Innovation and Design Intent

The path of innovation is anything but smooth.  There are many ruts along the way: resistance to change, not-invented-here syndrome, indifference, faltering organizational commitment, weak innovation practices, and many others.  But even when all else goes right, the flickering ember of a great idea can be snuffed out by failure to communicate the idea effectively.

This unnecessary demise of ideas can happen in many ways.  One idea is squelched because a manager doesn’t understand what makes the idea special.  Another concept is defeated when a downstream design modification thwarts the concept by eliminating a crucial attribute of the design.  Several great ideas sit unused because people don’t quite understand how they apply to their situations.  In all these cases, there is a common thread: the intent of the design has not been communicated.  Communication of design intent can help prevent these situations. 

What is design intent?  It is the captured knowledge of what a system is supposed to do, how it is intended to work, and why design decisions were made.  Through design intent, the intended function of the system is expressed, and the rationale for how that function is or is not satisfied is explained. 

While this might sound simple enough, the facts are that very few organizations have a defined mechanism for capturing design intent.  Consider the average manufacturing company.  Their PDM systems are packed with 2D and 3D models and simulations.  These systems are great for addressing certain functions, but they do nothing to explain the “why” of the design.  Ask these same companies where they capture design intent in their PDM, and you will be greeted by blank stares.

It is a shame that many good ideas die an early death because they are not properly communicated.  When the rationale and value of ideas is not captured and communicated, it is not possible to make informed decisions as to the fitness of the concepts.  If this basic information is not preserved, future workers will be baffled by the mysteries embodied in a system which incorporates the idea.

Since a critical step in becoming a high performance innovation organization is developing the capabilities to leverage internal experience, it is necessary to have a well defined means to capture and to communicate design intent.  There are many ways to do this, and some are best suited to specific tasks.  For example in organizations that must report to highly quality-sensitive clients, annotated root cause analysis reports are often used to communicate with clients.  In some organizations, system functional models are used to capture the functional design intent of a system so that it can be readily understood by downstream engineers.  Whatever mechanism you select for your purpose, you should make sure that it is concise, unambiguous, and easily communicated to others.  Effort that is invested in creating and collecting such information will pay great dividends.

[Mr. Boffo courtesy of Neatly Chiseled Features. (Thanks, Joe.)]

Comments

[company logo design]

Well don't know whats going on but its not a Good way to do this. in my opinion we have to look again about this issue

[FRANCISCAGutierrez]

Different people in the world get the loan in different creditors, because that's fast and easy.