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IDEO Product Development – Case Solution

IDEO Product Development case study discusses the company's process, organization, culture, and management. It looks into whether IDEO should accept the Visor, a novel hand-held computer, which was created at less than half the time IDEO usually creates its handheld computers.

​Stefan Thomke Harvard Business Review ( 600143-PDF-ENG ) June 22, 2000

Case questions answered:

• How would you characterize IDEO’s process, organization, culture, and management? What was striking to you, and why? Be specific.
• Can any of these be a source of sustainable competitive advantage? Why? (Look for choices/investments/tradeoffs that might be difficult to imitate in other firms or industries and use the Barney reading to bolster your argument).
• Decision point: Should IDEO accept the Visor project as is (on a dramatically reduced schedule)? Should they try to persuade Handspring’s management to change its aggressive launch schedule? Or should they simply decline the project? Explain your reasoning.

Not the questions you were looking for? Submit your own questions & get answers .

IDEO Product Development Case Answers

Ideo product development.

IDEO has a very original creative design process, generating innovative ideas through encouraging failure with a lot of time dedicated to extremely productive brainstorming sessions and the aggressive generation of prototypes. They have a very casual workplace culture that encourages self-expression, collaboration, and agility.

They purposely pay higher rent for their Silicon Valley offices to encourage employees to have stimulating conversations, encourage personalization of workspaces, leave their desks when people have creative blocks, and provide loaner bicycles to facilitate movement between buildings.

The company has 9 offices so as to avoid becoming too large and the bureaucracy that comes with it. Therefore, every time a certain design studio becomes too large, it is budded out.

They do not fire people often, rather putting a lot of effort into the recruitment process to make sure they hire the best by having candidates meet with 10 employees or hiring straight out of their internship program.

IDEO relies on intrinsic motivators, like the reward that comes with leading or working on more challenging projects that interest the employee, rather than using promotions.

Great employees are compensated with more shares in their client venture capital base, which also encourages better work for their clients, so their shares increase in value.

They have a “Tech Box” with many different objects lying around in it to inspire employees to find new uses for them and come up with new innovations. Every Monday at every branch, they had “show-and-tells,” where the latest insights and products would be shown off to inspire others and further the “playroom” environment.

The organizational resources that IDEO has acquired can lead to them having a sustainable competitive advantage and are what has been giving them this competitive advantage so far.

This can be seen in the number of Industrial Design Excellence Awards they have won, which is 32, with the firm with the next highest number having 20 (p. 15). Every aspect of their organizational culture encourages creativity, which is essential for…

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As part of an assignment in the MS Strategic Design & Management program at Parsons School of Design, our faculty Seth Johnson from IBM tasked us with choosing a case study from IDEO’s website and analyzing it. 

Original case study, for more context, have a look at the original case study on ideo’s website..

IDEO x Zalando, a case study analysis

IDEO Design Thinking: Process and Practice (The Complete Guide)

Jack O’Donoghue

IDEO – an influential Design Thinking consulting firm at the forefront of Design Thinking – has become popular for sharing its approach through stories, tools, and techniques.

This article will explore the IDEO Design Thinking process and the role that IDEO played in popularizing it.

You might also like…

• IDEO’s Desirability, Viability, Feasibility Framework: A Practical Guide
• 100 Tips on How to Improve Your Design Thinking Skills
• How to Define in Design Thinking

Table of Contents

Did you know, ideo and their role in the world of design thinking, the ideo shopping cart: a design thinking workshop by ideo, what is the ideo design thinking process, ideo brainstorming principles, here are ideo’s 7 rules for brainstorming:, ideo design thinking project case studies, ideo desirability, viability and feasibility, creative confidence, the art of innovation, design thinking vs. human centered design, did ideo invent design thinking, key takeaways.

To help teams implement Design Thinking, we offer bespoke innovation training workshops. Talk with us and find out how we can help transform the way you design your products and services.

Interested? Message us in the bottom right corner or learn more here.

IDEO is a renowned design thinking consultancy with an interdisciplinary team that draws on various backgrounds – from industrial design to social innovation – and skills to develop innovative solutions.

In recent years, Design Thinking has become increasingly popular thanks to the efforts of Tom and David Kelley.

The brothers co-founded IDEO in Palo Alto, a leading design, and innovation consultancy, in 1991 and have since been instrumental in spreading and legitimizing design thinking – a problem-solving approach that combines creativity and practicality – across companies and industries.

