Monday, 27 January 2020

IDEO - Creative Confidence

Reimagining the Shopping Cart (ideo.com)

In what is now recognised as a seminal inside account of IDEO's design process ABC's Nightline broadcast this documentary video circa 1999. )
Search to view online - inside ideo abc nightline shopping cart - (the full video is around 22' long or posted in 7' parts).

Some key quotes from the video have become canon...
"The only thing that matters in software is the experience of the user"
"It's impossible that the boss is going to be the one who has had the insightful experience!"
"Trying stuff and asking forgiveness instead of asking permission"
"Fail often in order to succeed sooner"

The Kelley brothers of IDEO have also published on their approach
Creative Confidence
"Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the “creative types... each and every one of us is creative."
http://www.creativeconfidence.com


Some questions:

  • What is focused chaos?
  • Is this a sane way of working?
  • Is management control necessary? If so why? What forms of control are present here? When is control present? Who controls the process?
  • What problems do you foresee with this kind of organising?
  • If watching this video for the third or fourth time - try to notice the features that didn't belong in typical 1990s workplaces? Features that may be mainstream in today's high-tech workplaces.
  • If you wanted to introduce this style of working into your own organisation: how would you justify it? how would you try to implement it?

Are you interested in what product designers actually do in a shared project workspace? Have a look at this time-lapse video of a week in 2 minutes (link).