Workshop Beyond Boundaries: Networked ...

Workshop Beyond Boundaries: Networked Collaboration Canvas Lilian Henze1, Ingrid Mulder1, 2 1

ID-StudioLab, Delft University of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft, the Netherlands 2 Creating 010, Rotterdam University, Wijnhaven 99, 3011 WN Rotterdam, the Netherlands {l.a.r.henze, i.j.mulder}@tudelft.nl

Abstract In order to get a better grip on the networked nature of collaborations in PSS development a networked collaboration canvas has been developed addressing the interactions between actors and objects involved in PSS development. The Networked Collaboration Canvas covers the entire life cycle of a PSS development process, starting from understanding user needs through generating product service propositions and developing these into implementations. The process is an accumulation of translations and transformations. Participants in the workshop will gain understanding in the networked nature of PSS development, the boundaries faced, and ways to cross these boundaries by applying the current Networked Collaboration Canvas. The goal of the workshop is to get a better understanding of networked collaboration and occurring boundaries by exchanging experiences and good practice. Keywords Boundaries, boundary objects, human-centered design, networked collaboration, Product Service Networks.

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Introduction

Product Service Systems (PSS) are designed in highly dynamic network environments, mixing people and parties, models, interests, and goals. This requires new design and development structures, moving people out of their traditional compartments, meeting the needs of an often diverse and evolving group of end-users. It can be said that these networks do not function as well as they should; in part, because companies need to reshape their organizations to effectively deal with the demands of these networks and processes. In part this is because new techniques are needed to determine end-user needs, and involve end-users themselves in different ways. Although techniques from experience design, product design and service design are promising; using these in practice for networked collaboration has proven difficult. Earlier work elaborated upon the diversity in these networks using a human-centred design approach leading to a first framework for conceptualization and implementation of PSS has been constructed [Henze, Mulder & Stappers, 2011]. The challenges are to understand and involve parties as a heterogeneous network rather than a set of isolated individuals. In order to facilitate the clients’ functioning by the provider, the latter needs to adapt the own organization to breakthrough interdepartmental boundaries between silos, which currently obstruct the implementation of PSS. Moreover, this development poses challenges working with the (often short-lived) network of creative industry partners, which participate in the innovation/development phase for new services. In order to get a better grip on the networked nature of the collaborations in PSS development a networked collaboration canvas has been built elaborating upon Actor-Network Theory [Latour, 2005] and Boundary Objects [Star & Griesemer, 1989] addressing the interactions between actors and objects involved in PSS development (see for details [Henze, Mulder, and Stappers, this issue]. Figure 1 shows the Networked Collaboration Canvas demonstrating a landscape of fields and patches of interactions.

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Networked Collaboration Canvas

The Networked Collaboration Canvas covers the full life cycle of a PSS development process, starting from understanding user needs through generating product service propositions and developing these into implementations. The process is an accumulation of translations and transformations. The new framework is applied twofold: a) as a means to understand the networked collaborations and b) as a means to designating of tools that support PSS development.

Figure 1: The Networked Collaboration Canvas demonstrating a landscape of fields and patches of interactions: design activities (red), organization activities (blue) and experiences (yellow). The white fields give room for heterogeneous interactions aiming at collaborations of designers (red puppets), organizers (blue puppets) and experiencers (yellow puppets) in PSS development. The yellow circle visualizes the user experiences guiding all interactions.

Using a human-centered approach everyday life experiences (the yellow Experience field) are guiding all interactions in the landscape. The Design field (the red field) translates and transforms these experiences into PSS concepts that are translated and transformed into PSS propositions by the Organize field (the blue field). The propositions are delivered to the Experience field, where the products and services are used thus facilitating (and influencing) the everyday life experiences. The yellow circle in Figure 1 visualizes this process. The double-sided

arrows indicate this is not a one-way, serial, process; it is a continuous interaction process consisting of local research, creation and evaluation activities. The smaller patches in the design, organize and experience fields visualize the groups of practice in the different fields. All practices differ in the networks of people and objects (e.g., tools, procedures, interests, values) accomplishing translations and transformations. The design field is formed by patches representing design practices, such as among others service design, architecture, software development, business consultancy and industrial design. In the organize field the patches represent practices as marketing, support, sales, business management, finance. Patches representing practices of use form the experience field; these depend on the specific PSS development. The white fields are formed by activities as research, co-creation, advising, and communication. In the PSS development translations and transformations are not always accomplished: boundaries occur. To cross these boundaries it is needed to understand the boundaries in order to designate adequate boundary crossing methods, techniques and tools. To apply the landscape for understanding the boundaries and designating relevant tools each field (and/or patch) can be isolated and used as a canvas for describing interactions, trace boundaries and grouping the tools supporting crossing the boundaries. As an example, the canvas in Figure 2 contains design research tools enabling interactions between design researchers and users (who experience the PSS in their everyday life).

Figure 2: One of the fields of the landscape serving as a canvas for understanding boundaries and designating tools (described on the red, orange and yellow spots) supporting design research.

The red tools focus on supporting designers in communicating the results of the research to others interacting in the design field to deploy actual experiences of people as drivers for PSS design. Examples of the red tools are personas, experiencing prototypes etc. The orange tools focus on supporting designers and experiencers to exchange experiences, e.g., generative tools. The yellow tools support the experiencers in communicating their experiences e.g., probes and diaries. Reassembling the filled canvasses of patches and fields results in a canvas of tools, representing all relevant tools for crossing boundaries in PSS development: the networked collaboration canvas.

