PDP
INTERNATIONAL
WORKING KIT
DESIGN
FACTORY

WHAT IS PDP?
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
PDP is a joint course organized by HAMK Design Factory and inno.space - Design Factory Mann-
heim, where students solve together real-life company problems in a multidisciplinary team. During
the PDP or through the PDP workshops, the students have an opportunity to learn other skills that
they might not be able to learn during their basic studies or from the PDP workshops.
At the end of the course, the student team delivers a concrete prototype for the company to de-
monstrate their idea of a solution to the problem. The team also tests the developed prototype to
get real-world user feedback. After several iterations, the team consolidates the results and hands
over the final concept to the challenge-giver.
WHAT IS DF?
DESIGN FACTORY
Design Factory is a multidisciplinary product and service design environment bringing together
students, teachers, researchers and companies. Our aim is to build a passion-based product and
service development environment. Design Factory brings together research units’ and degree pro-
grams students’ knowledge and Design Factory machines and facilities for company projects.
In Design Factory Hämeenlinna facilities there is a design department’s digital product and develop-
ment laboratory that offers knowledge and machines for 3D-scanning, -modeling and -printing (plas-
tic, resin), laser technology (paper, acryl and wood) and also wood, metal and electronics shops.
inno.space - Design Factory Mannheim is the place at the University of Applied Sciences Mannheim
where students’ passion-based learning meets real-world problems.
Our goal is help students be inventive future-makers and prepare them for the responsibilities and
unforeseeable challenges of their professional lives. At inno.space students work in international
teams, tackle complex problems through the design thinking methodology, try out different ideas to
find out the best solution. We work with partners from corporate, non-profit and public sector orga-
nizations to develop innovations that address real-world challenges.
Working in Design Factory happens in multidisciplinary teams and strengthening one’s own experti-
se. The idea of the Design Factory is to offer the possibility to learn by working on real life company
projects. The companies are part of the projects during the whole process not just in the beginning
or in the end. The main goal during the PDP process is the journey itself and not just the end result.

DEFINITION OF PDP EXPERIENCE
PREPARE
Start from yourself. Ask five questions: Who am I? What do I know? Who do I know? How do I learn?
and What can I do? Then learn about your team. What do you want to achieve as a team? What
skills does your team have? What composition of roles would help your team to achieve the goals?
How do we communicate and keep everyone up to date? What are our guiding principles?
EMPATHIZE
Listen, observe, engage, talk, and interview people with and to whom you are trying to solve a chal-
lenge. Try to live somebody else’s life for a short while and create a persona of these people.
DISCOVER
Curiously search and analyze secondary data and information about the topic and themes related
to the challenge. Make a picture of concepts. Remember, everything matters.
DEFINE
Formulate a point of view statement: (user) needs a way to (verb) because (insight). You can define
”must”, ”could”, ”should” and ”won’t” criterion to what your solution targets to achieve. Remember,
focusing to ask questions direct your actions.
DEVELOP
Create a lot of ideas, with your group based on the criterion, combine ideas, make choices and
design a concept of a solution. Then, build a prototype to get first experience and feedback to the
solution. Remember, it is easier to ideate than it is to transform ideas into tangible concept. That is
learning!
EXPERIMENT
Set a hypothesis and present your prototype to the users, ask them to try and use it, while you ob-
serve and collect feedback on experiences and impression. Remember, feedback helps you to get
your solution right. That is also learning!
DELIVER
Design your minimum viable product of the prototype based on the feedback and your insights.
Then design a pitchdeck and a prototype presentation for delivering the results of the project to
project sponsor.
DESIGN, SLEEP, REPEAT
Design work is all about learning, changing point-of-views and making it again, frequently and
systematically, design will never end. Remember, it is people that matter, if we really want to impro-
ve other people’s lives by designing better products, services, business models and learning, we
should do design work with them. And then repeat, we all learn!

