Scaling Up Creative Collaboration

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In this podcast you can listen to Prof. Manuel Sosa talk about his views (based on his research and professional experience) about the role of collaboration (including collaboration with design professionals) to successfully innovate .

The answer is not trivial. Recent research shows that the answer depends mainly on the internal structure of the innovation itself as well as the history of collaboration of the innovator. If the innovation is highly holistic and the innovator has collaborated with others in the past, then going solo can boost the chances of breakthrough invention. However, if the innovation is modularizable then working with a team is more likely to lead to a breakthrough. Click here to access an article on Harvard Business Review (on-line) that discusses further these research findings.

This article provides insights based on our research showing why and how collaborating with creative stars lead to mastering of creative thinking skills.

What are the key ingredients to form creative teams? Of course, proficiency on the task at hand and diversity of backgrounds and experiences are important ingredients. However, there is one more ingredient that is crucial to bring all the ingredients together: creative team familiarity. In this article we discuss our research findings showing the positive role that creative team familiarity has on teams' creative performance.

Instead of innovating for your customer, you could choose innovating with your customer. In this article we describe the key elements to innovate with your customers. The articles illustrates the the co-creation of a large new executive education programme at INSEAD by bringing together faculty, designers, and the customer at INSEAD's Creative Garage.

Can you build science behind design? Yes. By tapping into a special type of patent which documents and protects intellectual property behind the creation of new "form" we can learn how certain designs become trendy styles, how designers collaborate, and whether there is financial return by investing in design. Check out the article and TEDx talk in which Prof. Manuel Sosa describes his research agenda and initial findings by analysing (with his collaborators) almost half a million design patents granted in the US over more than two decades.

In large engineering projects such as developing a new car or a new aircraft engine, coordinating the engineering efforts of hundreds of cross-functional teams is key to succeed. Therefore, identifying who should coordinate with whom becomes a critical project management imperative.  In this Harvard Business Review article we describe a structured approach to that maps the collaboration network over the technical engineering network in order to uncover potential coordination pitfalls in complex engineering efforts.