Whereas the purpose of stakeholder analysis and goal writing is to reduce the ambiguity of the system, developing the system concept is fundamentally a creative process. We have already framed the problem statement as solution-neutral (Chapter 11), at the appropriate level of abstraction to help generate novel ideas without venturing beyond the firm’s core competence or desired scope. Clearly, the concept is not defined only through analysis. Creativity is involved in producing concepts that excite, resolve design tensions, and bring in new functionality.

Although many consider the concept to be the central deliverable that the architect produces, it is our experience that the architect must be prepared to architect up and down. That is to say, the available levers on the concept lie in the upstream and the downstream processes, and they will shape the extent to which we can apply structure as well as creativity to the concept.

The funnel in Figure 12.1 illustrates the idea that the concept is the simplest representation of the system. It is honed from a litany of possible stakeholder needs, and it is succeeded by the complexity and depth of the eventual system implementation. If we reexamine the deliverables of the architect from Chapter 9, we can categorize them according to the three themes in the diagram shown in Figure 12.1. Upstream influences and stakeholder analysis relate to reducing the ambiguity in the definition of the system. Downstream of concept, the primary task of the architect is managing the complexity of the system, so that it remains manageable and understandable to those involved, which is the subject of Chapter 13.

In Chapter 7, we analyzed concepts and identified their constituent parts. In this chapter, we use the results of that analysis to help structure the creation of a new concept for the Hybrid Car, with emphasis on applying creativity.

We begin by discussing different modes of creativity. We review our framework for ­generating the concept, but we explicitly scope the activity without using Object Process Methodology (OPM) as a representation (Section 12.2). The process of generating the concept is then applied in detail to concepts for Hybrid Cars (Sections 12.3 to 12.5). We conclude with a case study on architectural competition in the automotive industry.