Event Website
http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dtrs/2014/
Description
Design reviews and executive conversations at the point of strategic decision-making share an important outcome: they both result in the (nearly) irrevocable allocation of resources to pursue a design concept or strategic option. Our study aims to contribute to the strategic decision-making scholarship by investigating the robustness of these conversations. We define a robust design review conversation as one in which the participants discuss evidence in favor of and against the option and at the same time propose new hypotheses to explain or resolve the evidence in favor of and against the option, hypotheses that can eventually be tested. We describe this second process as generative sensing. Whereas the first process is likely to rely on deductive reasoning from established rules to a definitive conclusion, the second is likely to rely on abductive reasoning, a form of reasoning that generates new hypotheses that are candidate parsimonious explanations for the evidence. We analyze and compare the design review conversations from a junior-level undergraduate course in industrial design and an entrepreneurship course. We find more instances of generative sensing in the industrial design review sessions than in the entrepreneurship project presentations. We believe that generative sensing serves three instrumental purposes: to resolve problems; to provide signals on option quality; and, to test the commitment to the present design concept.
Keywords
strategic decision making, generative sensing, design evaluation
Presentation slides
DOI
10.5703/1288284315942
Included in
Behavioral Economics Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Strategic Management Policy Commons
Robust Design Review Conversations
Design reviews and executive conversations at the point of strategic decision-making share an important outcome: they both result in the (nearly) irrevocable allocation of resources to pursue a design concept or strategic option. Our study aims to contribute to the strategic decision-making scholarship by investigating the robustness of these conversations. We define a robust design review conversation as one in which the participants discuss evidence in favor of and against the option and at the same time propose new hypotheses to explain or resolve the evidence in favor of and against the option, hypotheses that can eventually be tested. We describe this second process as generative sensing. Whereas the first process is likely to rely on deductive reasoning from established rules to a definitive conclusion, the second is likely to rely on abductive reasoning, a form of reasoning that generates new hypotheses that are candidate parsimonious explanations for the evidence. We analyze and compare the design review conversations from a junior-level undergraduate course in industrial design and an entrepreneurship course. We find more instances of generative sensing in the industrial design review sessions than in the entrepreneurship project presentations. We believe that generative sensing serves three instrumental purposes: to resolve problems; to provide signals on option quality; and, to test the commitment to the present design concept.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/dtrs/2014/Impact/3
Comments
This conference presentation was developed into a book chapter that was published in “Analyzing Design Review Conversations,” edited by Robin S. Adams and Junaid A. Siddiqui (2016, Purdue University Press), which can be found here:http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/analyzing-design-review-conversations.