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SCMP Reporter

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

By Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman

Published by Currency

At Ideo Product Development, they do not think outside the box. They do not have a box.

In The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from Ideo, America's Leading Design Firm, Tom Kelley, Ideo general manager, reveals the keys of the company's phenomenal success in creating and improving products and services.

Kelly's openness about the way the company, founded by his brother David Kelly, goes about its business might be seen as unwise by some. But he does not appear to be worried about that. The operating assumption appears to be that there is enough design and product development business to go around, and Ideo will get its share of it.

Such confidence is thoroughly justified. Ever since Ideo built a better mouse for Microsoft in 1987, companies have been beating a path to its door.

Although Ideo's reputation for creativity was well established before the mouse coup and it has enjoyed greater successes since, the mouse has come to be recognised as a kind of signature achievement.

Microsoft turned to Ideo after its first mouse received a lukewarm reception.

Ideo responded with the 'Dove Bar' shape that moved the roller ball farther forward for speed and comfort and inserted a ridge between the left and right buttons to prevent double-clicking or chording.

'The Microsoft mouse sold like hot cakes - more than seven million units - providing Microsoft the brand recognition to expand into other lucrative hardware accessories,' Kelly writes.

That mouse design evolved out of the unconventional approach to creativity for which Ideo has become famous. It is a creative process that might be described as serious whimsy or teamwork run amok. An abundance of ideas, some of them fantastical, are entertained by a team assigned to each project.

Those ideas are tested by determining how they address the needs of the people who will use the product. That determination is made by closely observing the way consumers use the products they have and discovering the problems the users face. Ideo's approach to innovation undoubtedly works best in an environment like that which exists in the company's buildings. There are no hierarchical arrangements of offices or furniture. Although there are no interior walls, teams and individuals are free to create their own private- or limited-access spaces according to their needs or wishes at any time.

'Hot teams', as Kelley calls them, may set up neighbourhoods to work in close proximity to one another and 'cross-pollinate'. Those teams may include people from various disciplines such as engineers, artists and writers.



Revelations from the house of mouse