Workshops

A design research approach

The developmental project of the football innovations centre is based on a design research approach (Koskinen et al., 2011), where knowledge is generated in the construction and testing of a product, or in this case the artefact of the collaboration and activity model for the football innovation centre. Applying the design research methodology, the model is modulated, rearranged and changed based on the insights generated a workshops with the different stakeholders. Using these co-creational workshops approach, the stakeholders are empowered as a part of designing the collaboration and activity model and are ensured ownership and seen as active partners of the work establishing the football innovation centre. This participatory approach is a strong tradition in Scandinavian design, where design work is accomplished in collaboration with users and other stakeholders (Sanders & Stappers 2008). In the applied constructive design research approach, we have as part of the iterating process used findings disseminated in the report “Sportstech innovation in football – from a Danish perspective”. With this, the knowledge from the research in the newest technology inventions in football and mapping out the landscape of the Danish football startup environment has informed the design research approach of forming the innovation model.

Workshops

Six design workshops are the foundation of the insights and the design of the collaboration model. The data generated together with each stakeholder group at each workshop also informed the next workshop. The aims of the first four workshops were 1) to understand and grasp the pains and gains of the stakeholders’ activities in innovating new product and services or forming collaborative research projects, 2) to identify and explore the ideal stakeholder profile as well as the ideas and suggestions for activities and collaborations with other and new partners and 3) to discuss how to collaborate in relation to different collaboration parameters. Furthermore, the aim was to find and engage relevant stakeholders, to present the aim and vision of the innovation centre and to present, qualify and validate the collaboration model. Fulfilling the design aim of inventing and validating the collaboration and activity model of the football innovation centre, different design methods structured the workshops. Table 2 gives a detailed overview of the methods used, their aims and how they were used. The aim of this workshop 6 was to validate the collaboration and activity model, collect new insights into the analysed data and come up with further elements contributing to the collaboration and activity model of the football innovation centre.

Table 3: Structured overview of the six workshops, the participants, the content, and the design goal of the workshops.