SAP PDEF Toolkit

I worked at SAP, enterprise software leader, on the Design Services Team in the Office of the CEO in the Summer of 2006. It was a great experience interacting with some of the most senior leaders of SAP as well as the most senior leaders in design and innovation. Many in that group went on to be Chief Experience or Chief Design Officers of places like Chase Bank, GE, or at major consultancies. On completing my 4 month internship, I was asked by SAP to stay on in a permanent role but I decided to finish my final year of graduate school. I proposed to SAP that they fund a workshop at IIT Institute of Design that I could lead on a topic of mutual interest. In that way, I could continue working with SAP but also help fund the school to do something worthwhile. Our focus was on increasing the hit rate of innovation for the many product managers within SAP.

Developed in a Planning Workshop at the ID in the Fall of 2006, the PDEF Toolkit is an integrated suite of research, analytic, collaboration, and generative tools for integrated product definition. PDEF was built to empower and service traditional product managers in who have little experience with an “outside in” or customer-centered orientation for product strategy. Parts of the toolkit were rolled out at SAP.

This project was graciously funded by SAP and developed by a team led by myself, featuring Enric Gili Fort, David McGaw, Min Ouyang, and advised by ID Assistant Dean Jeremy Alexis.