ROT207

Design Thinking:
Ready for Prime-Time
David Kelley has infused his thinking into the legendary
design he founded more than 20 years ago, creating
thousands of breakthrough inventions and a growing
appetite for Design Thinking.
by Charlie

NOTE: In January of 2013, Design Thinking reached a milestone when 60 Minutes featured “one of the most innovative
thinkers of our time; a man who has had an enormous impact on our everyday lives.” Chances are, many viewers hadn’t heard of this
visionary; but for our readers, his name was familiar. Following is an adapted excerpt from the segment, which indicates just how far
Design Thinking has come in a few short years.

DAVID KELLEY IS THE of the Silicon Valley global design If you follow him around IDEO, as I recently did, you can
IDEO. His company has created thousands of breakthrough see how Kelley has infused this thinking into the Palo Alto
inventions, including the computer mouse for Apple, the he founded more than 20 years ago. Breakthrough ideas happen
stand-up toothpaste tube, and a better Pringle for Procter & here every day, and the key to unlocking creativity at IDEO may
Gamble. IDEO may just be the most product design be its unorthodox approach to problem-solving. Basically, they
company in the world. throw a bunch of people with backgrounds together in
Kelley is a pioneer in ‘Design Thinking’ — an innovative a room. On a recent visit that included a business specialist, an
approach that incorporates human behaviour into design. “The aerospace engineer, a software engineer and a journalist. On
big thing about Design Thinking,” he says, “is it allows people to another day, it might include doctors, opera singers and anthro-
build on the ideas of others. Instead of having just one thread, pologists. Such diversity of thought demands a certain corporate
you think about it, and come up with an idea, then somebody else culture, of course.
says, ‘Oh, that makes me think we should try this, and then we “The hard part is the cultural aspect: creating an environ-
could do that.’ You get to a place that you just can’t get to with ment where a diverse group of people can work together, and
one mind.” having them get really good at building on each other’s ideas,”

Management Fall 2013 / 29

This document is authorized for use only in Prof Vijay Sethi's B6054 - T2 (2018-2019) at Nanyang Technological University from Oct 2018 to Apr 2019.
 Observing a user’s experience can communicate
what innovators need to focus on.

says Kelley. At IDEO, they actively encourage wild ideas and vi- Even after they solved that monumental problem, Jobs still
sualize solutions by making prototypes; but the main tenet un- wasn’t satisfied. “Steve didn’t like the way the ball [inside the
derlying it all is empathy for the consumer: figuring out what hu- mouse] sounded on a table. So we had to rubber-coat it. Well, this
mans really want and need, by watching them. was a huge technical problem, because the rubber ball couldn’t
“If you want to improve on a piece of software, all you have have any seams in it. We had to get it just right.”
to do is closely watch someone while they’re using it, note when I had to ask: “Suppose you had said to him, ‘We can’t do
they grimace, and correlate that to where they are in the software that.’ What would he have said?” “Well,” said David, “the exple-
program. Then, you fix it. Our goal is to build a high degree of tives that I would have heard can’t be repeated here, but it would
empathy in people, so they can understand others by closely ob- have been something like, ‘I hired you guys because I thought
serving them.” you were smart. You’re letting me down’.”
In other words, user experience can communicate what in- Since then, design thinking has led to thousands of break-
novators need to focus on. This is a concept that had its genesis throughs, from redesigning Zyliss kitchen tools so they’re easier
in 1978, when Kelley and some Stanford pals took to the notion to use, to coming up with a heart defibrillator that talks to you
of mixing human behaviour and design and started the company during an emergency. IDEO even came up with TiVo’s ‘thumbs
that would eventually become IDEO. One of their first clients up, thumbs down’ button, which basically makes your TV smart-
was the owner of a fast-growing personal computer manufac- er because it learns what you like and what you don’t. This is why
turer by the name of Steve Jobs. Steelcase, a company that has been building furniture for 100
“Steve Jobs basically made IDEO,” says Kelley, “because he years, turned to IDEO to reinvent a classic product: the tradition-
was such a good client. We did our best work for him.” The two al classroom chair.
became friends, and Jobs would often call Kelley at 3 a.m. “We “When we looked at that old wooden thing with the dog legs,
were both bachelors at the time; he’d call in the middle of the it was awful,” he says. “If you watch kids closely, right away you
night and be like, ‘Hey, it’s Steve.’ Of course, at that hour, I knew notice that the main thing they need is a place to put their back-
it was him. There was never a preamble; he would just start right pack; so we created a place for that. The next thing you notice is
in: ‘You know those screws that we’re using to hold the two things that they’re fidgety — they like to move around. That’s why we
together on the inside?’ I mean, he was deep into every single as- added wheels, so they can move around a bit. Once again, it was
pect of things.” about empathy — really trying to understand what young stu-
Kelley’s company helped design dozens of products for Ap- dents value.”
ple, including Apple III, Lisa and the very first Apple mouse — a Today, IDEO is working with clients all over the globe, us-
descendant of which is still in use today. According to Kelley, Jobs ing that same intuitive human point of view to improve access to
once said to him, “For 17 dollars, I want you to make a mouse that safe drinking water in India and Africa, redesign school systems
we can use for all of our computers.” Kelley and his colleagues in Peru and help The North Face expand its brand in China.
had to figure out how to do that — how a user would move their Kelley has always been good at coming up with ingenious so-
hand and how to make the thing move on the screen. “At first, we lutions to everyday problems. His first job was at Boeing, where
thought, ‘We’ve got to make it really accurate, so that if you move he was part of a team that designed the lights around airplane
the mouse one inch, it’s moves exactly one inch on the screen. passenger windows, as well as a milestone in aviation history: the
But after we prototyped it, we realized that didn’t matter at all, ‘lavatory occupied’ sign.
because your brain is ‘in the loop’; the real challenge was to make He says the seeds of who he is today can be traced to his
it intuitive for a person to use.” childhood in Barberton, Ohio, “the passenger tire capital of

