Conceptualizing Ideation Workshops for SMEs

An external ideation space seems to be a promising way to support SMEs in ideating new products and services. This paper addresses the question ‘how to operationalize important working principles in the fuzzy front end of product development for ideation workshops with SMEs, aiming at ideating new products and services?’ Based on the principles of user-centred design, iterative prototyping, as well as the SMEs’ need to take home the workshop outcome, we propose an ideation workshop concept, apply the concept in four workshops with different companies, and analyse it by triangulation of protocols, recordings, and interviews with the SMEs’ CEOs.