david+kelly+ideo+fast+company+feb09

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By

Linda Tischler

Photographs by

Patrick Fraser

By

Linda Tischler

Photographs by

Patrick Fraser Ever

Takes onHis Biggest

Challenge

A Designer

FEBRUARY

2009

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The smell of ramen noodles waftsover the Stanford d.school classroom as David Kelleysettles into an oversize red leather armchair for a

fireside chat with new students. Its 80 degrees and

sunny outside in Palo Alto, and as the flames flicker

merrily on the big computer screen behind him,

Kelley, founder of both the d.school and the global

design consultancy Ideo, introduces his grad stu-

dents to what design thinkingthe methodology

he made famous and the motivating idea behind the

schoolis all about.

Todays task: Design a better ramen experience.

Youre sitting here today because wemoved from thinking of ourselves asdesigners to thinking of ourselves asdesign thinkers, he continues. What we,

as design thinkers, have, is this creativeconfidence that, when given a diffi cultproblem, we have a methodology thatenables us to come up with a solution thatnobody has before.

It is a radical notion, in its way: theidea that creativity can be summoned atwill, with a process not unlike the scien-tific method. That contradicts what mostpeopleincluding the 50 students sittingmesmerized before himhave always

Some students seem a little mystified,as they twirl noodles around their chopsticks. What does a ramen experiencehave to do with design? Better packaging?

Curlier noodles? Adding a cute little forkything to the cheap staple of dorm roomseverywhere?

Kelley, a lanky guy with a bald head, aGroucho Marx mustache, and a heartland-bred affability, tackles the mystery headon: I was sitting at a big dinner in PacificHeights recently, and I told my hostess Iwas a designer. Oh, she said. So what do

you think of my curtains? That, Kelleysays, is notwhere were going.

thought. That to be creative, an ang

the Lord appears and tells you whdo, Kelley says, laughing.Ideowhich now counts more

500 employees in eight offi ces on tcontinentshas drawn on Kelleys modology to do everything from stimucustomer savings at Bank of Amerirevamp nursing shifts at Kaiser Penente. Over the past 30 years, the has tackled the challenge of deliverneedle-free vaccine for Intercell, buila better Pringle for Procter & Gamrevitalizing the bicycling experiencShimano, and rethinking airport-sec

checkpoints for the TSA. It has rackemore than 1,000 patents since 1978won 346 design awards since 1991, than any other firm. The design-thinprocess underpins the companys $100 million in annual revenue, dfrom a client roster that has inclu

Anheuser-Busch, Gap, HBO, Kodak, riott, Pepsi, and PNC, among hundreothers. Ideo has, in short, becomego-to firm for both American and forcompanies looking to cure their inntion anemia.

Until about a year ago, Kelley, theat the epicenter of this expandingverse, was on a roll. He had receivNational Design Award, been induinto the National Academy of Engining, held an endowed chair at the StanSchool of Engineering, and even wonSir Misha Black Medal for his dguished contribution to design educatCara McCarty, curatorial director oCooper-Hewitt National Design Mus

David Kelley, founder of thdesign firm Ideo an

the Stanford d.school, waleading a charmed existenc

Then he felt a lum

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Maeda, formerly the associate resedirector of MITs Media Lab and now ident of the Rhode Island School of Debuilt a Web site with a picture of Kellthe White House, surrounded by o2001 National Design Award winnerwith Kelley headsunder the banEVERYBODYWANTSTOBEDAVIDKELLEY.

David is the kind of person you ato become, says Maeda. Hes li

brainy Muppet. You want to hug stick by him, and support what he stfor. He doesnt wear a fur stole or glasses. Hes like the guy you run inthe 7-11 getting a Slurpee. I like thethat hes an anonymous superstar.

Watching Kelley, in his jeans, flashirt, and striped socks, shuttling betwIdeo and Stanford in his greenish-ye

54 Chevy pickup, youre more likethink hes a Sacramento tomato fathan one of the countrys great deminds. (A self-confessed car nut, Kalso has a 67 Ferrari, a 57 Porsche, a32 Ford in his fleet.) Even as a boy group in Ohio, Kelley saw the world frdifferent angle. David believes he wgeek, says Tom, the youngest of the

Kelley siblings and four years Dajunior. But its not true. He had hisrock band, for chrissake! Even then hea rock star. At the town line, theresa sign that trumpets, YOUARENOWENTBARBERTON, HOMEOFDAVIDKELLEY.

