A study of gallery method to increase idea quality in conceptual design.

摘要

The objective of this research is to evaluate whether gallery method increases idea quality in conceptual design for engineering design problems. The gallery method is a group ideation process which allows individuals to first generate ideas individually, followed by pooling of ideas to conduct group ideation. Design engineers are often encouraged to work in groups to generate concepts and solutions for design problems. However, past research argues that individual ideation results in higher quality design concepts compared to the group ideation methods. The limitations of group ideation such as free riding, production blocking, evaluation apprehension, and goal incongruity are identified to limit its effectiveness. However, group ideation is still popular in industry settings despite the identified limitations. There is a contrast between the past research findings and actual industrial practice of group ideation. This research identifies an opportunity to evaluate the combination of the merits of individual and group ideation through the gallery method for increasing idea quality in conceptual design. The effect of gallery method is compared with individual ideation through two design studies to determine the best suited ideation method for increasing idea quality. In Design Study I the average quality of design concepts generated by the two ideation methods are compared. A Design Study II was conducted to replicate the results from Design Study I under new set of test parameters. This study also evaluated the effect of structured and non-structured gallery method to increase concept quality. In both the studies, the participants were asked to develop and sketch design concepts for engineering problems. The results from the studies indicated that the average quality of concepts generated by gallery method is higher than individual ideation for engineering design problems. However, there is a possibility that the limitations of group interaction and dynamics can compromise the effect of gallery method in increasing idea quality. Past research suggests the use of facilitator(s) during an idea generation process to reduce the limitations of group dynamics, increase the productivity and efficiency of groups. In this research, a preliminary investigation of facilitated gallery method was conducted through a workshop with three engineering design teams working on an industry sponsored project. A survey on the facilitated hybrid ideation workshop was conducted after the teams developed the conceptual designs for the project. The qualitative analysis of the data indicates that the presence of an external facilitator enhanced the performance and increased productivity of the teams.