Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this assignment,

students should be able to:
Understand how to utilise the creative
problem solving approach to handle the
various managerial challenges in an
organisation and help with the process
of new product development.
Utilise creative thinking techniques
such as lateral thinking and
brainstorming to solve business
problems and appraise their usefulness.
Understandhow creative thinking and
critical thinking are complementary to
each other and how both can be used
to achieve effective solutions and ideas.

Objectives of the Assignment

To show ability in finding facts and
defining the problems for the purpose
of establishing the framework for idea
generation.
To display the competencies of using
the creative tools and techniques for
idea generation.
To exhibit the competencies in
evaluating ideas and making
comparison against available
alternatives.

QUESTION

You are Product Development Manager

of a company that manufactures
household consumer product (the
company must currently exist in the
market local or international). The
company plan to introduce a new
product and sustain their competitive
position in the market. As such, you are
assigned by the companys CEO to
come up with a new product offering
and present a proposal of the new
product concept that appeal to the
market. Your proposed product concept
needs to be realistic and
marketablewithin five (5) years.

You can choose ANY products for this

assignment.

Some examples of products are as

follows:

Alarm Clock
Calculator
Laundry detergent
Vacuum cleaner
Lamp
Laptop bag
Pillow
Refrigerator
Television
Tissue paper

It is important that your product

concept be able to show how innovative
in comparison to the available
alternatives. In addition, the value it
can specifically provide to the targeted
market.

Your written proposal has to be

submitted by the date of submission
(Friday 7th March2014)with a softcopy
in CD format.

Your written proposal needs to follow

the format given below;

Executive Summary
Table of Content

Part 1
Problem Statement
Competitor Analysis, comparison of
common attributes from two (2)
products from two direct competitors
Objective Statement, written in one
sentence

Part 2
Idea Generation, list THREE (3) from 6
techniques.

Part 3
Product Concept Description

Part 4
Market Identification

Part 5
Idea Evaluation, use Force Field Analysis
(FFA)

Conclusion

References

Part 6
Appendix. (attachyour questionnaire &
other supporting information to your
document)

PART 1.
PROBLEM STATEMENT, COMPETITOR
ANALYSIS AND OBJECTIVE STATEMENT

Problem Statement
One paragraph to indicate the specific
area of focus to work on your idea
generation.
Your problem statement needs to relate
to your objective statement
Important Note: Your problem
statement will later be referred to in
your Idea Generation

Competitor Analysis
Compare and contrast two (2) products
from any two (2) direct competitors
(table form)
Include the following in your table:
Opening (overall summary of
competitors profile)
Common attributes
Uniqueness
Limitation
Technology
The above information of your
Competitor Analysis will be used later in
Idea Evaluation

Objective Statement
One paragraph to indicate the general
scope for your creative focus.

PART 2. IDEA GENERATION

Choose any THREE (3) of the six idea

generation techniques taught in class
and for each idea generation technique
you have chosen, there are specific
requirement you need to fulfill when
presenting them in your proposal,
please refer to Table 1.

In addition, in the idea generation

section, for each technique you use,
you need to present write the
information according to the following
structure.
Opening Introduction of the
technique.
Outcomes show how THREE (3)
specific ideas can be derived from the
techniques you have chosen
Evaluation identify the best
combination from the THREE (3)
specific ideas above and provide overall
analysis (advantages & disadvantages)
in comparison to other idea generation
techniques.

Table 1: Requirements for the Idea

Generation Techniques

Mindmapping
Need to use mindmapping software to
draw (you can make use of Freemind
downloadable at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind
/ or any available mind-mapping
software.
Note: You can draw it manually.

Attribute Listing
Refer to FOUR (4) attributes in your
attribute listing.
For each attribute, you need to present
its alternatives.

Lotus Blossom
Minimum 80% of the boxes must be
filled up.
Lotus Blossom must be presented in a
5X5 matrix.

Concept Fans
Required four (4) levels in the Concept
Fan which include the Problem or
Purpose, Directions, Concepts and Ideas
shown in a horizontal hierarchical
format. It should include:
1 problem or purpose
2 directions
4 concepts
8 ideas

SCAMPER
Start the sentence in SCAMPER with an
action word.

Force Fitting Trigger

Any three (3) pictures that do not have
direct relations to your product concept.
It sho

FreeMind
Download FreeMind for free. A premier
mind-mapping software written in Java.
A mind mapper, and at the same time
an easy-to-operate hierarchical editor
with strong emphasis on folding. These
two are not really two different things,
just two different descriptions of a
single application.
sourceforge.net

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