry to support product planning, the well-known Brainstorming method, originally developed by [Osborn 1953], shows a wide diffusion [Geschka 1996; Coates et al. 1997]. This approach is extensively adopted in the industrial practice, because it can be easily and intuitively used, even if it is often implemented in a naïve way, not fully aligned to original Osborn’s recommendations. Furthermore, the method can involve the customer in an active way, with the aim of collaborating in the generation of new product ideas. Several practices and techniques to support brainstorming sessions have been experimented during the years, e.g. Synectics [Gordon 1961], Brainwriting [VanGundy 1984], Mind Maps [Buzan and Buzan 1996], Bodystorming [Oulasvirta et al. 2003]. However, companies often develop their own customized Brainstorming method, according to their needs and the actors they are capable of involving. Notwithstanding its wider diffusion in industry, several issues are still open about ways and opportunities of employing Brainstorming efficiently. Osborn stressed the importance of focusing on the quantity rather than on the quality of the generated ideas, by claiming that the abundance of hints gives rise to greater chances of achieving successful outcomes. However, too many alternatives create considerable problems in the selection phase and the scarce quality of the outputs can lead to not lucrative results. In addition, whereas Brainstorming advocates claim that such a method is more effective than entrusting idea generation to a plurality of individuals working separately, other studies e.g. [Furnham 2000; Rietzschel et al. 2006] assess that groups employing Brainstorming produce a smaller quantity of ideas (besides less feasible). The recalled aspects are still debated in the scientific community since they strongly affect efficiency and efficacy of brainstorming techniques. In such a context, this paper contributes to the discussion further. More in particular, we focused our investigation on some factors influencing the performance of ideation sessions with the aim of providing insights into the development of procedures and instruments capable of exploiting Brainstorming and/or other analogical reasoning techniques at their maximum potential. According to the introduced general objective, the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly recalls the main debated issues related to the application of Brainstorming and introduces the specific objective of the investigation. Section 3 presents the followed research method that is based on an experimental activity devoted to compare different ideation approaches. Section 4 presents the outcomes of the investigation. Eventually, discussions and conclusions about the achieved results are presented in Section 5.