On role of prototyping

One frequently expressed notion in the book is that of how much early (and frequent) prototyping is
instrumental to design success (fail early to succeed sooner is a famous phrase by David Kelley).
Tim Brown also argues that time to the first prototype can be seen as one of the measures of how
innovative organization is. Furthermore, fast prototyping (over and over) allows for continuous
feedback and improvement and at the same time saves the company from the trap of commitment
since the greater the investment in an idea, the more committed one becomes to it (p.90)
Few thoughts on prototyping (also dubbed as thinking with your hands):

The faster we make out ideas tangible, the sooner we will be able to evaluate them, refine
them, and zero in on the best solution (p.89).
Successful prototype is not one that works flawlessly; it is the one that teaches us
something about our objectives, our process, about ourselves (p.105)

There are many approaches to prototyping, but they share a single paradoxical feature:
They slow us down to speed us up (p.105)

Prototyping should start early in the life of a project, and we expect them to be numerous,
quickly executed, and pretty ugly (p.106)

On innovation
In terms of a recipe for innovation, sure, Time Brow agrees theres none. However, he argues
innovation as continuum can be understood as a system of 3 spaces: inspiration, ideation and
implementation, whereas any project can loop back through these spaces more than once as team
refines ideas and examines new directions. One of the best tools in yielding great results across the
3 spaces of innovation is, again, prototyping:

at inspiration (the problem or opportunity that motivates the search for solution) prototyping
has the capacity to inspire new ideas

at ideation (generating, developing, testing ideas) it serves a perfect check tool to ensure
incorporation of emotional and functional elements necessary to meet the demands of the
market

at implementation (going from project room to market) they are superb in communicating an
idea with sufficient clarity

To make sure the developed solution is realistic, the author introduces three constraints to be kept
in mind during the process of development: desirability (people factor), viability
(business/organization) and feasibility (technology). To paraphrase, at any given time during the
project, team should make sure the solution addresses user needs, is viable business wise and is
technologically feasible.
On user research
In terms of most often mentioned concepts (we havent counted, thats just the feel) design
thinking is somewhat losing to human centered. Now, to create anything human centered the
team must first find out what humans want/need. Reading the book one gets the feel that IDEO
never outsources this strategically important task of user research, and that the company favors
qualitative rather than quantitative methods.
What we particularly liked as methods for getting user insights are unfocus groups and extreme
users. Bringing in people who fall on the extremes of certain product/service use (children and
chefs for kitchen tools story on the p.44, for example) significantly enriches insights and
inspiration. And same refers to unfocus groups, where instead of inviting average people, unique

individuals (consumers and experts) participate together. For example, to gain insights on new
concepts for womens shoes, IDEO invited:

a color consultant

a spiritual guide who led barefoot initiates across hot coals

a young mother who was curiously passionate about her thigh-high leather boots

a female limo driver whose full livery was accented by a pair of outrageously sexy stiletto
heels (p.61)

Few others thoughts on user research:

the basic problem is that people are so ingenious at adapting to inconvenient situation that
they are often not even aware that they are doing so (p.41)

observation: watching what people dont do, listening to to what they dont say (p.43)

And our favorite one, not Tim Browns, but quoting Tom Ford on user research: If I asked my
customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse (p.40)

On company (work) culture

Now we know few things about IDEO approach to innovating, but who are those people in the
teams and how do they make innovations happen? Speaking of people Brown emphasizes the need
for T-shaped personalities (reference to concept coined by McKinsey) successfully performing in
teams since all of us are smarter than any of us (p.26).
The author takes care to distinguish between MULTIDISCIPLINARY and INTERDISCIPLINARY teams,
whereas in the former each individual becomes an advocate for his her own technical specialty
and the project becomes a protracted negotiation among them, likely resulting in a gray
compromise, while in the latter there is a collective ownership of ideas and everybody takes
responsibility for them (p.27).
In terms of work environment, the following thoughts were (we thought) interesting (all from p.32):

A culture that believes that it is better to ask forgiveness afterward rather than permission
before, that rewards people for success but gives them permission to fail, has removed one
of the main obstacles to the formation of new ideas

Relaxing the rules is not about letting people be silly so much as letting them be whole
people

Physical and psychological spaces of an organization work in tandem to define the

effectiveness of the people within it

On innovation portfolio
The book presents Ways to grow matrix developed by IDEO (p.161) which combines innovation
types with grow paths a company can take. Few pages explaining each quadrant lead to a logical
conclusion: though it might be tempting to focus on incremental projects in which business
forecasts are easy to make, this shortsighted approach leaves companies vulnerable to the
unforeseeable events of the type that Nassim Nicholas Taleb dubbed The Black Swan (p.165). A
word of advise? A companys best defense is to diversify its portfolio by investing across all four
quadrants of the innovation matrix.
On problems we create

In the second part of the book Tim Brown dwells on big things: bringing innovation culture to
organizations, role of design thinking in solving truly global problems and role of designers in all of
this. And if we (designers) cant now think of much in solving global warming, as designer, at least
be aware of what we do since in our enthusiasm for solving the problem in front of us, we fail to
see the problems that we create (p.194)
so of course we accepted
Ah, and for the final quote, we very much liked the following story expressing company culture:
When Hewlett-Packard asked IDEO to study microfinance in East Africa, our human factors experts
did not know what they were getting into. We did not have much experience with Africa, and it
would be generous to say that we are experts in microfinance. So of course we accepted the
assignment (p.205)
Generally, Change by Design is an easy common sense read, and best absorbed with a cup of
coffee in an open terrace on a breezy spring morning. And since spring is coming