After graduating from Carnegie lon, Kelley took a job at Boeing, whedesigned what he calls a milestonaviation history: the 747s LAVATORYPIEDsign. He eventually moved to NatCash Register (now NCR) in Ohio, a larly dispiriting experience. Fate i

vened during the 19731974 oil embwhen Kelley met a guy in a car pool told him about Stanfords product-deprogram. Without the oil crisis, Dmay have spent the rest of his life

very capable but moderately unhengineer, says Tom.

At Stanford, Kelley met his meBob McKim, a pioneer in using exential psychology in design. I haintuition I couldnt survive corpo

summed up his influence: Kelley haspushed our definition of design more thananybody in this country.

He also had a loving wife, a daughterto whom he was devoted, and a vast circleof friends that included Apples SteveJobs and actor Robin Williams.

Then, one morning, he noticed a lumpon his neck.

Kelley was helpinga fourth-gradeclass at his daughters school use designthinking to create better backpacks whenhis cell phone rang and his doctors num-ber came up. He stepped out to take thecall. You have cancer, the doctor said.Just like that, Kelley recalls. He wentback into the class to finish the lessonbut, he says, I was a mess.

It was stage-four squamous cell carci-noma, which had gone misdiagnosedas inflamed fish gillsfor a year and ahalf. During that time, it had migrated tohis lymph nodes. I could tell by lookingin peoples eyes that this was a big deal,he says.

Preliminary tests looked worrisome,but Kelley, an optimist, figured that with

good energy and good medicine, he couldprevail. Then his oncologist sat him downand gave him the statistics: He had a 40%chance of being alive in four years. Thatwas the moment, Kelley says. As anengineer, you say, Show me the data.This has got to be for older people. So thedoctor looks at the chart and the medianage is 56. Im 56. So its right on me.

What ensued was sheer hell. Chemo,surgery, radiation. Mouth sores. A throatso raw he could barely swallow. Nausea sosevere he couldnt concentrate enough to

read or even watch TV. I spent nine monthsin a room trying not to throw up, he says.The treatment wrecked his saliva glandsand his taste buds. He lost 40 pounds.

Kelley, now 58, says his wife, Kc Brans-comb, a former CEO of IntelliCorp whomhe met through his buddy Jobs, was master-ful at orchestrating his care, marshalingdoctors, haranguing insurance providers,keeping on top of appointments, medica-tions, and daily life. But, Kelley says, it was

his brother, Tom, who got him through therough patches psychologically. Heres aguy I shared a room with for 18 years, hesays, choking up. Basically, he gave up hislife to be there for me every day.

David asked Tom to negotiate his rela-tionship with the world, alerting friendsthat his brother wasnt up to communicat-ing with anybody. More than 100 peoplecame to me and said, I know Davids not

talking to others, but hell talk to me. Ima special fr iend, Tom says.

It was the thought of his 11-year-olddaughter that kept Kelley fighting throughthe lowest moments. At first, you think, Idont want to miss her growing up. Thatsmotivating, but not that motivating, hesays. Its when you manage to get out of

yourself and start thinking of her that you

get the resolve to continue. When youthink, I dont want her not to have a fatherthen you want to stay alive.

In the recovery phase, Kelley wasassigned a psychiatrist. When they tell

you that you dont have that many moreyears to live, you ask yourself, What is itthat I want to get done? What is it thatsgoing to make me feel good?, he says, sit-

ting in a neo-yurt at Ideos Palo Alto head-quarters. Given a finite amount of time,how do I spend it? Kelley and the shrinkbegan parsing his days, calibrating whichactivities were the most satisfying. Thepunch line is that one of the things thatsreally fun for me is Ideo, he says. Workingat the firm he built fits into Kelleys life-long mission: I really do believe I was puton the planet to help people have creativeconfidence, he says. I dont have 27 agen-das. Im not the sustainability guy, or thedeveloping-world guy. My contribution is

to teach as many people as I can to useboth sides of their brain, so that for everyproblem, every decision in their lives, theyconsider creative as well as analyticalsolutions.

The illness has given me more resolveto do that.

When Kelley got sick,his friendswere desperate to find ways to help him,sending cards, movies, cartoons. John

WE MOVED FROM THINKING OF OURSELVES AS DESIGNERSTO THINKING OF OURSELVES AS DESIGN THINKERS.

WE HAVE A METHODOLOGY THAT ENABLES US TOCOME UP WITH A SOLUTIONTHAT NOBODY HAS BEFORE

DAVID KELLEY

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Amer ica, Kelley says. I hated the archy and just wanted to work my friends.

In 1978, Kelley and some of his Sford pals banded together to laundesign and engineering firm, and opfor business over a dress shop in dtown Palo Alto. In 1981, the firm crethe mouse that control led Apples gric interface. Its descendants are st

use today.Silicon Valley was a great place

restless mind like Kelleys to soakideas on how innovative companies wfrom HPs iconic culture to Xerox PAbreakthroughs in marrying engineeand social science to Apple, whereidea that business is a mission reafull flower.

