Prospective studies and design management: search for innovation guided by meaning

This paper presents an exploratory and descriptive study on the use of the prospective research applied to the design management to generate innovation guided by the meaning. Innovation has been used as a key strategy for growth and maintenance of companies in the competitive market. However, in most cases, the development of innovation is either usually based on technological change, or on traditional market research. The first needs strong investment and time and the second relies only on the needs articulated by today's consumers, what limits the innovative results. In this context, as alternative approach, prospective research is considered a strong strategy, as it anticipates future consumer’s needs. Nevertheless, aiming at the designer’s work, there is a lack of information on how to manage it to foster meaning innovation by searching emerging opportunities using prospecting surveys. Therefore, this work aimed at the proposal of requirements to improve management of design in companies, by the use of prospective research to foster innovation guided by meaning. First, the research was conduct by a bibliographical review, with systematic and unsystematic phases followed by their interpretation and analysis that resulted in a preset of guidelines. From them, a Delphi method was conducted with manager’s and designers’ experts, to reinforce our review them. Confronting the previous results, the work proposes a list of requirements for the strategic, tactic and operational levels of design management. They intend to improve the use of prospective research within design management to generate innovation guided by meaning.