Product and Process Novelty in Small Companies' Design Processes

This article explores the design processes in small companies and investigates how these design processes are executed. The influence of two different kinds of novelty on the design processes is further examined: the relative novelty of the product being developed and the relative novelty of design processes. The relative novelty of the product is high if it is a radically new product to develop. High relative novelty for design processes typically means no experience or knowledge about design processes. Based on an embedded multiple case study of three small companies in Sweden, eight different design processes are described and analysed. The results show that the design processes differ, even within the same company, and that relative novelty affects the design process. If the relative novelty of both the product to be developed and of the design processes is low, a formalized and linear design process was found to work. A design process that is cyclical, iterative and knowledge‐creating was found to work irrespective of the relative novelty. Customers and users were found to play a large and important role in the design processes.