PROJECT STATEMENT

Your company, International Container Corporation, is experiencing a serious decline in sales. The VP of Design & Research, VP of Engineering and the VP of Sales and Marketing have been called into the CEO’s office and told to put a Creative Research and Innovative Design (CRID) team together. You've just been put on the team and told that the CEO wants a prototype product for the new product line developed by within three weeks so she can present it to the Board of Directors at the quarterly meeting. For reasons of cost and manufacturability the new “container” line will need to be manufactured from paper. You’ve also been told that you’ll be competing against CRIDs from the company’s Europe/Africa/Middle East (EAME) division, the Far East/Australian division (ICCFAAD), Western Hemisphere Division (WHICC) Arctic/Antarctic division (ICCOLD).

You will present your idea to the CEO and explain how you went about creating the design. The CRID whose design is adopted by the Executive Office will receive corporate recognition and a sizable bonus!

PROCESS

1. Three complete Iterations of the design process with following outcomes in EACH iteration:

  • Human Centered Design Approach with Empathy Based Process, Information and Data (The design is to be clearly based on information and data collected from user interactions.) Presentations must include data and interactions with users. 
  • Definition - Clearly delineated   
    • hunt statements
    • essence statements (key words and concepts) 
    • key design assumptions 
  • Ideation - rich, deep and divergent processes of multiple ideas, clearly delineating a breadth of ideas and refinements. 
  • Innovative steps to determine the best ideas to prototype.
    • critical thinking criteria selected for determining ideas to prototype
    • criteria for desirability
    • criteria for feasibility
    • criteria for viability 
  • Parallel Prototyping - Each team is to have two or more prototypes for each idea that is to be explored in physical form.  
  • Testing - Each prototype is to be tested with less than eight users. Testing is to provide data and information to evaluate quality of empathic response, re-defining of hunt statement, essence, and assumptions.  

DELIVERABLES FOR CEO PRESENTATION

The CEO wants to know you have made sound decisions with integrity, cultural relevance, and a design that is implementable. Your team presentation is to equally emphasize design process and design product.

Major Due Dates and Working Sessions:

Except for the dates below class sessions will be reserved for group time and instructor led workshops. Compared to the first third of the class teams are to largely deterministic of the process, procedures, and planning to complete the project.  

  • Iteration One: Presentation - April 6th

  • Iteration Two: Presentation - April 20th

  • Iteration Three: Final Presentation - May 5th (Final Exam Period)

Additional homework assignments will be made in class.