Design capabilities in software innovation settings

The border between tangible and digital products is getting more diffuse, and the design methodologies are converging to a more comprehensive and holistic approach in that sense. The output of these novel innovation processes is often a digital entity like an app or a physical object. For users and consumers, it is important to keep a fluid interface between hardware and software assuring a proper and effective user experience (UX) during all user interaction (UI). This work uses review-centric research to identify from theory, a set of innovation and technological capabilities used in the product design stage of software development, and explores onto which of them are common to the tangible product design. The capabilities were grouped in three dimensions: organizational (human and strategy), structural (technology and knowledge management) and relationships (partnerships and transfer). Agile methodologies, rapid application development (RAD), scrum frameworks, lean development, Unified Modeling Language (UML), and other software industry tools were used as examples of design capability resources alongside new product development (NPD) and its product design and strategy generation tools for project development in tangible/non-tangible products like QFD, Stage-Gate, TRIZ, etc. A model of a common product development cycle for both tangible and software products is displayed showing their similarity and how they connect.