“Enlightened trial and error succeed over the planning of lone genius.” IDEO motto

Design thinking has its roots in product design and is now used to develop better customer experiences, organizational structures, marketing strategies, business model design and more.

From the development of the iconic Apple mouse to the extensive use of industrial and mechanical techniques, IDEO has established itself as a thought leader in design thinking.

IDEO U – they offer an online learning experience where anyone can learn design thinking techniques at the forefront of global creativity and problem solving trends.

IDEO has also created an open innovation platform that allows them to collaborate on projects with clients and members of the public.

In 1999, IDEO made a special appearance on Nightline ABC. Faced with the challenge of reinventing the shopping cart in just 4 days, they provided an informative and creative demonstration of their design thinking process.

From researching user needs to prototyping new ideas, viewers got a glimpse of how these professionals could transform an everyday product quickly.

IDEO describes its process as a series of thinking and design-based activities without a fixed definition, methodology, or approach.

The process is fluid and adapts depending on the context of the problem being solved.

You decide what to focus on as you learn and gather evidence and insights throughout the project.

The role of the design thinker is to bring together a diverse group of minds, set the stage for innovation, and guide the process based on previous experience.

That said, some of the most successful projects have a pattern of steps.

IDEO describes the steps of the Design Thinking process as follows:

• Inspiration
• Implementation

However, David Kelley – founder of IDEO – also founded the Stanford University D.School.

The d.school program teaches the Design Thinking methodology as follows:

• Develop ideas
• Create a prototype

D. School provides learning materials to teach the tools and techniques used in each phase.

The IDEO Design Thinking Toolkit and the Stanford Universities D.School materials give us a comprehensive overview of how IDEO approaches Design Thinking.

“Design thinking is a people-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolbox to integrate people’s needs, technology’s capabilities, and business success requirements.” Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO .

The creative process is about divergent thinking, making associations and connecting dots.

One idea can trigger another or connect in an exciting way to an unrelated topic to give us new ideas and fresh inspiration.

Every idea produced has the potential to be the spark that leads to something innovative.

That’s why it’s essential to generate lots of ideas freely, no matter how wild they may seem.

These ideas are the raw material from which we build, experiment, and discover radical innovations.

IDEO has formulated a set of brainstorming principles to create the conditions for innovation and creativity to flourish.

These principles are designed to remove obstacles encountered in the brainstorming process and encourage ideas flow.

1. Defer judgment

The creative process is far-reaching. We need to give it space and foster conversations through support and encouragement for it to flourish. This allows thoughts to flow freely and increases the chances of coming up with a new innovative idea.

2. Encourage wild ideas

A wild idea could catalyze a new understanding of the problem area. This understanding can lead to a new perspective and, ultimately, a viable idea that would otherwise have gone undiscovered.

3. Build on each other’s ideas

Ideas that emerge during the session become the inspiration and stimulus for other new ideas and deeper conversations. By building on the ideas of others, we expand their thought process and add fresh ingredients to the mix.

4. Focus on the topic

When so many new aspects are being discussed, it’s essential to stay focused and bring everything back to the goal of your project. Stay attentive during the discussion and remove any distractions that could lead you off track.

5. One conversation at a time

With so many creative people in the room bursting with ideas, it can be tempting to split into groups. It’s essential to focus on one conversation at a time, so everyone stays on the same page, develops a common understanding, and works toward a common goal.

6. Be visual

We work best when we’re having fun, which is when we stay stimulated and creative. Being visual throughout the process helps keep the energy flowing in the room. Use post-its, sticky notes, markers, and sketches to make each decision and idea tangible.

7. Go for quantity

The more ideas you can produce, the better. Lots of ideas give us lots of direction, inspiration, and potential talking points. Set high goals and encourage your employees to work quickly. This also helps us get past the obvious ideas and spurs us to look for more creative ideas.

“Ideation is about shared invention. A single person’s attachment to a single idea hinders collaboration and greatness . “ Brendan Boyle, IDEO Partner.

Take these principles and try them out in your own brainstorming sessions. Print them out or display them on a screen for all to see.

Explain why they’re essential, and if you’re working with a new group, conduct a brainstorming warm-up exercise to demonstrate how the principles work.

IDEO publishes many social design case studies on its website, along with descriptions of the tools and techniques it uses during the process.

