The Front End of Innovation

A Workshop for Design Engineering Professionals

August 13th 2004, The Institute of Design, IIT $ 575.00
350 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois

Overview
Now that companies have adopted stage-gate development processes, more attention is being given to the front end of innovation. This is where organizations look for opportunities and define what innovations they want to develop and bring to market. The Institute of Design invites you to spend a day learning about several new methods and tools that help manage this upfront process. You'll learn how lead-user research, low-fidelity prototyping, and collaborative methods help organizations drastically improve their ability to identify opportunities and define the products that can deliver on those opportunities. This seminar will be led by Professor Chris Conley, who leads the graduate Product Design curriculum at the Institute of Design, IIT. Other presenters will include professionals with significant innovation experiences.

Key Benefits

Review the latest techniques for diving into the front end of innovation

Understand how the front end of innovation differs from development work

See how everyday customers and consumers provide clues to innovation

Experience putting the ideas into practice through several team exercises designed for engineering and marketing collaboration

Bring several colleagues and learn a new way to work together - and save on the conference fee

Program Content

7:30a		Networking breakfast, informal project presentations
8:00		Welcome, introductory comments and plan for the day
8:15		Presentation #1: Insights from the context of innovation
9:15		Break
9:30		Presentation #2: Low-fidelity prototyping to inform innovation
10:15		Presentation #3: Collaboration at the front end - key principles and techniques
11:30		Networking lunch
12:30		Team exercise #1
2:00		Team review
2:30		Team exercise
3:15		Conference content and techniques review
3:45		Conclude

Faculty

Chris Conley

Chris has worked for clients including Motorola, Palm, Life Fitness, Fortune Brands, Brunswick, Steelcase, and Zebra Technologies helping them create a productive link between research and design that results in successful products with unique user-centered features, often resulting in new intellectual property in the form of utility and design patents. As Director of Global Design Planning for Motorola, Chris established a global experience research process that enabled the company to better understand users' wireless experience in key regions around the world including Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Chris has taught product design, planning, and user-centered methods to design and business students over the past 10 years. He is routinely rated as an outstanding instructor for his ability to relate advanced theories to professional practice.

Who Should Attend
This program is designed for design engineering and marketing professionals, managers who shape their organization’s future product development and design strategy, such as heads of engineering, advanced concepts, strategic initiatives, new technologies

Location and Fees
$575 per person
$1250 for three attendees from the same firm, $425 per colleague thereafter.

For registration, download and fax the registration form to the Institute of Design at 312-595-4901. You may also mail it with a check to:
Institute of Design workshops, 350 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60610.

Workshop registration form (pdf, 70k)

Contact
Niti Bhan
Director, Graduate Recruiting
niti@id.iit.edu
312-595-4900

Modified: Tuesday, 12-Nov-2002 13:29:28 CST