Co-Invention

The term "Co-Invention" is frequently used in the field of Information Technology development. "Technical progress in enabling technologies – what engineers often call the "technological frontier" – is only the first step in the creation of economic well being. Invention of general purpose enabling technologies permits but does not compel invention of valuable uses.[1]“ According Bresnahan and Trajtenberg[2], the invention associated with customising the technological frontier to the unique needs of users in particular regions is called "co-invention", placing emphasis on understanding how its determinants vary across users in different regions. This kind of interaction between researchers and users might be successfully applied to innovative R&D projects in the high-technology sector, thus leveraging technical developments towards tailor-made applications users are willing to pay for.

Lead User Concept

The lead user concept, developed by von Hippel [3], is an approach to obtain user information within the scope of product development for very novel products or in product categories characterized by rapid change – such as high-technology products. In these cases, potential users often lack the real-world problem solving and product experience required to provide the market researcher with adequate data. Lead users are users whose present strong needs will become general in a future marketplace. Since they are familiar with conditions which lie in the future, they can serve as a need-forecasting laboratory for marketing research. Moreover, since lead users often attempt to fill the need they experience, they can provide new product concept and design data as well.

Use Cases

A Use Case captures a contract between the stakeholders of a system about its behaviour. It describes the behaviour of the system as reaction to a request from one of the stakeholders, called the primary actor, under various conditions. To achieve a certain objective the primary actor initiates an interaction with the system. The system responds, protecting the interests of all the stakeholders. Different sequences of behaviour or scenarios can result depending on the request and related conditions, which are consequently grasped within the scope of the Use Case. Stakeholders may be customers or users, suppliers and government regulatory agencies. Primary actors are the customers or users and under certain conditions the suppliers of a company. Use Cases are fundamentally a text form generally serving as means of communication between two persons. Thus, they stimulate discussions about an upcoming system and facilitate gathering of related (functional) requirements.

Action Research

Action research is research in the context of focussed efforts to improve the quality and performance of an organisation. It is a deliberate, solution-oriented analysis, which is shared and carried out individually or in the group. Action research is characterised by spiralling cycles of problem identification, systematic data collection, reflexion, analysis, data-driven action setting and finally problem redefinition. Subject- matter is an emerging process assuming shape with increasing understanding; it is an iterative process converging to a better understanding of the course of action. In the majority of cases the process is also participative – since, amongst others, changes are more easily effected, if the actors concerned are involved – and qualitative.
Action research disposes of the potential to generate genuine and sustainable improvements. It offers practitioners new opportunities to reflect on and evaluate their approaches; to examine and test new ideas, methods and materials; to exchange feedback with team members; and to decide which new approaches and methods are to be taken into account.

[2] Bresnahan, Timothy; Trajtenberg, Manuel (1995): General Purpose Technologies: “Engines Growth’?”. Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 65 (1), S. 83-108.

[3] Von Hippel, Eric (1986): Lead Users: A Source of Novel Product Concepts. In: Management Science 32, Nr. 7, S. 791-805