Saturday and Sunday: Reviewing the Biodesign Model
My personal understanding of human-centered design becomes exceedingly more complex as the course progresses. The assigned readings from Biodesign: The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies provides a business-minded perspective on the common engineering design tools many engineers are exposed to early in their careers. However, the Engineering Design Process (EDP), in my opinion, is hardly taught with the well-defined aim that Stanford’s Biodesign creators embed in their model. The Biodesign model offers users an organizational structure consisting of needs finding (i.e. identifying a strategic focus and behavioral observations) and needs screening (i.e. research, stakeholder analysis and market analysis), concept generation (i.e. methods and settings best suited for ideation and brainstorming sessions) and concept screening (i.e. addressing biases and objectively comparing solutions), strategy development (i.e. IP, regulation and process management) and business planning (i.e. competitive advantage, funding, sales and distribution). The Biodesign model may be easily applied to any technical and engineering field, as the concentration on business communication depicts the need for those in the field to understand how to market their ideas, write proposals, create technical specifications, coordinate teams, organize brainstorming sessions, engage listeners and obtain funding. Similarly, the J-Term course emphasizes the skills necessary for engineers to become design thinkers through the review of the complex model and the application of its steps in a hands-on environment.
Note: Stanford Biodesign has many instructional videos on their YouTube page. A few must-see and notable videos are:
- Problematic Needs Statements
- Reflections from an Observation: Optimizing the Experience
- Understanding a New Disease Area
- IDEO: Deciding What to Work on After an Ideation Session
Enjoy!
-MM
BME Design 