30 / Rotman Management Fall 2013

This document is authorized for use only in Prof Vijay Sethi's B6054 - T2 (2018-2019) at Nanyang Technological University from Oct 2018 to Apr 2019.
 THE IDEO DESIGN FRAMEWORK

When it comes to design, one size does not fit all. The design Phase 3: Visualization. Okay, so now you’ve seen what the prob-
framework that we have developed at IDEO over the years is not lems are; you know what you need to fix, and you have some big
a definitive step-by-step process for design. However, it can be ideas from the observation phase. Now it’s time to visualize some
seen as a recipe to learn from. Just add your own fertilizer, water possible solutions. By this stage, you will have developed a point of
and soil and see what you come up with. view: you might think, for example, that ‘the problem with checking
into a hospital is that it’s too redundant — that you should be able
Phase 1: Understanding. If you’re going to develop something to do some things in advance of getting there’. That’s your point of
new in a certain area, you need to start by talking to the people view, and then you start building systems: you start making physical
who know that area best. If you want to design a great new medical things out of cardboard — prototypes, or videos that show what
device, for instance, you have to really immerse yourself in it: study the solution might be. If it’s a service, like checking into a hospital,
the state of the art, go out and talk to the experts, do research. In you would make a video of what you think would be a really cool,
my experience, you will be really surprised at how quickly you can efficient and better way. You are basically ‘painting the future’ in this
get up to speed, even in a highly technical area. phase.

Phase 2: Observation. You can learn plenty by interviewing Phase 4: Iteration. Now it’s time to start showing the prototype
people, but we believe that you learn different, even more important around. In the Visualization phase, you haven’t worried about
things from observing them. That’s why we ‘get out there’ on a regu- being wrong, or been too careful about the whole thing — you’ve
lar basis, travelling around the world, wherever there are interesting just cranked out a few possible prototypes or videos of the ‘better
people with interesting needs. We’ve watched nurses and seen the future’. The prototypes we make are not precious: they’re really
problems they experience with shift changes, and we’ve watched quick and dirty — just a way to get our ideas out, so that we can
people using vending machines. What we have found is, if we’re go- get help from other people. Now, in the last phase, you are engag-
ing to have some kind of breakthrough, it often occurs at this stage. ing the brain power of everybody else. The big deal about this
If you see somebody having trouble using something, or if they entire process is the iteration part: rather than having meeting after
seem unhappy or scared, there is a need for innovation. By observ- meeting and planning incessantly, quickly come up with some-
ing people and building empathy for them, you will start to have thing, you show it to some users, take their feedback and do it over
insights about them. While it won’t be obvious at first, you will begin — again and again. That’s iteration, and it is extremely powerful.
to notice what they really value. Because Design Thinking is a team It’s the reason why I often give my students the same problem over
sport, it is best to have all sorts of different eyes doing the observ- and over again: because no matter what the problem is, you can
ing. We might have a business person, a technology person, and a always get to an even better answer.
psychologist or anthropologist, so they all notice different things. -David Kelley