Here are a few examples:

Vroom: A human centered view of early childhood development

Brilliance by D-Rev: Combating jaundice in the developing world

Viva toolkit: A budgeting toolkit for Latino families in San Francisco

IDEO suggests that an idea must be desirable, viable, and feasible to have the potential to be implemented and create value.

These three ideas form what we call the DVF framework. The DVF framework gives us the desirability, viability, and feasibility criteria against which we can test our hypotheses.

The DVF framework is a set of criteria that can be used to evaluate ideas.

After ideation, when we have developed a variety of ideas. Before we commit to a particular direction, we should ask ourselves:

Is the idea desirable?

• Have we established that there is a valid and demonstrable customer want or need?
• Can we say with certainty that customers want this product?
• What data do we have as proof?

Is the idea viable?

• Does this idea make sense for the company? Does it fit our strategy?
• Does this idea make sense for the community it serves? Is it ethical and helpful?
• Does the idea have the potential to generate the profit the company needs?

Is the idea feasible?

• Do we have the resources and capabilities to implement this idea?
• Can we produce this idea within our means and still add value?
• Can we bring this product to market on time and within budget?

By asking ourselves the above questions, we can begin to prioritize and decide which ideas deserve our time and attention and which need to be either developed further or discarded.

IDEO and Stanford University D.School founder David Kelley has written a book called Creative Confidence, describing the characteristics and value of creative confidence.

In summary, David Kelley describes creative confidence as the belief in one’s abilities to be creative and develop ideas that can significantly impact society.

It is commonly believed that creativity cannot be learned, but this book challenges that notion by presenting a different way of thinking.

Creative confidence – confidence in one’s ability to create something new and meaningful – can be acquired through training, just like any other skill.

With hard work and dedication, anyone can develop their creative skills, no matter where they started!

The Art of Innovative was written by Tom Kelley, David Kelley’s brother, and partner at IDEO.

This book is about business management practices that complement innovation.

It includes insights into the design process from IDEO, including an emphasis on people management and rapid prototyping for success.

The book emphasizes employee management techniques and frequent brainstorming sessions to develop innovative ideas.

In short, Design Thinking is a human centered approach to innovation.

Human centered design is an approach to problem solving and innovation that focuses on the needs of people as the product’s end users.

Design thinking aims to achieve solutions that are desirable, achievable, and feasible.

During the Human Centered Design process, there is a significant focus on gaining empathy and understanding for the community you are designing for.

This deep understanding of their needs allows us to make human-centered design decisions and develop a potential solution that adds value by aligning with people’s wants and needs.

Design thinking is a human centered approach to innovation that uses design skills to develop an innovative solution that combines human needs with technical solutions to add value to the business and community the solution serves.

Design thinking leads to solutions that are desirable, achievable, and feasible.

IDEO designers did not invent Design Thinking, but they have popularized the method, demonstrated it’s creative potential, and made it accessible to the masses by sharing their stories, experiences, and techniques.

The term Design Thinking was first coined by Herbert A. Simon, in his 1969 book The Sciences of the Artificial. In this book, he explored the ideas of rapid prototyping to build and observe systems from which we can gain insights into how to solve complex problems more effectively.

‘Wicked Problems’ were coined by Richard Buchanan to define the types of problems that Design Thinking is particularly effective at solving.

The principles of design thinking continued to gain momentum as a response to the chaos of the 1960s as a way to solve problems with a focus on human needs.

In later years, the term ‘Wicked Problems’ was coined by Richard Buchanan to define the types of problems that Design Thinking is particularly effective at solving. Wicked Problems can be defined as complex, open-ended, and ambiguous.

They are not quickly addressed with a definitive solution because these problems are often multi-faceted and have many changing variables – like complex social problems encountered by social designers.

This makes them ideal candidates for design thinking because design thinking considers the diverse and changing needs of all stakeholders and looks at the problem from a systems perspective.

• IDEO is a renowned design thinking consultancy that has been instrumental in spreading and legitimizing the use of design thinking in companies and industries.
• The IDEO Shopping Cart: A Design Thinking Workshop by IDEO aired on Nightline at ABC in 1999 and gave viewers insight into how these professionals could transform an everyday product in such a short period.
• What is the IDEO design thinking process? The process is fluid and adapts depending on the context of the problem being solved. There is no set definition, methodology, or approach. However, there is a pattern of steps that are used in some of the most successful projects, including Inspiration, Synthesis, Ideation, Experimentation, and Implementation.

