Studying Design Thinking as a forthcoming source to innovation speed

With complex technology-intense industries follows an ever-increasing need for rapid innovation processes. Yet, innovation speed and the time from idea to product realization can vary and be unpredictable. Design Thinking (DT) is suggested as a key driver to impact the speed of product innovation within product development projects. To understand and aid the road from early ideas and concepts to value-added products, this paper will provide a literature study on how Design Thinking can facilitate improved product innovation performance through innovation speed. The paper seeks to develop an overview of new insight on DT applicability for improved product innovation capability. This is done by identifying components that comprise DT ́s innovative ability and appropriateness to product development contexts beyond the early creative phases of product development. As DT emphasize on visualization and re-framing problems, it contributes to enhanced clarity, meaning and confidence in ideas and decisions. DT in this way may impact strategy formulation and speed up complex innovation processes by pre-experiencing future situations