Design for Open Innovation (DfOI) — Product structure planning for open innovation toolkits

The Design for Open Innovation (DfOI) approach presented in this paper shall support developers while defining suitable product structures for the successful utilization of web-based open innovation toolkits. In this context, it is first of all necessary to analyze company-specific, customer specific, product specific and toolkit specific boundary conditions which have influence on the product structure planning and the resultant area of tension. Subsequently, possible conflicts within this area have to be identified. Based on this, guidelines for defining suitable product structures during early phases of product development have to be derived. Against this background, the DfOI approach shall show how to deal with conflicting boundary conditions related to the product structure planning and how to find an acceptable compromise.