Chris Conley was in town last week for a short presentation he made on the behalf of the IIT Institute of Design. DD went to find out more about the work he's doing at his product development firm, GravityTank.

DesignDirectory: Chris, your bio says "At Gravity Tank he leads the development of Integrated DefinitionTM, a way of working that leverages the core competencies of design to enable cross-functional client teams to define new product and service innovations." What exactly does this mean?

Chris Conley: Well, let me start by explaining why clients come to us and perhaps that will lead to some clarity about GravityTank's offer and what we do there. There are three key reasons companies approach us:-

1. When they're looking for new market opportunities - usually within their existing product line or new product categories areas to explore. They know the market opportunity they want to target, such as "baby boomers" or "retail channels" but need help to define the product or product category that would allow them to take advantage of this opportunity.

2. New product or service definition - this kind of program results in a unique document describing what products or services should be developed and why. It provides the essential information, the 'show and tell' that neither the traditional technical specifications documents nor marketing's MRD provide. We deliver a clear design direction that our clients can then take to their favourite industrial design studio for the final design and development work. It's much more than a design brief as it includes strategy elements, related business numbers as well as platform considerations and design criteria to shape the final form.

3. Business challenges - This is the fuzziest of the 'fuzzy front end', when a business is facing a very specific challenge, but doesn't really know why and want us to take look not only at their products and services but their business system to see what can be tweaked.

DD: So your final deliverable is not the design of the product but a waymarker towards that design? It sounds like it's more tangible than the 'blue sky' innovation and brainstorming popular today and yet not the deliverable of an industrial design studio. Yet you prototype, in fact, you're a big proponent of rapid prototyping and it's benefits. How does that fit in with what you do?

CC: I'm always amazed at how hard it is to convey that we use design and prototyping to help figure out what to go and design. Business people use spreadsheets to model a potential business early in the process. But they are not the same folks that implement the actual business system that builds and launches the business in the market. But in design, it is hard for people to understand that while you may not be doing the final production design, design and prototypes are essential to figuring it out what to pursue.

DD: Those are words to remember, indeed. Thank you, Chris.