OUR SHARED VALUES
EMPOWERMENT
We empower people to be responsible and go beyond
what they think is possible.
PEOPLE
We place people in the center of everything.
HANDS ON
We encourage teams to learn by doing and stop
overthinking!
IMPACT
We go for real problems with real impact.
PASSION
We are passionate about our work.
FUN
We believe having fun is the key to unleash
creativity and drive innovation.

YOUR GOAL: A LOVABLE PROTOTYPE
As part of the PDP course you build a prototype from the product development idea. The prototype
is a model of the developed product and the prototyped model makes it easier to demonstrate the
idea for the client.
During the course your target is to build a so called medium feasibility prototype from the product
or service. The idea of the medium feasibility prototype is to recognize the product’s functions and
the functionality can be tested to some degree. The experiment can be for example filling a form
from a website or testing a mockup or light version of the product. By experimenting you can get
feedback about the feasibility, desirability, viability and sustainability of your solution.
TEAM OBJECTIVES
TEAM
Team building is important at the beginning so make sure everyone is feeling welcome and the
atmosphere is good. Find out everyone’s strenghts and where they would like to conribute in the
project.
COMMUNICATION
Choose the communication channel with your team and collect all the information about the project
in one place. Stay active and add everything you do to the teams. Remember to write meeting me-
mos/minutes to keep everyone up to date.
ROLES
Make sure every team member has their own role and everyone completes the needed tasks.
The project manager makes sure that everyone does their tasks and takes action if something
needs to be corrected.
SCHEDULE
At the beginning make a rough plan for what is about to happen. Try to think a goal for every week
and follow that plan through the weeks. The goals can be small and something very practical.
SPONSOR
One person (usually project manager) communicates with the sponsor about the progress. This
makes sure that the messages are clear and consistent.
PROGRESS
Make sure your project is keeping up with the schedule and everything is moving smoothly. Think
when the prototype needs to be ready and tested.

DESIGN THINKING PROCESS
The PDP teaching approach is based on the design thinking method. Design Thinking is the cros-
sing theme of the project which includes both getting to know the theory and planning, doing and
analyzing the practical experiments.
EMPATHIZE
DEFINE
IDEATE
PROTOTYPE
HAMK DESIGN FACTORY
based on: Design Thinking Process Diagram* | d.school Executive Education
modified by Reetta Kaikkonen, Jali Närhi & Jari Jussila
TEST
EMPATHIZE
Design thinking aims to provide usable, attractive, viable and sustainable solutions for people.
Exposure to the life of user and customer begins by creating a description of the person. A good
description requires observation, asking questions and engaging the user and the customer.
DEFINE
Define phase focuses on identifying a problem that is worth solving for the user and the customer.
Defining the problem is key to the success of the whole process.
IDEATE
Finding a solution is based on the knowledge you have learned, via benchmarking and empathizing
with the user that serve as foundation for generating ideas for possible solutions. Consider how
your ideas help to relieve the pain of the customer/user and enhance the gains.
PROTOTYPE
Prototyping helps to communicate your idea to the customer by turning the idea into something
concrete and tangible.
TEST
Testing is the means for you to get feedback for the solution from different stakeholders and valida-
te your assumptions.

DESIRABILITY
The desirability lens asks about how the user will engage with the product, whether the user will
find the product compelling, and how desirable the product is.
VIABILITY
The viability lens asks questions about what is financially and economically viable for the company.
FEASIBILITY
The feasibility lens asks questions about what is technically and organizationally feasible.
SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability lens asks questions does this venture have a non-negative social and environmental
impact, and does it respect the human rights of the user.
DESIGN PERSPECTIVE

WORKSHOPS
WORKSHOPS AT HAMK
Design Factory organizes workshop days for the machines and their software. These workshops
are additional and open for students, teachers and company representatives. In the upcoming
workshops, it is possible to learn about 3D-modeling & printing, vector & raster graphics, laser
cutting, information design and t-shirt printing. Workshops are a great possibility to learn skills that
students may not be able to learn during their studies otherwise or help them with developing their
prototypes.

