This report describes a graduation project for the MSc Program Strategic Product Design. The client of this project is a University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Due to privacy, the client is referred to as: “the Dutch UMC.” The Dutch UMC wants to become an innovating leader in health care but faces many problems during the act of innovation. Because the organization is struggling to locate, describe and tackle the encountered problems, a research project was set up to provide the organization with new tools to properly organize innovation. Therefore, the research question of this project is defined as: “how can the Dutch UMC realize innovation?”. This research resulted in defining seven problem areas which, each in their own way, have a negative impact on the innovation process. The shared cause for the defined problems is a defect in the current innovation process. Cooper (1993) divides the innovation process into six stages. When comparing these stages to the current process within the Dutch UMC, it becomes visible how the first three stages are neglected or skipped. These early stages of the innovation process are also referred to as the pre-development stages or the fuzzy front end (Hestatt and Verworn, 2004). Apart from sharing this insight with the organization, an innovation framework was created to organize the front end of the innovation process. This framework is based on design thinking, which is proposed as the most suitable method for non-design organizations to structure the front end of innovation. The framework delivers the required input to start the conversation on re-organizing innovation and start a transformation towards fast and engaging health care innovation by design.

The European Airline is a big company that focuses on efficiency, sustainability and customer experience. Its department DS strives to make the company smarter and more efficient. They create value by experimenting with technologies and methodologies, delivering products into people’s hands, and transforming the way of working. My project was conducted as part of the Portfolio Management team within DS. The Portfolio Management team enables decision-making on priorities and guides delivery of value. On assignment for DS, my intent for the project was to design a concept that quickly generates and shapes initiatives, and creates insight into their potential value. The project started with framing the problem. During the literature study, I concluded that three studies were leading for this assignment. Elements of successful portfolio management are described by Cooper et al. (2001) as strategically aligned, maximum portfolio value and portfolio balance. This can be achieved by having a portfolio mindset, being agile, and focusing whilst generating and shaping initiatives (Kester et al., 2011). The elements of portfolio orientation and structuring proved to be essential for the assignment as well (Meskendahl, 2010). I conducted external interviews, during which elements from literature gained meaning within the assignment. I discovered how the elements of Cooper et al. (2001), Kester et al. (2011) and Meskendahl (2010) could be applied within the context of the problem. I concluded that all insights obtained could be divided between strategically aligned, maximum portfolio value, portfolio balance and portfolio mindset. The underlying drivers of these elements led me to define design criteria. Different combinations of ideas resulted in four concepts, including the frame toolbox concept. The frame toolbox aims to transform the Frame Creation method (Dorst, 2015) into a tangible product, where initiative owners feel supported in the rapid generation and shaping of initiatives with maximum value as output. I subsequently developed the frame toolbox concept within DS’ context by testing its assumptions, hypotheses and challenges. This testing resulted in finding a connection between the frame toolbox and DS’ resources. This iterative design process led to my final design of Blink. Blink is a digital toolbox that transforms all types of innovations into valuable focus points for product teams. It quickly exposes problems, themes, solutions, and opportunities to their core and maximizes their potential value. By implementing a simple step-by-step plan, new opportunities are shaped that align with DS’ strategy. Blink helps participants to reframe their mindset by discovering the drivers of initiatives to define where the “real” value lies. This value is assessed by the value check tool. Focus points are evaluated on desirability and viability; this clearly shows its potential value. A portfolio mindset among employees is ensured through Blink’s structure and transparency. Blink can be performed in small and large groups, both online and offline. It enables participants to act flexibly due to the short turnaround time. It prioritizes speed, as it focuses on rapid screening of the initiative’s potential value. This thesis describes the process I followed in developing Blink and concludes with an implementation plan, a final reflection, Blink’s limitations, and recommendations for future designs.

This graduation project aims to create a solution, which will enable customer-facing employees to increase employee engagement and customer satisfaction. It does so by optimizing digital supportive resources. The solution tries to resolve the gaps between current supportive resources and ideal supportive data & tools. By bridging the gaps, the solution also could affect information overload and the limitation from the data privacy. Finally, a solution includes a principle and a set of tools are presented. That includes the “JET principle” to align the information structure of customer status across supportive tools. A set of tools “JET banner” “Live JET” and “Empowered JET” indicate real-time customer status in supportive tools, and suggest improvements in service procedures. Through those solutions, the customer-facing employees will have access to the real-time optimized customer status. That could enable and engage those customer-facing employees to offer more empathy in their working context, which will, in turn, improve customer satisfaction.