Choose a product or service and try to improve it. Your chosen product or service may be aimed at either consumer or business customers. Look at each product attribute through different product levels, and ask yourself again and again, how and why? How else can this be accomplished? Why does this have to be this way?
Use the SCAMPER methodology and create a Powerpoint® presentation that includes a mind map and analysis of the product life cycle stages.
Use the SCAMPER methodology as a checklist of idea-spurring questions. The SCAMPER methodology was originally designed by Alex Osborn and later on rearranged by Bob Eberle, and the version listed below is adapted from Michalko (2006):
Substitute something
Combine it with something else
Adapt something to it
Modify or Magnify it
Put it to some other use
Eliminate something
Reverse or Rearrange it
As you brainstorm, ask yourself the SCAMPER questions and document what new ideas emerge.
You will submit a mind map for this assignment. If you are not familiar with mind-mapping, do an Internet search on how mind maps look and what they are used for. Visit, for example, (Links to an external site.) which is designed to inform you about mind-mapping and provide ideas that can help you create and benefit from mind maps.
You may use any Internet mind-mapping tool of your choice to present the outcomes of your reflective thinking. You may find, for example, one of the following tools helpful:
(Links to an external site.)
mindmup (Links to an external site.)
mindmapfree (Links to an external site.)
The central idea of your mind map is your chosen product, bearing in mind that it may also be a service. Build the first seven branches around the SCAMPER dimensions.
Continue building branches or nodes around the mind map, with the first layer being one hierarchical layer of thought down. Further layers and subsequent branches are then further levels down in logical thought. Including callouts in your mind map provides “meta” commentary on a branch or idea.
Callouts are placed “across” the hierarchy of thought, rather than above or below any of the branches. Relationships within mind maps show how concepts link together.
Your mind map is expected to focus on improving a product/service and should contain at least seven branches and two layers in addition to the central idea (first layer).
There are no right or wrong answers, and not all the connections and interconnections between different layers, branches, and nods are likely to make sense to an external reader. That being said, within the mind map you are expected to present at least three logical ideas for concept testing.
Assume that one of your ideas proceeds through the new product development process with flying colors and is ready for commercialization. Describe how it will evolve through the product life cycle and how marketing strategies change.