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Case Studies

These inspiring stories of innovation and impact show how human-centered design gets real results. We breakdown each phase of process so you can see what the design teams did, what they learned, and how it all adds up to surprising solutions.

These inspiring stories of innovation and impact show how human-centered design gets real results. We breakdown each phase of process so you can see what the design teams did, what they learned, and how it all adds up to surprising solutions.

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A sustainable community-owned health, agricultural, and water business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Redesigning the help-seeking experience for youth

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A Campaign and Movement to Raise Awareness of Birth Justice

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A Digital Financial Coach for Low-Income Americans

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IDEO Product Development Case Analysis

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New Skill City

The people of south bend, indiana, have the power to design a lifelong learning platform for themselves..

To succeed in today’s knowledge economy means you can never stop learning. But educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. Employers are demanding fresh skills faster than Americans can acquire them, and that’s leaving many behind. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other. Free to all, Bendable is sponsored and run by the city’s library system.

programs and other resources offerings are now available to residents of South bend

States have begun to integrate bendable into library systems.

By 2025, as many as 85 million jobs will be displaced by automation, yet 97 million new ones could emerge.

More than a third of adults pursuing postsecondary education before the COVID-19 pandemic were forced to abandon those plans.

To create Bendable, IDEO worked alongside the people closest to the problem, so every important decision grew out of their experience.

IDEO and the Drucker Institute aligned with the library system and city leaders in South Bend, Indiana, on a single objective: build a learning platform that offered education opportunities to people affected by the decline of manufacturing in the region. But even the earliest phases of research revealed that there’s no common profile that matched the diversity of learners. There are innumerable reasons why people seek to learn and as many barriers holding them back.

Knowing this, South Bend residents were the acknowledged authority for this work, and a design consultancy all their own. This radically simplified crucial decisions. Negative associations around traditional education led people to seek knowledge from those they already trusted. And they often lacked awareness about or the ability to access the many free resources already available.

The residents of South Bend helped the entire consortium see that the city wasn’t under-resourced but under-connected. That insight, and the power the community and the library system held to rectify it, made Bendable into the people-driven, connection-based learning platform it is today.

“We need to come up with solutions that work for us, sourced by people who live here. But having the creativity and design of people who have taken on ideas from all over the world and are among the best in their fields is a real win for South Bend.”

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A new campus concept and student experience for Tokyo College of Music positions the college as a platform that would encourage the spontaneous creation of communities within and outside the school.

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NYU collaborates across departments to create an aligned communication strategy that results in a better student experience.

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IDEO's human centered design process: How to make things people love

UserTesting

IDEO is one of the world's most innovative and award-winning design firms. They’re like the secret weapon of innovation for companies like Microsoft , Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, and Samsung, in large part, due to their focus on human centered design.

Over the last few decades, they’ve designed hundreds of products, like the first computer mouse for Apple in 1980, the Palm Pilot in 1998, a school system in Peru, and the 25-foot mechanical whale used in the movie Free Willy , just to name a few.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about IDEO is that Founder David Kelley doesn’t consider them experts in any specific industry or vertical. He says,

We’re kind of experts on the process of how you design stuff.

You could hire them to design a vending machine, an app, a mattress, or a space shuttle, and it would all be the same to them.

IDEO’s main tenet is empathy for the end-user of their products. They believe that the key to figuring out what humans really want lies in doing two things:

• Observing user behavior: Try to understand people by observing them. For example, if you’re designing a vacuum cleaner, watch people vacuum.
• Putting yourself in the situation of the end-user: IDEO does this to understand what the user experience is really like; to feel what their users feel.

Then, they use the information they gain to fuel their designs.

IDEO designers trust that as long as they stay connected to the behaviors and needs of the people they’re designing for, their ideas will evolve into the right solution. In other words, they let the end-user tell them what they need to focus on building. David Kelley said,

If you want to improve a piece of software all you have to do is watch people using it and see when they grimace, and then you can fix that.

Sometimes the best ideas are so obviously staring us in the face that we miss them. We can’t see them because we’re looking at things from the outside in, instead of looking at things through the eyes of the end-user.

That’s why the folks at IDEO strategically put users at the core of everything they do—a process they refer to as human centered design .

What is Human Centered Design?

IDEO defines human centered design as a creative approach to problem-solving that starts with people and ends with innovative solutions that are tailor-made to suit their needs.

In their Field Guide to Human Centered Design, they say,

When you understand the people you’re trying to reach—and then design from their perspective—not only will you arrive at unexpected answers, but you’ll come up with ideas that they’ll embrace.