In 1991, Kelleys firm merged withothersthose of Bill Moggridge, had designed the first laptop compand Mike Nuttall, whose skill was in

visual design of technology productform Ideo.

A cluster ofbuildingson astreet near Palo Altos business disIdeos headquarters look like a cbetween a cool Montessori school acrash pad circa 1970. There are tubmarkers and easel pads of paper ewhere; Post-it Notes litter the walconference rooms. A gum-ball machxylophone, and Tickle Me Elmo lie necritical elements in the latest comprank, a global Rube Goldberg con

tion, which began with a coin drop inAlto and bumped and rattled its way,occasional electronic leaps, throughcompanys seven other offi ces. A v in

Volkswagen bus has been converted imeeting area, complete with beach con the roof.

The playfulness of the place is utintentional, an outgrowth of Kelconviction that children are natucreativeat least until the educatisystem beats it out of them. To teshis theory, Kelley has several educat

programs going at local schools to tteach children to be as adept with right brains as with their left, and fond of quoting British educator SirRobinson on the topic: Creativity important in education as l iteracy.

As much as Kelley loves teachthough, he knows that his ideas can atmore powerful acolytesand be disnated more widelythrough businesthe goal is to change the world, the Sk

etch:CourtesyofIdeo

KELLEY PRODUCEDWHAT HE CALLS AMIND MAPFOR FASTCOMPANY,

LAYING OUTHIS THOUGHTS FOR FIX-INGK12 EDUCATION,ONE OF HIS PERSONALQUESTS.

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ness part changes the world faster.Whats remarkable about Ideo is that

its constantly reprototyping its ownbusiness model much as it would thoseof its clients. From its early work design-ing tech products for Silicon Valley, itmoved to designing experiences, and itsnow on to tackling the hurdles that pre-

vent design solutions from gett ing trac-tion within an organization. But even as

that expertise evolved, Kelley struggledto explain it. Ideo was pushing its clientsforward, using something it calleddesign, but what the firm was reallydoing was more transformational. Justlike a fish doesnt know hes wet, hesays, we didnt realize that our real con-tribution was that the companies weworked for didnt think like us. And

when they did, it really had a lot ofadvantages for them.

In a meeting with Ideos CEO, TimBrown, in 2003, Kelley had an epiphany:They would stop calling Ideos approachdesign and start calling it designthinking. Im not a words person, Kel-

ley says, but in my life, its the mostpowerful moment that words or labelingever made. Because then it all madesense. Now Im an expert at methodologyrather than a guy who designs a newchair or car.

They went meta on the notion ofdesign, says Roger Martin, dean of theUniversity of Torontos Rotman School ofManagement, referring to the shift fromobject design to focusing on organiza-tional processes. They concluded thesame principles can be applied to thedesign of, say, emergency-room proce-dures as a shopping cart.

While the deep dive ethnography thatIdeo uses as a foundation for its processhas since become table stakes for mosttop-tier design firms, Martin says Ideowas among the first to recognize that toredesign a customer experience, you alsohave to redesign organizational struc-tures, culture, etc., or you wont producethe experiences you want.

DURING HIS FIGHT WITH CANCER,KELLEY HOLED UP IN HIS ETTORESOTTSASSDESIGNED HOUSE. NOW IN

RECOVERY, KELLEY FINE-TUNES HISPLANS FOR STANFORDS D.SCHOOLWITH HIS BRAIN TRUST OF COL-LEAGUES AND FORMER STUDENTS.

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most disciplines teach.Still, despite the P&Gers enthus

in Palo Alto, once they got back to Cinati, ideas created in the design prokept getting stuck as they ran smackthe commercial side of the business.frustrated Kotchka, who called in KeRotmans Martin, and IITs Whitnehelp her find a way to break the deadOver the summer and fall of 2005

three came up with a prototype ointegrated approach that took a proteam through the design process alway through the impact on stratWhats more, they trained the employees to facilitate such programtheir own.

Our dent in the universe doesnt mwe have to do all the digging, Kelley

We empower our clients. We teach tto fish.

Kotchka says there are now more 100 internally trained facilitators wP&G. Its amazing how the proscales, Kotchka says. We try to use i

just for products but for how we wtogether, how we organize, and howdevelop processes.

