IDEO is an international design firms which believes the every human being is creativity and the thinking can be designed. In 1975, David Kelley entered Standford University to pursue his Engineering graduation with a major in Product Design. In 1978, he founded a designing firm Intergalactic Destruction Company which became IDEO in 1991. IDEO believes in human centered innovation methods and works as a consultancy company which helps other companies to bring innovations in their products. David met the founder of Apple Company Inc., Steve Jobs at Standford University and in 1983; he made a first computer mouse for Apple’s Lisa Computer which is believed was used for Macintosh computer in later years. IDEO has designed every sort of products that is seen in the market. IDEO believe on the process of diversity employee engagement, to design the products. The official website of IDEO tells that more than 700 peoples from diverse academic and professional backgrounds works here, and they all commonly think and work as designer.
SELF CONCEPT
After meeting with Bob Mckim (David’s mentor), he felt an intuition that he couldn’t survive in America’s corporate world. He hated the hierarchy system of the corporate worlds, where employees are with papers and desktops confined in separate cubicles. He believed that the steps culture will not allow employees to be creative and they likely will not invent anything. So, IDEO has a very informal setting in their office. He calls himself as a part of crazy peoples who bring wild ideas and continuously values innovations in their product development. He never claimed himself to be a person, who has best ideas on innovating products rather he believed on creating a chaos environment; where people feel comfortable to share their wild ideas, pass no judgment to the team member’s opinions, built on the collaborative ideas to bring an innovation in the products. In the video, David says, “You have to have some wild ideas, and if you build on those wild ideas, then better ideas will emerge. If everybody comes up with something appropriate things, then you never have those points to take off to build a really innovative idea.”
IDEO designer’s belongs to some of reputed university of the world like Hardvard and Standford Univeristy, which brought diversity in terms of experience and exposure. The nature of these individual were weird, sometime crazy which all had accepted and were proud of their self identity. They don’t claim themselves to be experts on any designing the product, but believed they are the experts on the process of designing product. Employees have that space where they can freely express themselves. They bring the innovation on their own physical space. For example, an umbrella was used to protect the computer screen from direct sunlight, bicycle were used in the ropes to prevent clutters in the room.
To make changes in the physical space, they don’t have to ask anyone. IDEO encouraged forgiveness over permissions. They modified, renovate and make the space look creative by their own choice and awareness. Different phrases were manifested on the walls which reflect the culture they want to create in the office. IDEO encouraged employees to have one conversation at time, remain focused to the topic and to have wild ideas. Employees make fun and mock with each other, which David believes will bring fresh ideas on the workplace. It’s because of this culture, people were motivated to do their own work, and remain with the organization for long period of time. Alex Grishaver was enjoying working with IDEO that he turned medical school for three times and now is director of product design at IDEO PALTO ALTO.
WORK STYLE
Peter Skillman (Project leader) accepted the idea is insane to finish a project within a week, when, when the team of ABC news challenged IDEO to make a shopping cart within 5 days. After the acceptance, the whole team discussed about the idea and identified the problem of old shopping carts. The product wasn’t safe for the children’s and it was justified with the quantitative data (22,000 child hospitalized with an injury/year). After having the discussion, the group splits to have a qualitative research from the people who use, make, repair the shopping carts. On the process, they took photographs and observation notes which brought depth in their research. The employees were punctual to return back to office. Each team then worked on demonstrating their learning with the whole team and integrated pictures, design, arts, and colors in communications. David believes when people go to research about their project in the real market, this process brings the innovation in their products.
On the next day, 100 ideas of shopping carts were pasted on the walls which were then short listed by voting process. Peter who was a team player always believed his team can make a sound judgment about the best idea than he actually make. In the video he mentions that, “Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius.” While everyone was busy on the process of selecting the idea, David appointed some adults to have informal discussions about the possible product design. David then, breaks the environment which he says, “Focused chaos environment” and assigns roles to different team members. Then carts were asked to design on different categories. The next day carts were ready and later one consolidated cart product became ready, which was as competitive in terms of price, design and features. The final product included all the unique strengths of the cart which were designed under different categories, before.
The whole process of designing the product from brainstorming to finalization is very democratic which fostered individual creativity. The decision making process was engaging and fair to everyone which brought innovation to the cart product. The IDEO project journey included the observation of user’s need; synthesize the information which were generated during observation; generate wild ideas; continuously refine the product idea and implement all in designing the product. This journey of an IDEO project enables people to be creative, collaborative and more expressive which brings innovation in product design.
PUNCTUALITY
When the challenge of designing an innovative cart was in front, individual were spread out to bring qualitative information from market, all the team members came on time. Later when each was involved in deciding the idea by voting, Peter broke the messy environment which was focused on selecting the idea by ringing the bell and called everyone for the meeting. By realizing the time limit the team has, he commanded his team members and stepped in to their zone. David elaborates in the video that, “They didn’t had a choice but to stop that psycho. If you don’t work on the time constraint, you will never do anything done. The whole process is messy and goes forever.” And, for the 5 days, every team members worked so hard to design a cart product which was equally competitive with the other products in the contemporary market. This whole example justifies the dedication and hard work it produced in the limited time. Even if any of the team members weren’t punctual to his/her responsibility then IDEO would have never accomplished the challenge given by ABC news. The importance of time was equally reflected on their office space with innovative sound clock hung on the walls, bells used in their discussions. The values of accountability were fostered by punctuality.
CONCLUSION
IDEO is an influential firm for many of the organization who want to create an innovative work space. When corporate seek a hierarchy structures in the work place, IDEO is controversial answer which practice a different ideology in their organization. Cubicles not only create a physical wall among the individual but also it blocks team collaborative capacity which indeed restricts the individual creative potential. The more expressive an individual can become in their work place, the more chance it is they bring their best individual capacity. IDEO has allocated their resource to build a strong organizational culture. The culture has a great influence in nurturing the creative confidence of an individual. The culture fosters individual accountability, collective decision making and respecting the differences in the work place. The philosophy of David Kelley to make a hierarchy free organization leads a great foundation in shaping the organization success in this competitive world. IDEO organizational culture has overshadowed individual fear of failure and judgments in designing the innovative products. The organization also sets a remarkable example on engaging customers in the process of designing products. IDEO became a firm who value individual differences in terms of knowledge, attitudes and experience over person’s position in the organization.
Refer to IDEO shopping chart project for more details.