the world,” where he learned the value of building things with The biggest misconception about Jobs, according to Kelley, is
his hands. “In my family, if the washer broke, we didn’t go out that he was malicious — that he enjoyed being mean to people.
and order the part; we tore the washer apart and tried to make He wasn’t, says Kelley: “He was just trying to get things done
a new part to fix it. That was part of the game — knowing that right, and you had to learn how to react to that. He did some truly
you were capable of fixing things. One of the best stories my lovely things for me in my life.”
mother tells is, the time I took the family piano apart; the prob- For one thing, Jobs introduced Kelley to his wife, KC Brans-
lem was, it wasn’t that interesting to put it back together, so this comb. And Jobs was also there for him when the unthinkable
big harp-shaped thing just sat in our living room for most of happened: in 2007, Kelley was diagnosed with throat cancer —
my childhood.” and given a 40 per cent chance of survival. Jobs, already suffer-
David was in his 20s, working unhappily as an engineer, ing from his own deadly cancer, gave him some advice. “Steve
when he heard about Stanford University’s product design pro- came over and said to me, ‘Look, don’t even consider any of that
gram. What he learned there would transform his life. “When I alternative stuff — go straight to Western medicine’. I think, in his
got to Stanford, it was heaven. It was the synthesis of art and en- mind, he had made a mistake by trying to cure his own cancer in
gineering, and it was wonderful.” other ways, and he was like, ‘Don’t mess around’.”
It was shortly after that that Steve Jobs came into the picture. When the two had cancer at the same time, they be-
For over 30 years they worked together and were close friends. came very close. “One day I was at home, sitting around in my

Rotman Management Fall 2013 / 31

This document is authorized for use only in Prof Vijay Sethi's B6054 - T2 (2018-2019) at Nanyang Technological University from Oct 2018 to Apr 2019.
 No matter what the problem is, you can
always get to an even better answer.

skivvies, waiting for my next dose of something. It was the day his workshop with his 15-year-old daughter, Clara. When I ask her
after the iPhone was released, and Steve called to say he had what goes on in there, she says, “Everything. Really: everything!”
one for me! My own iPhone, delivered by Steve Jobs! He decided David adds, “Our big project is right over there, which is to
to hook it up for me, so he gets on the phone with AT&T, but it make a 3D printer. We call it a ‘printerbot’, and it’s a little ma-
doesn’t go well. Eventually he pulls the, ‘I’m Steve Jobs’ card — chine that makes three-dimensional objects in much the same
and I’m sure the guy on the other end was like, ‘Yeah buddy, and way that a printer puts ink on a page.”
I’m Napoleon’. We never did get the iPhone hooked up that day.” His love of making things is as much a part of his DNA as
When he learned he was sick, “Steve focused more on his his appreciation for the automobile, which he calls ‘the most im-
kids than anything else,” says Kelley. “That focus on family was portant object in our lives’. Almost every day, you can find him
something he taught me. I started to think a lot about my daugh- driving his ‘54 Chevy pickup truck between Stanford and IDEO,
ter, and what her life would be like if I wasn’t around; and that inspiring the design thinkers of tomorrow and quietly shaping
was really motivating.” the future.
It was around this time that Kelley decided to commit him- Before I leave, I tell him this: “If I could write the first line
self to something even bigger. He approached Stanford Univer- of your epitaph it might be, ‘David Kelley helped people find the
sity and a wealthy client named Hasso Plattner with the idea of confidence in their creativity…’
setting up a school dedicated to human-centered design. “Hasso “That would be lovely,” he says.
thought that was a great idea and said he’d help me. He ended up ‘And changed the world’, I would add.
funding the whole thing — giving Stanford $35 million. He actu-
ally asked me, ‘How much do you need?’ Sometimes I wish I had
said $80 million.”
Kelley now runs the groundbreaking and wildly popular
Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Otherwise
known as the ‘d. school’, it is recognized as the first program of
its kind dedicated to teaching design thinking as a tool for inno-
vation — not just to designers — but to students from all differ-
ent disciplines. Twice as many Stanford grad students want to
take classes as are seats available. The lucky 500 students in the
program augment their master’s degree studies in Business,
Law, Medicine, Engineering and the Arts by solving problems
collaboratively and creatively, and immersing themselves in the
methodology Kelley has made famous.
But there are no degrees. That is something Steve Jobs talk-
ed him out of. “He said to me, ‘I don’t want somebody with one
of your flaky degrees working for me; but if they have a Computer
Science degree or a Business degree, and then they learn this way
Charlie Rose is the co-host of CBS This Morning and has hosted a late-
of thinking on top of that, I’d be really excited about that.”
night talk show on PBS since 1991. He also contributes to 60 Minutes.
Today, Kelley’s cancer is in remission. He spends more time The preceeding is an adapted excerpt from a segment that aired January 6,
doing the things that he cares about most, including tinkering in 2013 on 60 Minutes. Published with permission from CBS.

32 / Rotman Management Fall 2013

This document is authorized for use only in Prof Vijay Sethi's B6054 - T2 (2018-2019) at Nanyang Technological University from Oct 2018 to Apr 2019.