OPEN IDEO Reflection

OPEN IDEO is a subsidiary of IDEO and it’s an online platform that focuses on gathering ideas from different people with different backgrounds to solve some global issues. IDEO has a different team management system. IDEO makes each team small and free because the company thinks a small and free team will make sure everyone will contribute the most to the team and avoid free riders in the team. Moreover, A small and sophisticated team can also avoid the bureaucracy of the team to a large extent, thereby eliminating the need to waste energy on dealing with superior-subordinate relationships, allowing the team to have more time and energy to focus on the task itself.

There are three phases in the IDEO innovation processes( Inspiration, ideation, and implementation). Inspiration is a phase that IDEO need to dig into the actual need of clients. Sometimes Clients have a hard time expressing clearly what the actual need is for them. For example, in the case of New Zealand Airlines, IDEO asks passengers what’s the most comfortable position for them to put their legs in while sitting, most passengers have a hard time telling it. So IDEO people actually took some New Zealand airplanes to observe the position during flight. Inspiration is the most important phase for innovation because without knowing the actual needs of clients the whole idea of innovation will become meaningless. Ideation is the phase that needs people to make ideas more doable and detailed. For example, if we need to make passengers have a better experience with New Zealand Airlines, what should we do in detail? Then, in the ideation phase, the whole team will talk about something like food supply in the airplane, entertainment system in the airplane, etc. The last phase is implementation. After we go into detail, we need to have a clear procedure or instruction for people to implement. IDEO did a wonderful job on this phase, especially on their team formation. IDEO team members all have their advantages and after every task is done the whole team will dismissed, so people cannot always stay in their comfort zone.