This is the central philosophy that human centered design revolves around. Whether you’re designing physical or digital solutions, the process is the same, and it consists of six phases, which we'll outline next.

The six phases of the IDEO design process

Phase 1: Observation

The first phase is all about observing the end-user , learning, and being open to creative possibilities.

Your goal is to understand the people you’re designing for.

Identify patterns of behavior, pain points, and places where users have a difficult time doing something—these all lend to tremendous opportunity. If you can, put yourself in their situation so you can see what their experience is, and feel what they feel.

Phase 2: Ideation

In this phase, you start brainstorming ideas with your team based on what you learned from your observations and experiences in Phase 1.

Your goal is to come up with as many ideas as you can.

As you’re coming up with ideas, stay focused on the needs and desires of the people you’re designing for. If you do this, your group’s ideas will eventually evolve into the right solution.

Phase 3: Rapid prototyping

In this phase, you’re going to quickly build a simple prototype of your idea. This makes it tangible and gives you something to test with the end-user.

Don’t try to build a fancy high-fidelity prototype right now. IDEO is notorious for creating simple prototypes made out of cardboard.

Ask yourself this: What can I spend the minimum amount of time building that will allow me to get user feedback as quickly as possible? The purpose of this phase isn’t to create the perfect solution; it’s to make sure your solution is on target.

Phase 4: User feedback

Get your simple prototype into the hands of the people you’re designing for.

This is the most critical phase of the human centered design process. Without input from your end-user, you won’t know if your solution is on target or not, and you won’t know how to evolve your design.

Phase 5: Iteration

Once you get feedback from your users, use that information to fuel the changes to your design.

Keep iterating, testing, and integrating user feedback until you’ve fine-tuned your solution. This may take a few rounds, but don’t get discouraged. With each iteration, you’ll learn something new.

Once you’ve got your solution to a point where it’s ready to be used, it’s time to move on to the next and final phase.

Phase 6: Implementation

Now that you’ve validated the usefulness of your solution with the end-user and gotten your design just right, it’s time to get your idea out into the world.

If you’re designing software products, apps, or websites, go back to Phase 1 and repeat this process. With each new update that you implement, continue to observe your users, design for them, and use their feedback to direct your future solutions.

IDEO Human Centered Design examples

IDEO has used this process over and over again to design delightful products and experiences that people love.

You might be wondering how exactly you’re supposed to get started. How do you start observing your users? How do you put yourself in their position?

Let’s take a look at a few examples that illustrate IDEO’s human centered design process so you can apply it to your own team.

1. Designing a medical device for nurses

IDEO was asked by a medical device producer to design a device that nurses would use to enter data during a specific procedure. The client had a vision of a sleek, futuristic gadget that the nurses would hold with two hands (picture how someone would hold an iPad) during the operation.

via NEC America

But when the IDEO team watched the medical procedure take place, they noticed something that would make a two-handed device completely impossible.

When patients were going into the operation, they were really nervous and afraid. So the first thing that almost every nurse did was hold the patient’s hand to comfort them—an obvious human element their client hadn’t noticed.  

via Paul Bennett

IDEO went back to their office to brainstorm potential solutions, and they came up with a device that had a thumb scroll so nurses could do everything with one hand. That way they could input data and hold the patient’s hand.

It wasn’t as “cool” as the client initially imagined, but it was much more human and practical.

Instead of approaching the project with preconceived notions of what the solution needed to be, the IDEO team started by putting themselves in the position of the end-user.

Then they used that information to direct their ideas, and even though they ended up designing something that was different than what they initially expected, they created a much more human experience for everybody involved.

>>Related Reading: Regional healthcare system leans on UserTesting to diagnose digital pain points

2. Designing a toothbrush for kids

In 1996, Oral-B asked IDEO to design a new toothbrush for kids. And the first thing the IDEO team said was that they needed to watch kids brush their teeth.

As you can probably imagine, the Oral-B executives thought this was a strange request. You want to go into people’s homes—into their bathrooms—and watch their kids brush their teeth? Everyone already knows how people brush their teeth, is that really necessary?

As strange as it sounds, that’s exactly what they did. They needed to see how kids actually brush their teeth, and they didn’t want to make any assumptions.

During their observations, they noticed that the way kids hold their toothbrushes is totally different than adults.

