Users as Co-Inventors: a Model of Involving Users in the Early Stages of New Product Development (RIKON Group)
Users as Co-Inventors: a Model of Involving Users in the Early Stages of New Product Development (RIKON Group)
Lynch, Patrick and Holden, Mary T. (2008) USERS AS CO-INVENTORS: A MODEL OF INVOLVING USERS IN THE EARLY STAGES OF NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (RIKON Group). In: IAM Conference, September 2008, Dublin.
Despite the increasing importance attributed to the involvement of lead users in the early stages of product development, there have been only limited attempts that comprehensively detail how the lead user involvement approach is implemented in practice. How to effectively involve these lead users and manage the process remains a central dilemma? Based upon a critical literature review and case research, this paper will make a unique contribution to a very significant gap in the user involvement and innovation literature, by presenting a framework that models the processes that enables a company to successfully involve their lead users in their predevelopment activities and in so doing, will obtain implementable guidelines that can be used by firms to enhance the delivery of innovative and appealing new product concepts.