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Workshop Approach and organization

The proposed workshop aims to gain understanding in the networked nature of PSS development, the boundaries faced, and ways to cross these boundaries by applying the current Networked Collaboration Canvas. The goal of the workshop is to get a better understanding of networked collaboration and occurring boundaries by exchanging experiences and good practice. Previous workshops held with the CRISP programme demonstrated that industry partners easily

could identify ‘low hanging fruit’ and create opportunities in their own-networked collaborations. Experiences and insights gained are intended to be applicable across cases and organizations. Academic perspectives are paired with industrial partners’ experiences, guiding an open discussion with the workshop participants. There is room for discussing cases and experiences from workshop participants as well as co-creating a canvas of boundaries and tools for crossing the identified boundaries. The workshop is held on Tuesday June 25, 2013 divided in 3 blocks of 90 minutes, each block focusing on a specific boundary issue in combination with one of the fields Experience, Design, and Organize, allowing workshop participants to grasp the full breadth and depth of applying the concepts and the corresponding networked collaboration canvas. For each block the organizers will provide a case to discuss, it will be preferred when participants bring in their own cases for additional discussion. Participants are encouraged to join all three blocks, but participants are also welcome to choose one or two slots. Block 1 (11.00 – 12.30): The ‘Experience’ perspective: Mapping stakeholders’ values In understanding the experience networks, and taking these networks as a starting point for innovation, the differences between values of experience and organization networks have to be taken into account. But how can these differences be visualized? How can these heterogeneous values be discussed? Setting the scene: short video on the ‘Experience’ field and the collaboration issues Introduction case: Behzad Rezaei (4C-Management) presents a case illustrating how understanding of end-users could lead to service innovations and what boundaries could occur. Building the canvas: participants are co-creating the canvas for the case introduced and additional cases brought in by participants. Discussing the canvas from academic and industrial perspective. Wrap up: lessons learned and co-created canvas. Block 2 (13.30 – 15.00): The ‘Design’ perspective: (mis)communication issues In networked collaboration the issue of (mis)communication is one of the main boundaries to cope with. What are these boundaries and how to cope with these? Setting the scene: short video on the ‘Design’ field and the collaborative issues Introduction case: Monique Kemner (VanMorgen) and Marie de Vos (STBY) present a case illustrating how design collaborations could lead to service innovations and what (mis)communication boundaries could occur. Building the canvas: participants are co-creating the canvas for the case introduced and additional cases brought in by participants. Discussing the canvas from academic and industrial perspective. Wrap up: lessons learned and co-created canvas. Block 3 (15.30 – 17.00): The ‘Organize’ perspective: governance and management issues In heterogeneous and dynamic networks the understanding of all stakeholders involved is a main issue. How to draw the stakeholder map? Who to address and how to involve/engage them? Introduction case: Klaas Jan Wierda (Océ Industries) presents a case illustrating how service innovations lead to collaboration between different organization departments. Setting the scene: short video on the ‘Organize’ field and the collaborative issues

Building the canvas: participants are co-creating the canvas for the case introduced and additional cases brought in by participants. Discussing the canvas from academic and industrial perspective. Wrap up: lessons learned and co-created canvas.

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Expected outcomes

Participants learn to trace possible boundaries in their practice of networked collaboration, and how to cope with these boundaries. Workshop experiences, results and reflections will be published as an eBook and send to all workshop participants. A publication on the workshop will also appear, as a chapter in the forthcoming CRISP PSS 101 book. Participants who apply the canvas in their own PSS development and networked collaborations are invited to submit a chapter on their experiences as well. The workshop is used as a further valorization of the networked collaboration canvas; these findings are to be published in relevant journals and conference proceedings.

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Favored Attendees

This workshop is of high interest to academics, designers and industrial managers engaged in Product Service Systems Development, Strategy & Vision, Management, Innovation, Service Design, Concurrent Engineering, User-Centered Design, and New Product Development who open to sharing experiences and to learn about new methods, tools, and best practices to gain understanding of networked collaboration.

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Workshop organizers

Lilian Henze (MSc) graduated at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology in 1986. After working as a researcher in the field of usability of products for people with disabilities, she started in 1995 the company P5 consultants, professionals in Human-Centered Design. Lilian currently combines her work at P5 with her work as a PhD candidate at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology on the topic of boundary objects in the (networked) design process of productservice-systems. Ingrid Mulder (PhD) is an associate professor of design techniques at ID-StudioLab, Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology and a research professor of human centered ICT at Creating 010, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. She graduated in Policy and Organization Sciences, University of Tilburg (1998), and holds a PhD from the University of Twente, Faculty of Behavior Sciences. The topic of her dissertation was shared understanding in design teams. She has been involved in various (inter-)national projects on networked collaboration, open innovation, and Living Labs. Acknowledgement This work is funded within the Creative Industry Scientific Programme (CRISP), supported by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. We thank all partners involved in the CRISP project PSS 101 project; industrial partners are Four C management, STBY, Exact, Océ industries, and Zuidzorg. Academic partners are from the Design Academy Eindhoven as well as the Delft University of Technology, both the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. References Henze, L., Mulder, I., Stappers, P.J. (2011). Conceptualizing Product Service Networks: Towards an Initial Framework. In: Proceedings of ICE 2011, International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising. Aachen. Henze, L., Mulder, I., Stappers, P.J. (2013). Understanding networked collaboration: fields and patches of interactions. In: Proceedings of ICE 2013, International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising. Den Haag.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory, Oxford University Press, USA. Star, S. L. & Griesemer, J. R. 1989. Institutional ecology,translations' and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social studies of science, 19, 387.