Since adults have manual dexterity in their hands, they tend to use their fingers to manipulate the toothbrush with very fine movements. But kids just grab the toothbrush in their fist.

The problem with adult toothbrushes was that they were hard for kids to hold. Since they were so small, they just flopped around in the kids’ hands and were difficult to use.

That one simple observation led to a new style of toothbrush: the squish gripper.

And it totally innovated the kids-toothbrush space.

If you go into any supermarket or corner store today, you’ll notice kids’ toothbrushes have fat, squishy handles. That’s the power of observing the behavior of your users and integrating it into your design process.

>>Related Reading: Back to school: 4 ways youth experiences differ from adults’

3. Improving a hospital’s patient experience

IDEO was asked by a large healthcare system to describe what their patient experience was like and to help them improve it.

So the IDEO team started by putting themselves in the position of the patient. They had one of their team members pretend to be a patient in the hospital, and they discovered something obvious, yet completely overlooked.

When they presented their findings to the hospital executives, they started by showing a 6-minute video clip of the ceiling in a patient’s room. At first, the executives were confused and didn’t understand what they were watching. Then the IDEO team explained the purpose of the video.

The point was this: when you’re a patient in the hospital you spend all day lying in a bed staring at the ceiling for a really long time—and it’s a really bad experience.

Watching that video clip helped the executives catch what IDEO’s Chief Creative Officer Paul Bennett calls “a blinding glimpse of the bloody obvious.”

Looking at the patient experience from the point of view of the patient—instead of the organization—was a huge revelation to them, and they immediately took action. They realized that improving the patient experience wasn’t about making massive changes to the system. Instead, it’s about doing small things that make a big impact.

So IDEO started brainstorming ideas and prototyping, and they quickly implemented small four changes:

• Decorated the ceilings to make them more aesthetically pleasing.
• Covered one wall of each patient’s room with whiteboards so visitors could write messages for the patient.
• Made the floor of patient rooms a different style and color than the floor in the hallways of the hospital. This signified the transition from public space to private space, making patients feel like this was their own personal space.
• Attached rear-view mirrors to hospital gurneys so that when patients were wheeled around by a doctor or nurse, they could actually see the person they were having a conversation with.

>>Related Reading: The growing importance of UX research in the healthcare industry

Applying IDEO's design process

There’s a long history of innovative designers observing the world around them, seeing things with a fresh eye, and using that observation as an opportunity to create new possibilities. The common thread that ties all these stories together is a design process that starts with understanding the end-user of your product.

IDEO does this by observing the user and putting themselves in the user’s shoes. They know that if they can feel what people feel—what their experience is really like—then they can use that information to fuel their design solutions. And this process has turned them into one of the most influential and award-winning design firms in the United States.

To build a truly innovative and useful product, you don’t need to start with the brightest idea or the fanciest technology. You just need to start by understanding people.

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Design and business: an analyse of the IDEO case study

This is an individual Harvard Business Case analysis based on a dilemma of IDEO. The purpose of this analyse is to discuss whether IDEO should design the required product for Handspring regardless the bypass of the most identified and the most important early stages in IDEO design phase, or negotiate with Handspring to add more time to the research process of the product which will at the end influent the company’s profit. This paper will analyse the situation from the view of both organizations and focus on the different impacts on both companies through the discussion about corporate culture, product development process, business profit and design transformation. The paper has been marked with "distinction" by the university of Southampton, WSA.

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This research investigates the role of design as a functional leader in multinational industries, to drive innovation successfully at a strategic level. It involved a detailed case study of the innovation process, and practices within Philips Design based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where design is a key decision making function within the company but not yet recognised as a leading discipline at strategic level. Philips Design wanted to use design research to build an integrated map of its actual practices and correlate these with other corporate innovation practices, to help establish strategic recognition for their value. The doctoral challenge was to explicate the process and determine whether the findings have generic capacity to support the role of design as a functional leading discipline. The investigation integrates an iterative loop of; abductive reasoning of design thinking and inductive reasoning of management thinking in an action research cycle. The case study was part of an empirical enquiry, where the researcher became a participatory observer at Philips Design, conducting one-on-one interviews for data collection and refining their analysis using a Delphi Technique. Three other multinational organisations were explored to take into account how each perceives the contribution of design and the different roles it plays in their organisation. Data triangulation was also used to validate findings with a third party expert. The research contributes to knowledge by confirming the conditions for design to act as a leading functional discipline. It shows that design cannot be the only functional lead for a multinational organisation. It identifies the major reason for this as the difference between thinkers trying to find viable options for the future and practitioners trying to defend the core business in their organisation, resulting in a gap between strategy and operation. The research further elaborates on the reasons for the gap to exist through qualitative conceptual relationships between designer behaviour and organisational culture in the different innovation cycles that exist in the organisation.

