The mapping of social relationships in a product development network

This paper builds on the work presented in “New approaches for identifying and understanding complexity for product innovation success” a paper presented at European Academy of Design 2006 (EAD 06): Design Systems Evolution(2005)to provide additional findings of a research project which examines the social relationships found across the extended boundaries of a small to medium-sized medical device organisation. By applying the technique of Social Network Analysis (SNA), the relationships between groups of key stakeholders are visually mapped and measured. Equipped with accurate representations of organisational structures and working networks, important insights are derived relevant to the relationships likely to facilitate or restrict idea generation from successfully occurring. The paper concludes with a series of network specific recommendations to help improve the social conditions and ultimately the product development activity across the organisation. This book presents papers from the 3rd Engineering & Product Design Education International Conference dedicated to the subject of exploring novel approaches in product design education. Evidence: Published conference proceedings containing paper