The Ideo School for Anglers tasimilar tricks to the giant West Chealth-care provider Kaiser Perman

Af ter a hugely successf ul 2004 prthat Ideo conceived to improve infotion transfer during nurse-shift chanthe firms philosophy inspired Kaiown innovation center. Recently, facility tackled the problem of metion error, and using Ideos techniq

deployed a team to shadow nurses, tors, and pharmacists as they prescrfilled, and administered medicatiopatients. In the U.S. alone, more thamillion people are harmed by metion errors annually; Kaisers infotionvideos and journalsfrom observation phase revealed that iruptions were the main driver beerrors. The team took that insightbrainstormed solutions ranging f

says. After that, Id say, No way, I wonttake the job if you scrap those phases.Thats where the value is.

Now, all of Ideos projects employ theprocess, whether to redesign water pumpsfor developing countries, or to devise amusic service for (RED). Marriott recentlyhired the firm to overhaul its TownePlaceSuites, a chain of mid-range extended-stay hotels. The company had originally

hoped to set the chain apart with snazzier,more guest-friendly lobbies. But afterhanging out in the hotels, Ideo staffersdiscovered that guests were reluctant tobe seen in the lobbies at all. If yourehanging there, it means you basicallyhave nothing to do, says Bryan Walker,the Ideo teams project leader. They werereally sad spaces. The happiest guests

were those whod managed to bond withthe larger communityby joining a nearbytennis club, finding a church, frequentinga restaurant. That led to a brainstormingsession on how to make TownePlace feelmore like a temporary home. One result:

a giant wall map of the local area thathighlights guests favorite discoveries,and not only introduces newcomers tothe area but also spurs conversationamong themitself a community bui lder.Skeptical franchisees were trotted througha prototype built in a San Francisco ware-house, and won over. A year after therollout, guest satisfaction with the newlobbies has increased 16.8%.

Procter & Gamble,too, has beenseduced by Kelleys ideas. With CEO A.G.

Lafley leading the expedition, for exam-ple, the companys entire 40-memberGlobal Leadership Council has twice cometo Ideo headquarters for a total immersionin the firms process. Our senior manage-ment was blown away, says ClaudiaKotchka, former vice president for designinnovation and strategy. They learnedthat design is more than aesthetics, andthat there are different ways of solvingproblems than the analytical methods that

Design thinking represents a seriouschallenge to the status quo at more tradi-tional companies, especial ly those whereengineering or marketing may hold sway.Patrick Whitney, dean of the Institute ofDesign at the Illinois Institute of Tech-nology (IIT), who sends many of hisgraduates off to Ideo, says he sees thisresistance all the time. A lot of my stu-dents have MBAs and engineering

degrees. Theyre taught to identify theopportunity set, deal with whatevernumbers you can find to give you cer-tainty, then optimize.

But some problems need to be restatedbefore a big, new idea can be hatched. Itoften helps to take the problem and breakit apart, before putting it back together ina whole new waythe synthesis or

abstraction step. Thats where the cre-ative leap often occurs and what Ideosprocess is designed to unearth.

It took Kelley a while to appreciate thepower of stepping back before forging

ahead. In the mid-1980s, he says, he usedto write proposals with the various phasesof the processunderstanding, observa-tion, brainstorming, prototypingpricedseparately. Clients invariably would say,Dont do that early fooling around. Startwith phase three. Kelley realized that theearly phases were where the big ideascame fromand what separated his firmfrom a bunch of management consultants.That moment was really big for me, he

1 | 2 3 | 4 5 | 6

Photographs:CourtesyofIdeo(rend

ering,waterpump),Steelcase(chair),

KaiserPermanente/RobertGumpert

(sash),

Marriott(TownSuites)

IDEO HAS RECEIVED MORE THAN 1,000PATENTS SINCE 1978 AND 346 DESIGNAWARDS SINCE 1991. A FEW OF THEFIRMS MANY PROJECTS:

(1)A rendering of the Stanford d.schoolsnew facility, opening fall 2009;(2)the

i2i chair for Steelcase;(3)the KickStartwater pump (in Kenya);(4)a MedRitessash for Kaiser Permanente;(5)theLaunching Pad Lobby for MarriottTownePlace Suites;(6)an online interfacefor (RED)s new music service.

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streamlining the process for medicinedelivery to protecting the process fromother employees. They then prototypedtoolsincluding aprons that said LEAVEMEALONE! and red DONOTCROSS! lines infront of pill-dispensing machinesthatcould solve the problem.