The traditional culture of many companies puts design in an advanced phase of the innovation process, acting vertically and in parallel with the other business functions. In Italy this is the standard process for many companies where management consists of engineers or professional figures with a “technology-based” educational background. However in recent decades, leading enterprises in many sectors have begun to develop design at an early phase, adopting a well-established “strategic design” process which requires building a platform of integrated competencies throughout the process of product innovation. In this paper we will examine cases in which design is intended as a mediating and infra-structuring mean, used to involve and structure the innovation process to a degree that does not directly influence the product/service, but is entirely dedicated to the way (process, environment, instruments etc.) by which the desired result is achieved.

This research aims to enhance, once more, the interventive value of Design in our contemporaneity. The selection of a set of analysis areas in the domain of Design was one of our concerns, as well as the relative requirements of the products and respective methods of conception. This paper starts with the investigation history and also the methodologies in the Design area in the objective to make a point of the situation and to give a strategic contribution, in the way of its solid and interventional aspect in the economic social and academic areas. In spite of the factual collects on what was done, who done or is doing, about scientific investigation in the Design area, is fundamental to notice the impact of these works in the professional activities or in the entities that, by chance, have benefited of their results, as well as reflect on the vision and expectations that those agents have relatively to the academic investigation in this area. In the global society information, on our days, the enterprises must be concentrated in the task of maintaining competitively and accepting new challenges. Some subjective properties of Design are also subject of analysis, for the importance that they have assumed in the persecution of the design project, like interactions, sensorial aspects, design for pleasure, among others, looking users satisfaction, for thus being to project and construct fruition objects which can be competitive in the global market. All these various aspects must always be linked either to the conception process or to the user satisfaction.

This research aims to enhance, once more, the interventive value of Design in our contemporaneity. The selection of a set of analysis areas in the domain of Design was one of our concerns, as well as the relative requirements of the products and respective methods of conception. This work starts with the investigation history and also the methodologies in the Design area in the objective to make a point of the situation and to give a strategic contribution, in the way of its solid and interventional aspect in the economic social and academic areas. In spite of the factual collects on what was done, who done or is doing, about scientific investigation in the Design area, is fundamental to notice the impact of these works in the professional activities or in the entities that, by chance, have benefited of their results, as well as reflect on the vision and expectations that those agents have relatively to the academic investigation in this area. In the global society information, in our days, the enterprises must be concentrated in the task of keeping competitive and accepting new challenges. Some subjective properties of Design are also subject of analysis, for the importance that they have assumed in the persecution of the design project, like interactions, sensorial aspects, design for pleasure, among others, looking users satisfaction, for thus being to project and construct fruition objects which can be competitive in the global market. All these various aspects always must be linked either to the conception process or to the user satisfaction.

International Journal of Management Reviews, 2012

Proceedings of the Design Society

Enterprises evolve continuously, usually gradually, but sometimes rapidly in the face of disruptive events. The purpose of this study is to analyze the transformation process of the design consultancy in the face of challenges presented by advanced technology, economic change, and systemic shifts by applying selected methods and tools from the ARIES (Architecting Innovative Enterprise Strategy) framework. The study uses IDEO as an example to discuss the organizational structure of design consultancies, and describes how IDEO has evolved in the context of change. This study illustrates some emerging challenges that the design consulting industry is facing now and will face in the future, and how these challenges will affect organizational culture and structure, the design consulting process, the recruiting criteria, and the designers, as well as envisioning possible paths for the future of design consultancy.

Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 2013

Product design process cannot be explained without both industrial design and engineering design. However, the two fields have different design approaches toward product design. This study explored different types of combined design approaches that companies adopt with industrial design and engineering design. Industrial designers and engineering designers from six global consumer product companies were interviewed. As a result, three different types of combined design approaches; Industrial design-led design process, engineering design-led design process, and cooperative design process were identified. The companies adopted the processes differently based on their purpose and situations. In particular, Industrial design-led design process cases were strongly implemented by the CEOs’ strong support who believed industrial design is the primary route to secure competitiveness of their products. However, engineering design-led process was mainly used for redesign of existing products....