PDP SCHEDULE
2021 12 23.03.
Week
13 30.03.
Week
14 06.04.
Week
15 13.04.
Week
16 20.04.
Week
17 27.04.
Week
18 04.05.
Week
19 11.05.
Week
Topics
Mannheim:
14:00 - 16:00
HAMK DF:
15:00 - 17:00
Empathize,
Introductions,
Course
Practicalities
Empathize,
User experience,
Observations,
Surveys
Empathize,
Empathy map
Define,
Affinity,
Point of view
Ideate,
Ideation,
Ideation
canvas
Prototype,
Prototyping
tools
Test,
Testing
tools
Halfway
Gala
20 18.05.
Week
21 25.05.
Week
22 01.06.
Week
23 08.06.
Week
24 15.06.
Week
25 22.06.
Week
26 29.06.
Week
27 06.07.
Week
Mid-fidelity No lecture
Converging,
Testing,
High-fidelity
Coaching
Presentation
preparation
for Final Gala
Training Final Gala
Coaching
LECTURES ARE HELD EVERY
TUESDAY

POINT OF VIEW STATEMENT
__________________ NEEDS A WAY TO ___________________
BECAUSE ____________________________________________
(USER) (VERB)
(INSIGHT)

EMPATHISE: USER RESEARCH PLAN
GOALS - Summarize the purpose of your project
- Describe the main goals of the study
- List methods to be used and explain why
- We recommend to use 2 methods for data-collection
PARTICIPANTS - Participants are primary intended users of the system or product. They are people who will use or interact
with a product/service
- Describe (e.g., number of participants in study with age, gender, knowledge/experience related to the
System/ service, other relevant demographics)
- Why these participants are chosen
- Suggestions e.g., 5 interviewee /team; whole team participates to observation; ~20 answers to survey
PROCEDURE - Procedure describes sequence of activities that participants will do during the study in a chronological
order.
DATA-COLLECTION - Describe content of the data-collection method (e.g., questions to be used in interview, type and focus of
observation, questions and scales of questionnaires).
EQUIPMENT - Describe how data will be stored (e.g., audio/video recordings, images, observer’s/ interviewer’s notes.)

Name Background
• Age, gender, role, education, hobbies, place of residence…
• Interests, skills
Goals
• Do- & Be- & Life-goals
Context of use
• Situations, surrounding environment
Scenario
• E.g., How future product is used, with whom? What happens
before, during and after use? What kind of situation? ”Add
descriptive citation”
Photo generated from https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
PERSONAS

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Empathy Map Canvas Designed for: Designed by: Date: Version:
What do they need toDO?
What do they need to do differently?
What job(s) do they want or need to get done?
What decision(s) do they need to make?
How will we know they were successful?
WHO are we empathizingwith?
Whois the person we want to understand?
What is the situation they are in?
What is their role in the situation?
GOAL
What do theyDO?
What do they do today?
Whatbehavior have we observed?
Whatcan we imagine them doing?
© 2017 DaveGray,xplane.com
Lastupdatedon 16 July2017.Download acopyof this canvas at http://gamestorming.com/empathy-map/
1 2
3 What do theySEE?
What do they see in the marketplace?
What do they see in their immediate environment?
What do they see others saying and doing?
What are they watching and reading?
4 What do theySAY?
Whathave we heard them say?
What can we imagine them saying?
5
6 What do theyHEAR?
What are they hearing others say?
What are they hearing from friends?
What are they hearing from colleagues?
What are they hearing second-hand?
7 What do they THINK andFEEL?
PAINS
What are their fears,
frustrations, and anxieties?
GAINS
What are their wants,
needs, hopes and dreams?
What other thoughts and feelings might motivate their behavior?

