Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders

IDEO has incredible flexibilty when it comes to allowing their staff to relocate to a destination of their choice. Thus, IDEO staff will gravitate to a place where they inherently feel affinity for the work culture are open to adapting and learning more about it.

Kelley believes that how quickly you create an initial prototype is directly proportional to how successful a product will be. Essentially, given a set project deadline, the earlier you invite feedback, the more chances you have to revise and improve. He calls this "enlightened trial and error."

Kelley feels that the reason why companies lay-off their usability groups during hard times is because they are not aware of the vale of usability studies. "Revolutionary products... come from understanding users."

Kelley describes three important steps in starting a company: 1) Follow your passion 2) Hire great people 3) Focus on process. His passion is design, but there must be a balance between passion and business issues. People often worry too much about the financial side of the company and fail on the emotional side of the company, he says.

Learn from your European clients. Be innovative about your approaches to sustainability.

Kelley addresses the question of how IDEO negotiates conflicts in attitudes towards design process with their clients. He mentions that most of the IDEO process takes place before the client product development takes place hence there is less chance for a clash. IDEO concentrates on ethnographic studies and innovation audits. This enables them to empathize with the clients' needs and demands and successfully wins them over. He also stresses that IDEO is highly experienced at problem solving and this knowledge should be leveraged. Offering a free strategic/conceptual phase is also an option to show sincerity. Kelley also talks about training people in IDEO's process to promote innovation. He mentions unfortunate it is when these individuals move back into a large corporation and their their newly learned creativity is stifled by the already established overwhelming company culture and process.

Kelley talks about how the observation phase is the most overlooked part of the development process. Kelley hires social scientists to watch people complete tasks instead of asking them usability questions. He prefers to see them as customers instead of users and strongly believes that customer satisfaction comes with understanding their values. He gives examples of how his team will observe a customer in their usual environment instead of inviting them into a sterile lab for product testing. The case studies he presents include a television remote control.

Kelley explains that he has a unique perspective on starting companies--his goal is not growth, but to create a personal gratification system. A place where he can work with friends. He explaines that many of his comments on starting a company may not apply to companies that are trying to grow as fast as possible.

At IDEO, performance reviews are given by peers, because they are the most familar with your skills and work ethic. Your studio head is present as well to observe the feedback and determine your pay raise. Kelley feels that performance reviews are very labor intensive and extremely subjective.

Building the team can be a messy process. Kelley illustrates examples of problematic combinations: two strong conflicting personalities, or representatives from different disciplines presenting contrasting viewpoints. He believes that the solution is to have a strong fair leader that the team will believe in and trust to make the final judgement.