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IDEO Product Development Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Home >> Harvard Case Study Analysis Solutions >> IDEO Product Development

Describes IDEO, a leading product design company in the world, and its culture of innovation and processes. Special attention is paid to the important role of prototypes and experiments in general, and in the design of a highly successful Palm V handheld computers in particular. Studio leader asked business start (Handspring), to develop a new handheld (Visor) for less than half the time it took to develop a Palm V, requiring several shortcuts to the innovation process in the legendary IDEO. Focused on: 1) the creation of prototypes and experimental practices in leading product development, 2) the role of playfulness, discipline and structure in the innovation process, and 3) management challenges of creating and managing an unusually creative and innovative corporate culture . Includes color exhibits. To enhance their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color. "Hide by Stefan Thomke Source: HBS Premier Case Collection 21 pages. Publication Date: June 22, 2000. Prod. #: 600143-PDF-ENG

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Why TheCaseSolutions.com?

A social network designed to solve the world's biggest problems.

For OpenIDEO

Sectors Served

Global, Social Network

OpenIDEO is IDEO’s open innovation practice, enabling people to collaborate and design solutions to the world’s toughest challenges. As OpenIDEO scaled, they realized that there was an opportunity to make their platform more accessible to a global audience using digital tools.

In just six months, we developed a full featured custom social network for OpenIDEO to test the ability to scale their program globally. This new platform allows OpenIDEO to reach more participants and engage global communities with ease.

What We Did

Once launched, the OpenIDEO community collaborated on the new platform to design solutions to large scale global challenges. Feedback was gathered from over 500 users over the course of one year. This feedback and the resulting set of data was distilled into an actionable strategic roadmap to help OpenIDEO better serve their community.

Finding Sustainable Scalability

The new platform allows OpenIDEO to facilitate collaboration with users around the globe in three different ways:

A dedicated space for location-specific communities to collaborate. A dedicated space for distributed communities working on a specific topic to collaborate. A simple event management system to facilitate bringing these communities together in real-time. OpenIDEO can now manage local chapters and topic-based groups and engage the community through platform messaging and automated notifications.

What We Did in 6 Months

• Designed and developed a custom social networking platform, complete with robust sorting and filtering functionality
• Improved collaboration based on location or topic via social networking features
• Created functionality to facilitate in-person and virtual events
• Created a repository for organizers to add and catalog useful community resources
• Created ability to engage community with rich email messaging and notifications

Post-Launch Enhancements

At CauseLabs, we know that the work isn’t done after successfully launching a digital product. We enjoy collaborating with our partners to continue refining the experience based on user feedback and quantitative data.

So, a year after the MVP platform launch, feedback was collected from users amounting to a laundry list of enhancements for the team to explore. Together during a virtual workshop, OpenIDEO and CauseLabs went deep into detail on each potential enhancement and grouped our findings into an actionable roadmap.

The main takeaway of the workshop was that the platform could benefit from an improved user experience and design refinements. It became apparent that we ran the risk of “losing the user” with that additional new features if the core experience wasn’t refined. We set forth alongside OpenIDEO to redesign the user experience with this usability feedback in hand. The result of our work together is a more streamlined and consistent experience for the user throughout the entire platform. With the new base to build upon, we are excited to see the next round of features launching late summer of 2017.

Technical Details

OpenIDEO already had two separate systems: their Challenges platform (built on Java) and a homepage content management system, built on PHP using the Craft framework. How could we introduce a third system and have it integrate with the existing ecosystem?

CauseLabs selected the Laravel 5.2 framework alongside Vue 1.x for building out the Chapters application (alongside some custom packages) for speedy development, strong community support, and long-term maintenance. The app was configured to run on the Amazon Web Services suite of tools for easy scaling as well.

CauseLabs also worked with their existing platform service provider to come up with a single sign-on solution using Auth0, providing a centralized identity provider and authentication solution, making it easy for OpenIDEO community to move between applications as needed.

“I am proud of how far we have come in the past year. It's incredible to know that we have over 3k users all over the world sharing about their projects and creating events for social change. CauseLabs has been an important thought partner and ally in this journey.”

Luisa Covaria Principal Designer and Strategy Lead - OpenIDEO

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• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →
• June 2000 (Revised October 2017)
• HBS Case Collection
• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 21

About The Author

Stefan H. Thomke

Related work.

• Faculty Research
• IDEO  By: Stefan Thomke and Ashok Nimgade