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DESIGNING THE DESIGN PROCESS FOR EARLY PROBLEM DISCOVERY FOR A COMPLEX AERONAUTICS SYSTEMS CHALLENGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Rachel Meredith Moore ,
Anna-Maria Rivas McGowan ,
Nathaneal Jeyachandran ,
Kathleen H. Bond ,
Daniel Williams ,
David Cannon  and
Cortney T. Rowan
Rachel Meredith Moore*
Affiliation:
Accenture
Anna-Maria Rivas McGowan
Affiliation:
NASA Langley Research Center
Nathaneal Jeyachandran
Affiliation:
Accenture
Kathleen H. Bond
Affiliation:
Accenture
Daniel Williams
Affiliation:
NASA Langley Research Center
David Cannon
Affiliation:
NASA Langley Postdoc, USRA
Cortney T. Rowan
Affiliation:
Accenture
*
Moore, Rachel M, Accenture, Industry X, United States of America, rachel.a.moore@accenture.com

Abstract

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The earliest stage in the innovation lifecycle, problem formulation, is crucial for setting direction in an innovation effort. When faced with an interesting problem, engineers commonly assume the approximate solution area and focus on ideating innovative solutions. However, in this project, NASA and their contracted partner, Accenture, collaboratively conducted problem discovery to ensure that solutioning efforts were focused on the right problems, for the right users, and addressing the most critical needs—in this case, exploring weather tolerant operations (WTO) to further urban air mobility (UAM) – known as UAM WTO. The project team leveraged generative, qualitative methods to understand the ecosystem, players, and where challenges in the industry are inhibiting development. The complexity of the problem area required that the team constantly observe and iterate on problem discovery, effectively “designing the design process.” This paper discusses the approach, methodologies, and selected results, including significant insights on the application of early-stage design methodologies to a complex, system-level problem.

Keywords

Design processResearch methodologies and methodsMulti- / Cross- / Trans-disciplinary processes
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 1163 - 1172
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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