The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm

Front Cover
Crown, 2007 M12 18 - 320 pages
IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.

There isn't a business in America that doesn't want to be more creative in its thinking, products, and processes. At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.

IDEO doesn't buy into the myth of the lone genius working away in isolation, waiting for great ideas to strike. Kelley believes everyone can be creative, and the goal at his firm is to tap into that wellspring of creativity in order to make innovation a way of life. How does it do that? IDEO fosters an atmosphere conducive to freely expressing ideas, breaking the rules, and freeing people to design their own work environments. IDEO's focus on teamwork generates countless breakthroughs, fueled by the constant give-and-take among people ready to share ideas and reap the benefits of the group process. IDEO has created an intense, quick-turnaround, brainstorm-and-build process dubbed "the Deep Dive."

In entertaining anecdotes, Kelley illustrates some of his firm's own successes (and joyful failures), as well as pioneering efforts at other leading companies. The book reveals how teams research and immerse themselves in every possible aspect of a new product or service, examining it from the perspective of clients, consumers, and other critical audiences.

Kelley takes the reader through the IDEO problem-solving method:

• Carefully observing the behavior or "anthropology" of the people who will be using a product or service
• Brainstorming with high-energy sessions focused on tangible results
• Quickly prototyping ideas and designs at every step of the way
• Cross-pollinating to find solutions from other fields
• Taking risks, and failing your way to success
• Building a "Greenhouse" for innovation
 
IDEO has won more awards in the last ten years than any other firm of its kind, and a full half-hour Nightline presentation of its creative process received one of the show's highest ratings. The Art of Innovation will provide business leaders with the insights and tools they need to make their companies the leading-edge, top-rated stars of their industries.
 

Contents

WINGING IT IN STARTUP MODE
15
INNOVATION BEGINS WITH AN EYE
23
THE PERFECT BRAINSTORM
53
A COOL COMPANY NEEDS HOT GROUPS
67
PROTOTYPING IS THE SHORTHAND OF INNOVATION
101
7
104
BUILD YOUR GREENHOUSE
119
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
147
BARRIER JUMPING
163
10
193
CREATING EXPERIENCES FOR FUN AND PROFIT
201
ZERO TO SIXTY
219
IN SEARCH OF THE WET NAP INTERFACE
253
INDEX
299
Copyright

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Page 6 - Observe real people in real life situations to find out what makes them tick: what confuses them, what they like, what they hate, if they have latent needs not addressed by current products and services.
Page 3 - Many CEOs, directors and senior managers in business today are focused on improving efficiency, making things work better and delivering better customer service. They are working extremely hard and think they are doing a good job. They are not. This is because incremental improvement in...
Page 7 - Evaluate and refine in a series of quick iterations. We try not to get too attached to the first few prototypes, because we know they'll change. No idea is so good that it cannot be improved upon.
Page 3 - The higgest single trend we've ohserved is the growing acknowledgment of innovation as a centerpiece of corporate strategies and initiatives. What's more, we've noticed that the more senior the executives, the more likely they are to frame their companies' needs in the contest of innovation.

About the author (2007)

Tom Kelley is general manager of IDEO, the world's leading design consultancy specializing in product development and innovation. Working together with his brother, IDEO founder David Kelley, he has helped manage the firm, as it has grown from twenty designers to a staff of over three hundred. During that time, he has been responsible for diverse areas such as business development, marketing, human resources, and operations. Like everyone else at IDEO, he also occasionally gets down on his knees to cut foam core alongside IDEO clients and designers, as part of the firm's brainstorming and prototyping efforts.

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