Chapter 7Chapter 7

Concept Selection

Concept SelectionConcept Selection

How can the team choose the best concept given that the designs are still quite abstract?

How can a decision be made that the team can “live with”?

Concept Development Concept Development ProcessProcess

What is a Concept anyway?What is a Concept anyway?

What is a Concept anyway? What is a Concept anyway?

Iterative ProcessIterative Process

Concept selection is an iterative process closely related to concept generation and testing.

All Teams Use Some Method All Teams Use Some Method For Choosing a ConceptFor Choosing a Concept

The methods vary in their effectiveness and include the following:

External decision: Concepts turned over to the customer, client, or some external entity for selection.

Product champion: An influential team member chooses a concept based on personal preference.

All Teams Use Some Method All Teams Use Some Method For Choosing a ConceptFor Choosing a Concept

Intuition: Explicit criteria or trade-offs are not used; concept just seems better.

Multivoting: Each team member votes for several concepts; concept with the most votes is selected.

All Teams Use Some Method All Teams Use Some Method For Choosing a ConceptFor Choosing a Concept

Pros and cons: The team lists the strength and weaknesses of each concept and makes a choice based upon group opinion.

Prototype and test: The organization builds and tests prototypes of each concept, making a selection based upon test data.

Decision matrices: The team rates each concept against prespecified selection criteria, which may be weighed.

Overview of 2-Stage Concept Overview of 2-Stage Concept Selection MethodologySelection Methodology

The first stage is called concept screening

The second stage is called concept scoring

Both stages -- concept screening and concept scoring, follow a six step process which leads the team through the concept selection activity.

Six Step Concept Selection Six Step Concept Selection Process Process

1. Prepare the selection matrix2. Rate the concepts3. Rank the concepts4. Combine and improve the concepts5. Select one or more concepts6. Reflect on the results and the process

Concept ScreeningConcept Screening

Concept screening is based on a method developed by the late Stuart Pugh in the 1980’s and is often called Pugh concept selection

Concept Screening MatrixConcept Screening Matrix

Concept ScoringConcept Scoring

Concept scoring is used when increased resolution will better differentiate among competing concepts.

In this stage, the team weighs the relative importance of the selection criteria and focuses on more refined comparisons with respect to each criterion.

Rate The ConceptsRate The Concepts

Concept Scoring MatrixConcept Scoring Matrix

Decompose the selection Decompose the selection criteria – if necessarycriteria – if necessary