Design Thinking and Innovation at Ideo

IDEO QUESTIONS. Juan Pallares 1. What is the role of prototyping in IDEO? Is it central to their growth? For IDEO, prototyping is the core of its design process, and how they use it is one of their competitive advantages. IDEO believes in explaining anyt design idea with prototypes, which helps volume to counsel on the same idea, or to find improvements of a single design easily. Prototyping is also a infract way to show the customers the design your are thinking of, and helps them to get involved with the design process, aligning few(prenominal) designers and customers mindsets. . Should IDEO accept the Visor Project? Why? Like everything, it depends of the needs of IDEO. Initially I would recommend non accepting the project, unless they were in need of cash. Visor project would require a design process a lot more tight that the one employed in IDEO, with almost no barriers to creativity and the free cling of ideas. The time and cost requirements would imply designers and b rainstormers would have their ideas enclosed to the requirements, that would orient the ideas in one specific counsel since the beginning.In a design process, that could kill the project. 3. In case they will accept, what argufys and risks are they facing? First of all, in a company where communication of ideas is key (show and tell is an example), having a enigma project would reduce the man-made lake of ideas just to the ones involved in it, reducing the possible outcomes. More over, in a company where people involved in a project are the ones that are most passionate about it, forcing some people to work in a project without telling to anyone else reduce the motivation of the design team.Another challenge is the lack of testers. One of the success of the Palm V was the marketing research done by Boyle, which open their designers minds to different users with broader needs, thus avoiding insiders egocentric point of view. This would not be possible in this secret project, unl ess considering an outside marketing company for developping the research, with the increase in costs associated. Related to the project specifications, one of the banging challenges would be to work with only existing and tested technologies.IDEO design process starts with convergence designers and engineers, and after the reaping is designed on its basic form, costs are considered. Working with actual technologies would reduce the innovative impression of the team, and could possible lead to just a ingathering make-up, a product similar to the existing ones simply with a different shape. And the innovative image of IDEO could be damaged because of that. 4. In which cases will you outsource the product development of your company? Only in two situations I would outsource the product development of my company. First, if product design is not a authoritative aspect of my industry.If I? m a manufacturer of golf balls, even if there is always room for competitive advantage thro ugh innovation, it is not a crucial fact for everyday business. Second, if the company which I will outsource my product development to, is known for its timbre in terms of design/ innovation. In this case outsourcing would be a perfect strategy for my company, release the design to people with more expertise and recognition (it can be also a marketing tactic). Always of course, with constant monitoring of the aligning between the design and the values/image of my company.