The Art of Innovation

TOM KELLEY WITH JONATHAN LITTMAN

Reviewed by Todd

IDEO, the Silicon Valley’s design firm of choice, has brought to life a staggering list of groundbreaking products—the original Apple mouse, the Palm V handheld organizer, Samsung’s award-winning monitors—leaving outsiders wondering what IDEO does differently to generate such memorable products and services.

The answer can be found in The Art of Innovation, the twenty-first century’s hallmark book on how to generate new ideas. The opening pages read more like a company biography than a guide to product transformations, but by chapter 3, The Art of Innovation picks up speed and shows why this book is a prime example of what can make a business book so valuable. IDEO opens up its doors and takes the reader on a tour that reveals what makes the studio/firm successful. Author and IDEO general manager Tom Kelley cautions readers against thinking there is a magic formula for generating new ideas—a lesson that exemplifies the kind of honest advice infused throughout the book.

Many of the methods Kelley recommends contain a “best practices” mentality. IDEO’s core belief in observation borrows from the field of anthropology. Observation leads to counterintuitive insights: bigger, thicker toothbrushes are better for smaller hands. The company ignores the myth of the individual and embraces the power of teams, pointing to the group of fourteen individuals that enabled Thomas Edison to invent the telephone, phonograph, and lightbulb as exemplars. Prototyping, an activity associated with engineers and technicians, is simply a word for doing; the models become the physical manifestations of their bias for action.

Brainstorming is an essential part of the innovation process at IDEO. Rather than a nebulous gathering over coffee and cake, says Kelley, every “brainstormer” should start a session with a clear, outwardly focused problem statement, with sixty minutes of brainstorming yielding a hundred ideas. To improve group memory, cover everything in the room with paper; it allows plenty of room for ideas and makes it easier to go back and find an idea that needs more development. Numbering each of those ideas is a simple trick IDEO learned to motivate a group and allows for quick movement between ideas without losing the group’s place. Best way to prep group members? Send them to a toy store. These best practices show that brainstorming is more than just a tool at IDEO. Kelley elaborates: “It’s also a pervasive cultural influence for making sure that individuals don’t waste too much energy spinning their wheels. . . .”

“Publicly acknowledge a risk taker, a rule breaker, even a failure, and explain why every successful organization needs them.”

The Art of Innovation teaches that the best ideas come from more than daydreaming. Observation trumps conjecture. Teams trounce individuals. And making something happen always beats imagining what it would be like. TS

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, Currency/Doubleday, Hardcover 2001, ISBN 9780385499842

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for habits that spark innovation Here for what hinders “doing” Here for how to keep teams talking | EVEN MORE: The Ten Faces of Innovation by Thomas Kelley with Jonathan Littman; Thoughtless Acts? by Jane Fulton Suri and IDEO; Everyday Engineering by Andrew Burroughs and IDEO