Practicing: U.Lab Handbook of Design-Led Innovation

Around the world, competitive success is increasingly based on creative, collaborative and design-led approaches to innovation in products, services, strategies and business models. These approaches are being explored and developed by innovation labs, mostly sited in universities and deeply engaged with business and the wider community.

U.lab at the University of Technology, Sydney is an innovation lab made by and for like minded people. It seeks to facilitate analytical and creative thinking and to bring both to bear in researching problems and possible solutions. U.lab involves a diverse range of stakeholders from within and beyond the university, with an emphasis on student learning, reframing problems, reinventing relationships among people and promoting the prototyping of fresh solutions.

This second book released by u.lab is about the practices of setting up, running, and growing a design-led innovation lab; it is pitched as an evidence-based case book, in which the authors document action as it occurs. The book is the result of many stimulating conversations and collaborations with students and colleagues at UTS and with friends, professionals and many helpers in Australia and internationally.

The book features emerging practices and small case study insets. The case examples are drawn from recent and current programs at the u.lab, including the work of five student teams that joined the Entrepreneurship Lab - a u.lab course - in the first half of 2012.

Anyone can pick up this book and use to engage with design-led innovation. It will change the way you think about practicing innovation, change and collaboration.