The program has been so successfulreducing interruptions by 50% and increas-ing on-time delivery by 18%that Kaiser

is now rolling it out to its 36 facilities andresponding to inquiries from around theworld about its effectiveness. Kaiser Per-manente has always been innovationdriven, says Christi Zuber, director ofKaisers innovation consultancy, butIdeo gave us a teachable approach. Its

hard to imagine McKinsey giving awayits proprietary techniques, but Ideos lar-gesse is in sync with Kelleys missionand with his confidence in his own com-panys ability to reinvent itself. I cangive our methodology away, he says at astaff meeting on Ideos future, because Iknow we can come up with a better ideatomorrow.

Besides his maniafor cars, one ofKelleys primary design passions is hishouse, designed by his late friend Ettore

Sottsass, the founder of the design collec-tive Memphis. Its a sprawling, eclecticmasterpiece with multiple, asymmetricalwings: a green one shaped like a Monop-oly house for his daughter; a two-story,barrel-vaulted offi ce for his wife; a blockyguest house, where Kelley spent most ofhis time while he was sick.

In 1983, Kelley started a small businesswith Sottsass linking Italian design withSilicon Valley technology (their productaphonemade it into MoMA but failed inthe marketplace), and he understands the

frequent criticism that American design isinferior to European. The rest of theworld defines design as an artistic disci-pline, he says. They were taught culture.

I wasnt taught who painted anything. Soas Americans, were at a disadvantage.But while Americans may be underrepre-sented at the Milan Furniture Fair, hesays, the United States has something fewother countries can match: diversity. Theway Kelley sees it, our polyglot populacegives us an extraordinary advantage ingenerating truly creative ideas.

That idea was one of the animating

forces behind the d.schoola place thatwould help analytical Stanford typesbecome creative thinkers. The schoolwould welcome students from business,law, education, medicine, engineeringthe more diverse, the better.

In recent years, universities across the

country have developed an obsessionwith cross-disciplinary collaboration.One of the foremost success stories, theJames H. Clark Center for BiomedicalEngineering and Sciences, is right on theStanford campus. Still, it took eight yearsfor Kelley to convince Stanford that hisunconventional ideaa school that grantsno degrees, but functions as more of aspecialized graduate programhad merit.When David was making the case for thed.school at Stanford, says Tom Kelley,he went to [university president John]

Hennessy and said, Look, were good atdeep. We have Nobel Laureates drillingdown into esoteric topics. But what ifthere are problems that arent solved bydeep, but broad? We should have a sidebet in broad. In that cl imate, Kelleysnotion finally began to find an audience.By 2005, he had persuaded Hasso Platt-ner, a founder of the software giant SAP,to pony up $35 million to the d.school.The new 42,500-square-foot home of theHasso Plattner Institute of Design, smackin the middle of the Stanford campus,

will open this fall.Programs like this are absolutely nec-essary if the U.S. wants to maintain itsposition in innovation, says Plattner

from his companys headquarterWalldorf, Germany. For many prodits a mandatory strategy for surv

And Davids so passionate, he can motivate me.

Kelley is still a bit astonished at whe has been able to pull off at StanIve been here 30 years, and nobodyany attention to me at all, he saysone point, they were trying to reduc

size of my offi cewhich was 78 sqfeet. Now Im sitting in meetings withpresident, with him asking if I another building. Hennessy is nowing about making creative confidenrequirement at Stanford, just like aeign language.

Whether or not design thinking lutionizes the world and all its raexperiences, Kelleys influence is sulive on in the institutions he has builthe people he has touched. Davids leis that he spends his life doing thingbelieves in, with people he believewith the abiding faith that it will leagood things, says Dan Bomze, CECleanWell and a former Kelley studFrom David, Ive learned that thereto be someone to create something onothing. He embodies that. But he m

people feel he couldnt have done it out them. Anybody who spends timehim comes away transformed.

As for Kelley, hes cur rently canfree, energetic, and full of plans.every six months, he has to submitscan to make sure the disease hasmetastasized. Its a terrifying remithat, as for all of us, life is short.

So I sit here today, he says, leaforward in the shelter of the Ideo knowing theres a chance it could cback. So I better make some hay. I b

get my religion in place in as many peas I can. Its working really well.

>Feedback: tischler@fastcompany.com

FC

FROM DAVID, IVE LEARNEDTHAT THERE HAS TO BE SOMEONE TO CREATE SOMETHINGOUT OF NOTHING, SAYS A FRIEND AND FORMER STUDENT.DAVID EMBODIES THAT. ANYBODY WHO SPENDS TIME WITH HIM COMES AWAY TRANSFORMED.

This article was originally published in the February 2009 issue of FAST COMPANY, 2009 by FAST COMPANY. All rights reserved.

Visit us on the web at www.fastcompany.com.For subscriptions, call 800-542-6029 or 904-446-7582 outside the U.S. and Canada. #1-25828396