“Think as far outside the box as possible”

Matthias Koch is a computer scientist with a doctorate in this field and Head of the Digital Innovation Design Department of the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering in Kaiserslautern. The researchers at the Institute help companies to address a wide range of problems: from creative idea finding through to technical implementation.  

Mr Koch, where do good ideas come from?
The first key step is to realise that it is not enough to sit down, wait and hope. To find good ideas, we follow a process. The first step is generally to understand the problem and the goal. Step two is to seek inspiration and think far outside the box. If we are dealing with a problem from the area of automotive production, for example, we will also look at other industries such as pharmaceutics or the timber industry, and ask ourselves the not very obvious question of how products are made in these industries. This can be very worthwhile. It is frequently key to “steal” from the best, seek inspiration and figure out, what can be applied to one’s own product. 

What does that mean in more concrete terms?
If you look at digital ecosystems, such as the rental portal Airbnb, you will find that they do not own a single apartment. Instead they bring together those with apartments and those who want to travel. Spotify does not produce any music, but brings together musicians and music lovers. This is a trend you can see everywhere, and also with companies that aren’t as well-known. The company Schüttflix arranges for bulk goods such as grit and gravel to be delivered to the right place at the right time. Kawaloo could be described as Airbnb for storage rooms. That’s a good example: you notice that there is demand for short-term storage space for companies, so you think about what travellers do when they need short-term accommodation.  

Working with companies as a Fraunhofer Institute, we often ask ourselves, what innovative companies or digitally progressive countries such as Estonia do, and which parts of what they do can be transferred to our projects. 

You help companies to get ready for the future and you hold creativity workshops. Can you name some of your methods in this context?
We use the 6-3-5 Brainwriting method, for example, where each participant is asked to write down three ideas within five minutes for each of six individually selected topic areas that are addressed one by one. The result is a great number of suggestions. We have also developed a card came called InnoCards that leads to new ideas based on a selection of inspirational cards and a simple set of rules. We use toys such as Playmobil, too, that our clients use to set up scenarios in a playful manner. Plasticine can also help to boost creativity. All methods follow the same pattern, where we start very broadly, seek inspiration and then converge the results to create the one right solution or great idea. It goes without saying that when we work so creatively, there will also be ideas that are less suitable. 

At what point do technology and software come into play?
This may come as a surprise, but our approach as a software institute is to focus on people rather than technology. The technology must make the things possible that you have come up with. It should not be the case that you have the technology and then say, “Let’s find the right problem for this great technology.” We start with the problem and will eventually get to a point where we say, “This might be a solution.” We then move on from the creative part, and the engineers will take over and develop the right technology. We also do research on how technology can be used in creative processes, for example on how artificial intelligence and large language models can help us design solutions.