Development of Products and Services in Small Enterprises: Artifact to Discuss Creative Logics

Abstract

The innovation of companies’ product and service portfolio is a challenge, especially for small companies with limitations on their resources. The scientific literature that focuses on innovation and creativity in organizations is predominantly centered on the new product development (NPD) approach, projected for the reality of large companies. From this scenario, we used the Action Design Research (ADR) method to develop an artifact that helps consultants and teachers to understand and expose creative logics that are different than those used in NPD, allowing them to help entrepreneurs, future entrepreneurs and managers of small companies to develop their product and service portfolio. Following the principles of ADR, researchers and practitioners (teachers and consultants) collaborated in the development of the artifact. Successive versions of the artifact were tested in the field: in classrooms by the teachers and in small companies by the consultants. The lessons learned through this design process were formalized in meta-requirements and meta-designs, in accordance with the precepts of the design theory that serve as the foundations of ADR. These meta-specifications facilitate the critical analysis and evolution of the proposed artifact in addition to the conception and proposition of new artifacts for the same class of problem.