Design theories and management sciences to help innovators

Previously we saw that disruptive innovation requires to cross the Valley Of Death by (1) finding time to explore disruptive concepts and (2) doing pivot (adopting a new idea) after failing. Here we present managerial solutions brought by the last scientific breakthroughs in management sciences and design theories.

A minimal resource dedicated to reasoning in the unknown

Disruptive concepts are unknown. Notably they come with the unanswered question "is it worth exploring this concept ?". Consequently it is not rational for intrapreneurs to spend time on such concept and for decision-makers to give it a budget.

Then how to start ? What makes it possible ? A reliable solution is that one person has the mission to explore disruptive concepts. He/she should report to either the Innovation Department, the Innovation Lab Management or Research Management. In most companies this very little resource is lacking.

This explorer has to reason in the unkown and then build teams to whom handover the explorations so that they give birth to new products and services. He/she is not a searcher or an entrepreneur, how does he/she work ?

First generation tools in the unknown : C-K theory and DKCP method

C-K theory allows to map the reasoning that leads to disruptive concepts and possible pivots. It consists of two spaces, the Concept space (C) and the Knowledge space (K). C-K theory is then very useful to explorers to think, communicate and engage other workers.

C-K theory has been simplified in the DKCP method which consists of four steps :
- Definition : a theme is defined by formalising knowledge and concepts
- Knowledge : new knowledge is explored
- Concept : disruptive concepts are generated with the new knowledge learned
- Proposition : some concepts are formally proposed to be deeply explored by writing a project sheet, building a prototype or else.

As observed at Safran, when this last step is finished some disruptive concepts are too unknown to benefit from engineering, marketing, research or any kind of resource. Still these concepts are potential market disruptions that should not be left to competitors or outsiders. Hence during my PhD we have achieved improvements of C-K and DKCP so that the first explorer build teams who will deepen the disruptive concepts proposed.

New tools to explore the unknown : C-K T / C-K E and PEPITE method

Reasoning with C-K enables to explore the unknown, but we want this unknown to shape profitable objects. We want the unknown to be explored both on the technical side and the business side.

To do so, experimentations at Safran and Engie-GRDF have proven useful to work on two C-K : the Technology C-K and the Environment C-K. This ensures that both technical and commercial arguments are drawn to build a solid project. Disruptive concepts have more chances to cross the Valley Of Death when these two fundamental pivot-axes are carefully managed.

However C-K T / C-K E does not overcome all the limits of C-K. Notably it does not allow to plan and respect a time frame. Also it requires expertise. Last but not least it does not utterly say who should do which task with how much budget.

Therefore the "PEPITE" method implements C-K T / C-K E in six steps that build simultaneously the reasoning, the teams and the project management bases.

The next page describes the PEPITE method.

Recommended readings to deepen the theoretical bases :

• "design engagement" of minimal resources to explore the unknown
  • Jean, F., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2015, June). Engage engineers as designers to generate new meanings in concept generation. In R&D Management Conference 2015.
  • Le Masson, P., Aggeri, F., Barbier, M., & Caron, P. (2012). The sustainable fibres of generative expectation management: The “building with hemp” case study. System innovations, knowledge regimes, and design practices towards transitions for sustainable agriculture, 226-251.
• C-K theory and DKCP
  • Hatchuel, A., & Weil, B. (2003). A new approach of innovative Design: an introduction to CK theory. In DS 31: Proceedings of ICED 03, the 14th International Conference on Engineering Design, Stockholm.
  • Hatchuel, A., Le Masson, P., Weil, B., Agogué, M., Kazakçi, A., & Hooge, S. (2016). Multiple forms of applications and impacts of a design theory: 10 years of industrial applications of CK theory. In Impact of Design Research on Industrial Practice (pp. 189-208). Springer International Publishing.
  • Le Masson, P., Weil, B., & Hatchuel, A. (2010). Strategic management of innovation and design. Cambridge University Press.
• C-K T / C-K E
  • Jean, F., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2015). Inverse Technology CK in Environment CK to overcome design fixation. In DS 80-8 Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) Vol 8: Innovation and Creativity, Milan, Italy, 27-30.07. 15.
  • Jean, F., Le Masson, P., & Weil, B. (2015, November). Sourcing Innovation: probing Technology Readiness Levels with a design framework. In SIG Innovation EURAM. In-between event Innovation Theory and the (re) foundations of Management.