"Inside IDEO"

During the course of this module, we watched a documentary, “Inside IDEO”, a design firm based in Palo Alto, California. This documentary introduced a concept which we revisited often during the module: “fail often to succeed sooner”.

Watching this documentary, reminded me of personal work-related experiences working with design teams, in that the IDEO workplaces appeared chaotic and that everyone, no matter their experience or seniority in the business, had an equal say in the design process. As David Kelly, founder of IDEO stated, “it is unlikely that the boss will always have the great idea”. In IDEO, status arises from those with the best ideas, not those in the company the longest or those with superior experience.

What I learned most from watching this documentary, was the businesses approach to failure. My prior experience would suggest that failure is something which is discouraged and something which should not be reflected on and instead, “swept under the carpet”.  Those at IDEO, in contrast encourage failure and see it as a learning experience. In the documentary, we see that instead of disregarding failures, they keep each failed invention.

Watching this documentary, taught me the importance of prototypes. This is something which was also encouraged in the Game Thinking module I had previously taken. After the team had narrowed down their designs to a few options, the team were split up into smaller groups, to each build a mock-up of each idea so as to bring the idea to life. Having a tangible prototype of each of the ideas, aided the overall team in refining features and selecting the best option for the problem at hand: redesigning the traditional shopping cart.