IDEATION
Lean Service Creation
Toolbox by Futurice Ltd
Ideas that fill the user need/problem
User need/problem
Write it down on a high enough level so that
your ready made idea is not the only solution to it.
Negative emotions/aspects
related to the user need :(
Positive emotions/aspects
related to the user need :)
Ideas that fix, eliminate or
reduce the user pain
Ideas that take the best out
of the positive

THE DESIGN THINKING TOOLBOX WWW.DT-TOOLBOOK.COM/ SHOP
BASIC TEMPLATE
Project:
Team:
Version Date:
Lewrick / Link / Leifer
The Design Thinking Toolbox
978-1-119-62919-1
Brief instructions: The Exploration Map provides the team with
an overview of the experiments carried out and shows, for
example, in which areas additional experiments should be
carried out. The map provides information about the
expectations of an experiment and its effect on the target
group.
EXPLORATION MAP
Dark Zone
Risk zone
Stretch zone
Comfort zone
Degree
of
innovation
change
Normal behaviour New behavior required
Realistic,
well-known,
proven
Unknown,
new
Findings
Derive the relevant findings.
Enter experiments
All experiments already carried out
are positioned in the Exploration Map.
Discuss position
Discussion of positioning in the
team
Prototyping
Definition of the target position
for the next experiment.
Add feedback
Adjustment of positioning based
on the experiments.
More tips tricks for this template on book page: 195
Get a PDF
Premium Design
Thinking Template:
WWW.DT-TOOLBOOK.COM/ SHOP

TESTING: USER EXPERIENCE EVALUATION
GOALS •Summarize the purpose of your project​
•Describe the main goals of the evaluation study​
•Describe your approach to user testing and explain why you chose this
PARTICIPANTS •Participants are primary intended users of the system or product. They are people who will use orinteract with
a product/service​
•Describe (e.g., number of participants in study with relevant demographics e.g., age,
gender,knowledge/experience related to the System/ service, other relevant)​
•Why these participants are chosen​
•Suggestion e.g., 5 participants/team​
PROCEDURE •Procedure describes sequence of activities that participants will do during the study in the chronological order.
You might visualize the procedure.​
DATA-COLLECTION •Describe content of the data-collection method (e.g., tasks given for participants, questions to be used in
interview, type and focus of observation, questions and scales of questionnaires).​
EQUIPMENT •Describe how data will be stored (e.g., audio/video recordings, images, observer’s/ interviewer’s notes.)​

TESTING: USER EXPERIENCE EVALUATION
PROTOTYPES •Describe prototype(s) used in the study​
•Add images or links​
CIRCUMSTANCES •Describe circumstances of the study (physical context)​
RESULTS •Present the findings of the study.​
•Order: the most important results at first​
•After presenting the results, write a short summary of the main result at the end (max. 1 paragraph)​
IMPROVEMENTS
TO DESIGN
•Describe the improvements needed to your prototype based on the results​
•Order: the most important improvements at first​

Need (Problem)
Step 1:
The problem that the customer has.
Results from the Empathisephase
(POV statement, interviews…)
Approach(Solution)
Step 2:
How to solve the problem, that is,
what the approachto a solution/the
performance promised looks like;
–– the product, service, or process;
–– how the business model looksor how it earns
Benefits
Step 4:
Continuewith B as in benefit and
formulate in terms of both quality and quantity:
–– the benefit for the user/customer;
–– the benefitsfor you/yourcompany.
Competition
Step 5:
Add C as in competition,
that is, the alternativesand
competitorsexisting todayand
in the future. In addition,list the unique
selling pointsof the solution.
Source: Lewrick et al., (2020) TheDesign Thinking Toolbox

YOUR TEACHING TEAM
Dr. Jari Jussila
jari.jussila@hamk.fi
Prof. Peter Kaiser
p.kaiser@hs-mannheim.de
Markku Mikkonen
markku.mikkonen@hamk.fi
Albena Bogoeva
a.bogoeva@hs-mannheim.de
If you have any questions, contact one of us