How to Think Like IDEO
Over the years, I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with IDEO. For virtually anyone who’s seen the famous shopping cart video, IDEO represents an expression of creativity and innovation through design thinking that’s unparalleled in the world today. In an earlier post, I touched on IDEO’s ability to focus on human centered design. But now, by borrowing some thoughts from Tim Brown’s (CEO of IDEO) blog, I’d like to show you how you, too, can learn to think like IDEO.
Above, you’ll find one of Tim Brown’s wonderfully visual illustrations of just what “design thinking” actually is. The reason that it’s only rarely been embraced within the confines of the business world is that most business schools (and most corporations) are quite centered around the right side of the picture (convergence) through a heavy emphasis on analysis and synthesis alone. This is where the balance sheet wizards and number crunchers typically live.
What IDEO does is develop the second half of that spectrum to augment convergence with divergence. The idea that rests at the heart of everything they do is that, at least initially, you can never have too many ideas. Thinking divergently with a diverse team of people produces more ideas than you can ever begin to imagine (that’s why whiteboards and post-it notes are essential!).
When you absorb this picture as a whole, however, only then does the true power of design thinking begin to emerge. As a process, innovation happens by exploring problems from every conceivable angle. To do that, you deconstruct a problem from its core to develop an understanding of all of the moving pieces that cause it to exist in the first place. From there, you begin to brainstorm possible solutions to the problem by tweaking those pieces you found and creating an infinite number of ways to rearrange and reinvent them to do something different.
Tim said it best in describing the relationship between convergence and divergence as “making choices and creating new ones…putting ideas together and breaking problems apart.”
So, how then, do you think like IDEO?
In short, think bigger…then smaller. I have Tim’s drawing from above taped to the wall that sits beside my desk (alongside a strange variety of other things). I’ve never had a problem with divergent thinking, but I use it to remind me how important it is to maintain a symbiotic relationship between convergence and divergence.
To think like IDEO, your idea process should look something like this:
Problem Definition -> Pieces of Problem -> Possible Ways to Solve Problem -> Best Ways to Solve Problem -> Solution
It sounds simple, but if you do that for each and every idea you want to do something with, you’ll be on your way to being your own personal IDEO.
Many of the ideas from this post were inspired by a post by Tim Brown. Here’s a link to the original.
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