We covered a lot of material about leadership and we encourage you to share any reactions or questions that were stimulated.
Further, after reading the IDEO case, you can share some ideas and comments about this company in advance of the class. Why is it successful? What are some of the concepts that might be useful for YOU in your own organization? How easily can other design firms "copy" its methodologies? Would you like to work there?
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I find IDEO to be a quite fascinating palace for work and I find the creative process that they developed useful and applicable to any creative project at any company. If entire process can not be implemented, then some elements can break blocks that teams face. Still, the specific company culture can be an obstacle. Rapid prototyping may be perceived as a waste of time, and on the other hand it seems to me that on most projects a lot of participants are too eager to start working on things without spending enough time in first two phases when the problem needs to be comprehensively understood and solutions visualized. I’m also wondering also how they go around the clients’ approval process and what happens if client wants to change some elements that creative team finds essential for the success of the product. After I wrote the last sentence I’ve realized that a similar question is asked on the end of The Handspring Project article. Well, now just to try to answer to that dilemma. Probably everything depends on the IDEO’s overall vision and strategy. As a company IDEO can set a more rewarding and the more risky strategy of accepting only projects that enable them to apply their process and deliver the high quality solutions, but that potentially may also lead to smaller number of projects and less revenue. Accepting projects that are limiting in scope may bring more revenue, but potentially damage company’s reputation of delivering truly innovative cutting edge products. Probably the answer is somewhere in proper managing of risks.
ReplyDeletea few ideas from IDEO resonated in me:
ReplyDelete- "Fail often to succeed sooner"
- "if a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth ten thousand"
- all company branches held "show-and-tells"
These are concepts I try to implement in my team but I have to say with little success so far.
Agile development has the same concept of "fail often, early and cheap to succeed."
we used IDEO's 7 rules of brainstorming (http://www.greenbusinessinnovators.com/7-rules-of-brainstorming-from-ideo). However, I failed to do it often enough to get people used to it and do it themselves in even smaller teams.
I'm starting to get my VOJ telling me that I'll never manage to motivate people or get them involved enough to be creative.
.... but I'll keep looking for people with good experience to share with my team.
So, if you know some and you'de be happy to come visit Yahoo! let me know ;)
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteThe first company I heard about when I moved to Palo Alto was IDEO. This company is for me one of the most innovative, strategic and creative place to work for. I worked in several companies with a lot of creative personalities, but it was always difficult to have a/any structure... IDEO seems to have found the perfect recipe.
I would love to work for them, because:
* it’s an ongoing creative process
* projects are diversified, team members are always different, you could work on several projects at the time
* you really search and discover the success of a product (how and why it works)
* there is only little hierarchy
See you in class to discuss further this amazing company,
Eugenie
Thank you Hal for the wonderful class. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I enjoy all of them.
ReplyDeleteIDEO would be a great company to work with. This new age innovative company provides an ideal environment for creative minds to conceptualize and deliver memorable products, where new (even wild) ideas are always welcomed and appreciated. There is some sense of appreciation even for the smallest (stupidest?) idea. This helps the employees to shed all their inhibitions and use their creativity to the fullest potential Moreover, the teams comprise of highly capable multi-disciplinary individuals, who can give attention to various aspects of a product at the same time. Creating a great idea is a journey. All ideas may not work. But the roads to that one big idea do need a few false steps. Hence, a certain amount of freedom is required. In the process the team not only comes up with a great product but also create leaders in the team. No doubt why they are able to create products that are so successful also in terms of business.
In my opinion, every organization has its unique characteristics (like our VOJ :).
So it would not be a very good idea to entirely “copy” IDEO methodologies. IDEO has created this wonderful culture. Culture cannot be copied. But of course, other design firms may learn from the IDEO approach. It would be very helpful to apply a customized version of IDEO strategies that would suit their working environment and gradually move forward to create a culture that could even be better than IDEO.
IDEO video was very inspiring. There were lot of lessons learned. It was interesting to see that when the hierarchy was not in place, the ideas flew fluently. The complete redesigning of shopping cart in 5 days at the same cost and with greater efficiency showed the power of team work in creativity.
ReplyDeleteMore often than not I have seen only ideas of 1 or 2 people floating around the products. This video showed that the manager was the last to see the product. This is a great learning from me. Going forward when I get a chance to work on my next release or version, I would incorporate some of these creativity skills to create the best next generation product.
The hardest thing for me would be to convince me that crowdsourcing at least within the org is one of the best ideation process, but this video speaks for itself.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat IDEO may mean by "emotional innovation" is to find new, different ways to connect with what people find valuable, meaningful...
ReplyDeleteSee this article about design thinking and sustainability: http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/design_is_the_problem_an_interview_with_nathan_shedroff_13049.asp.
I stumbled upon this article because I heard a radio at for the MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts (cca.edu/designmba). Looks like they are launching a Leading by Design Fellows program this year as well.
I really liked the IDEO "case study" because it symbolizes exactly what an "innovative" company should be. The thing that resonates me the most is the freedom brought by the flat structure. I think the more freedom you have, the more ownership you will take for the work you do, and will go to great lengths to perfect and implement those ideas. I know that when I'm working on my personal pet projects, I'm often more eager to do them and go to great efforts to make sure it's as polished as it can be given the time constraints.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think it's easy for companies to say that their people are the true assets of the company, but to actually make you (as an employee) feel like you actually matter to the company, it's very difficult. I know that the small size of IDEO makes it easier to maintain that visibility to the company as a whole, but I don't think size is the only thing that matters.
For example, I work in a pretty lean organization. My team consists of just 7 people, in a department of 30 people. We all sit close by and work closely together, but there is definitely a disconnect between the "upper management" and us "lowely workers." To have a more open dialogue and having that respect for each other as IDEO seems to have, is difficult to implement due to the culture of the company.
Also, the IDEO model, due to its uniqueness is difficult to mimic. But I think some of the elements can be tweaked and implemented at least for the team I work with; I'm actually brainstorming ideas to adopt some of their process such as "Fail often to succeed sooner" and the deep-dive sessions.