Facilitating innovation in multidisciplinary teams
Coaching another team from assumptions to a prototyping roadmap
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A 3D-printed toy tractor prototype with a fold-out ramp, photographed on gravel
- Context
- Innovation in Engineering, DTU
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Facilitator
- Tools
- Assumption mapping · Validation matrix · Prototyping roadmap
- Contribution
- Facilitator, coached another team through assumptions to prototyping roadmap
I was assigned a student team and coached them through their innovation process, from research design and assumption mapping to a validation matrix and a prototyping roadmap.
The call I am most confident about
Their solution was very technological, and building a prototype that showed technical feasibility would have taken expertise, time and resources they did not have. So I explained that in this case, and in a lot of other cases, it is much faster to test the market response first, and that this should be their top priority. They could go after technological feasibility afterwards, once the market had been validated enough. That seemed to give them the clarity they needed to narrow down and pick a prototype.
Making the prototype possible
The other problem was materials. They wanted to use some of the suggestions from the course option tree but did not have what those needed, so I suggested substituting, and they used 3D printing instead of LEGO. The thing I kept pushing them on was to keep the end user in mind, because that is who they would be testing on and who they needed validation from.
What I learned about how much to step in
In the later sessions I let the group work with fewer interruptions and mostly listened in from the background, only participating when it was necessary. They reached the same conclusions I would have suggested anyway, about how to build an interview guide and a research plan. That showed me that over correcting is not necessary. When they got stuck on choosing what area to focus their research on, I helped by summing up what most of the team was already saying, and that was enough for them to pick a direction.
What I would do differently
During the assumption dump I did not tell them to split into smaller groups. I think that made the tool more confusing than it needed to be and it took longer to make sense of. Next time I will encourage teams to split up more when it is possible, so they cover as much ground as they can and stay efficient. I also noticed that I had an expectation that my assigned team would have low enthusiasm, before the course had even started. That could easily have primed them and turned into a self fulfilling prophecy. It did not happen, but noticing it was the useful part.