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“Stay human,” say IDEO’s
innovation practice rules,
“scale your organizational
environment so that there's room
for hot teams to emerge and
thrive.” At IDEO, a world's
leading new product design firm,
building of hot teams starts
from the hiring process. "The
typical job candidate will be
interviewed by more than a dozen
of IDEOers before the
thumbs-up," writes Tom Kelley.
"The process takes time but it's
worth it in the end. You don't
get hired at IDEO unless you wow
a bunch of us. Those that make
it receive a tremendous boost,
knowing that a lot of other
accomplished people think
they're talented and capable. We
believe in giving individuals an
opportunity to perform. Everyone
starts out roughly equal and
then is given lots of chances to
mess up – and to shine.
Newcomers that flourish in our
environment are often offered a
key role in a new project, or
even an opportunity to manage a
project. Age and experience
aren't factors. You actually get
to pick two or three people who
will review your work, and
IDEOers invariably pick team
members. An since we live for
projects, there's an opportunity
to spread the work around.”
***
IDEO’s Hot Studio and Hot Team
System
At IDEO, a world's leading new
product design firm, teams are
at the heart of the innovation
method.
“People at IDEO believe it's how
innovation and much of business
take place in the world. Quite
simply, great projects are
achieved by great teams,” says
Tom Kelly, the author of The Art
of Innovation.
The organizational structure at
IDEO is very flat. There are
definitely people who aspire to
lead teams, but the company’s
goal was to create an
environment where hot teams
formed on their own. So IDEO
created a Hollywood-like system
– hot studios – for quickly
building teams around projects
and disciplines. When IDEO get a
new project they give to a team
that's going to be excited about
it.
Design firms seldom exceed a
hundred people because when
talent can't find enough places
to blossom, it generally splits
in new directions. As the
company matured, David Kelley,
CEO of IDEO, realized he
couldn't have a personal
relationship with each person at
IDEO and couldn't be mindful to
everyone's individual needs.
So as the company approached the
100-person mark he took a chance
and threw things open,
designating some of the best
people as studio leaders and
giving them an opportunity to
make their pitches to
prospective members. No one at
IDEO was going to be assigned to
a studio. They reversed the
routine where players wait to be
selected. IDEOers got to pick
their team leaders, not vice
versa.
At the company's Monday morning
"all hands" meeting each leader
described the type of work they
favored, and what was exciting
and challenging about their
approach to product innovation.
Everyone gave David a "secret
ballot" with their first and
second studio choices.
Amazingly, they were able to
juggle studio sizes so that
everyone got their first choice.
Each group ranged from 10 to 20
people. After a couple of years,
they opened it all again and
gave everybody a chance to
reshuffle studio membership if
they wanted. It's worked. IDEO
have not only grown but also
developed hot teams with very
unique capabilities.
The hot studio system is the
IDEO's biggest sustainable
competitive advantage. A hot
team works together for a period
of time. There's a lot of
movement at IDEO between teams
and among studios. If someone
wants to gravitate to another
studio, that's encouraged. Each
studio has a head who is
responsible for the profit and
loss of that group. It's like
running a small business. There
are also opportunities to be
discipline leads -- people who
oversee best practices for their
discipline across the whole
firm.
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