Attributes in the IDEO Organization Affecting Innovation

IDEO Shopping Cart Project
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IDEO Shopping Cart Project
“ABC Nightline – IDEO Shopping Cart” is an informative video showing individual behaviors and processes that influence innovation in an organization. In particular, innovation entails coming up with ideas or introducing new techniques to improve specific goods and services. IDEO is a company in Palo Alto, California, which has innovated multiple products, including high-tech medical equipment, the first computer mouse for Apple, sunglasses, e-goggles, and NEC computer screens among others (Neri, 2009). The paper focuses on IDEO Shopping Cart Project to determine attributes that encourage and enhance innovation in an organization.
The primary attributes that encourage and enhance innovation at IDEO include proper decision-making and creativity. Creativity entails developing original ideas by using a socially recognized contribution. In that light, the creative process model comprises preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification (McShane & Glinow, 2021). Decision-making involves making choices to achieve specific goals or objectives. The most significant thing seen at IDEO is the rigorous decision-making and innovation processes. The leader of this organization says that his teams can innovate almost anything since they are experts in the innovation processes, which entail rational decision-making and creativity. Abubakar et al. (2019) argue that the decision-making style facilitates the innovation process and organizational performance. That is why IDEO has been successful in innovating numerous products in the past since all team members are encouraged and allowed to participate in the decision-making processes. Notably, the IDEO Shopping Cart Project reveals how the organization enhances innovation, where everyone feels included and no one’s contributions are left out.
Another crucial aspect that facilitates innovation at IDEO is the lack of hierarchy. Specifically, IDEO has a very innovative culture comprising highly skilled, educated, and knowledgeable individuals and scholars. Although people work in teams headed by leaders, there is no hierarchy when it comes to brainstorming or sharing ideas about a specific innovation process. Notably, innovation and creativity involve introducing new ways of doing things at different organizational levels. Teams are vital in fostering change to meet organizational innovation, which is why high-performing work groups, such as those at IDEO, are relevant (Martinez-Moreno et al., 2020). At IDEO, teams split into groups so that they can get firsthand information about what people who make or use specific products, such as shopping carts in the scenario at hand, think about them. When these individuals go to the field, they gather all relevant information by interacting with designers and consumers, listening carefully to determine areas that can be improved. Afterward, they return to the organization and share everything they have learned among themselves by brainstorming.
Staying focused and encouraging wild ideas during team discussions promote innovation in an organization. For example, team members at IDEO have the confidence to share different and unique ideas during their meetings. The most significant thing is that the project leader does not dominate during these discussion forums. In that light, everyone feels comfortable and free to share the ideas in their minds. Studies portray that brainstorming or sharing wild ideas increases people’s confidence to participate in the innovation processes (Cruz-Suarez et al., 2022). That is witnessed in “ABC Nightline – IDEO Shopping Cart,” where team members appear focused on contributing their ideas, opinions, and thoughts. That is one of the primary reasons that IDEO has the best innovative team. Leaders are not there to restrict or limit team members’ communication, but they only emphasize doing the right thing and observing deadlines.
The other most significant thing that encourages innovation at IDEO is deferring judgment and instead building on others’ ideas. In particular, constraining ideas adversely influences the brainstorming process and creativity within an organization (Hofstetter et al., 2021). That is one thing that IDEO is keen on and highly discourages prejudice. However, the project leader at IDEO says that restraining individuals from negatively criticizing others’ ideas is not simple. Besides, ideas are i...