Ideo and the Deep Dive

Years ago, I saw a story done on ABC Nightline profiling the company IDEO.  They are based out of Palo Alto, CA, and specialize in consumer product innovation.  Basically, they take a product (in this case a shopping cart), analyze it via their process, which I'm going to disect below, and come up with a prototype for an innovative version incorporating their findings.

They don't show their entire methodology, of course.  But from the video, they have several stages they go through for their planning. 

1. Issues discussion - brings to the forefront the most important concerns of the product.  These can be any identifiable need or desire.  (e.g. safety, security, ease of use, mobility, looks, color, texture, reusability, etc.)  
2. Qualitative use investigation - interview people who use, make, repair, monitor (or any other adjective) think about the current product status.  They seem to focus on what the product is not good for and what the customers want the product to do.  This is a hands-on activity that includes personal interviews, facility visits, and individual trails.  They want to find the real experts on the product.  
3. Share Learnings - teams from the qualitative investigation return to the office and communicate their findings.  This allows more data to be gathered by splitting the investigation and get everyone on the same page before moving forward into brainstorming. 
4. Brainstorming - They begin by throwing out wild ideas and posting them on the wall.  Those ideas are encouraged to be crazy, but on topic.  This leads to a wild bunch of ideas that fuel each other and generate more themselves.  They also ding people (by ringing a bell) to stop people from attacking ideas.  
5. Idea narrowing - The team votes on the best ideas for innovation based on constraints set up by the moderator (time, materials, cost, etc), and those are moved to the design board.  The team makes sure there are advocates for each representative group to prevent the most important issues from falling through the cracks.  It also helps prioritize them for discussion and inclusion. 
6. Mock Ups - At this point, the full team splits up into smaller teams to make a first version of their new product.  This is then presented to the group at large.  Each is evaluated, and eventually combined into a single prototype - the final deliverable for this process. 

This video was the impetus behind my desire to move into a more creative job.  Their team organization, the short deadlines, and the ability to use my well-rounded skill set is exciting.  They follow innovation procedures similar to those I learned about in grad school, but what I'd really be concerned with is how they would fare in our increasingly technological world.  I'm sure that since this segment aired, many competitors have begun to compete based on niches (automotive, electronic) or specialty services (green production, integrated marketing). 

I am in no way deterred, though.  Despite the probable competition, I believe innovation is more important than ever before.  I look forward to exploring more later.