Archive for the ‘collaboration’ Category
Dec 15 2008
This fall I spent time as an informal advisor at Stanford University’s d.school (formally known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford). Headed by George Kembel, the d.school is one of the leading design schools in the world and one of the most prominent proponents of design thinking.
The d.school emphasizes observation, design, iteration, and teamwork by applying the following tenets:
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Leverage the team: At the d.school, students from many different backgrounds (including product design, business, engineering, journalism, and education) come together in part to learn how to work together. Each person is strong in their area, but often people with different backgrounds have a different vocabulary, value different approaches, and have different ways of looking at issues and opportunities. One of the d.school’s goals is to ensure that people are overcoming and leveraging these differences, so that 1) they can be part of productive teams, and 2) there is a sense that many of the challenges society faces today can best be overcome by people from different disciplines working effectively together and looking at issues from many perspectives at once.
- Develop deep empathy and always go back to your users: During my time at the d.school, I definitely saw this in action. During “team time”, it was common for teams to venture out of the building to talk to people about their ideas, to try out their ideas, and get feedback. In their presentations, teams included photos, videos, and other information about real people’s lives and how the team’s idea could fit into those people’s lives.
- Bias towards action & iterate, iterate, iterate: Teams are encouraged to repeat the design approach to quickly iterate on ideas, rather than coming to a solution quickly.
- Always treat your prototypes like a piñata: Prototypes are a means to learn more about an idea and engage potential users. Teams are encouraged not to become attached to ideas to quickly, but instead to see how they can use the design approach build and refine their ideas.
- Think “Wild” First; “Making It Real” will come later. Important considerations such as feasibility and viability were scheduled for later in the quarter after the teams had time to create a wide range of ideas based on understanding people and their needs.
There are many things I admire and about the d.school, including its commitment to apply the design approach to itself: its physical space, classes, curriculum, etc. For example, at the end of every class, teachers and students are encouraged to participate in an open discussion about what worked well and what could be improved next time. The physical space is considered a prototype in action. Adjustments are constantly being made to improve and facilitate the experience.
Thank you to George Kembel, Scott Doorley, Dave Baggeroer, and the staff and students at the d.school for making my time there so enjoyable and worthwhile, and to Michael Dearing and Steve Bishop for their help in making the contacts.
If you’re interested in learning more about the d.school, go to the website or stop by for a tour.
– Jeff
Stanford's d.school
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Sep 1 2008
The film “Frank and Ollie” is a gem on many levels. It provides fascinating and fun insights into the creative process, and highlights the positive benefits of small teams that approach their work through collaboration, partnership, fun, and friendship. You can also watch it for just sheer entertainment.
Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were two of Disney’s most important and influential animators, working on such pioneering films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Jungle Book, and many others stretching over their 40 years at Disney. “Frank and Ollie” highlights their truly unique friendship over 70 years, how they worked so well together, and how they learned so much from each other.
They each had a solid understand of the other’s strengths and weaknesses, and they leveraged that understanding to benefit both of them.
As Ollie said, “I’d take a drawing to Frank, and he’d make some little scribbles over it. He’d just point out what he thought I was missing or maybe he’d point out what he liked about my drawing, which I didn’t see. In the end, I ended up with a much better drawing. I couldn’t have done it by myself … We had a way of working together that really benefited both of us. We each lifted the other up to something he couldn’t do by himself.” And Frank summarized their collaboration: “There’s a truth and an honesty there that you don’t always find even in fairly close friends.”
Glen Keane had the opportunity to observe and learn from Frank and Ollie early in his career. In the film, he says “’As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another’ … When I first got (to Disney) they were still arguing about the way they would see something. They were working on it. They were constantly rubbing these ideas across one another’s surface because they knew that that was how the best things happened. As a team of people.”
If you rent movies using Netflix, you can find “Frank and Ollie there.
A couple of personal notes: This film reminded me of another important point about friendship and work: the book “First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently” concludes that having a best friend at work is a significant indicator, and perhaps the indicator, of whether a person will be happy in his/her job or not. After 20 years working in companies of various sizes, I recently started my own consulting business. I work from a much smaller office now, which has its advantages and disadvantages, but the fact I have two best friends at work has made the transition even more enjoyable than I hoped.
Also, “Frank and Ollie” was the first film I watched together with my son. Yes, he was only two weeks old at the time, but it’s never too early (or too late) to learn life’s important lessons.
– Jeff
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Aug 3 2008
Today’s New York Times features an article on the benefits of creating smaller teams. As a team increases in size, so do the difficulties in ensuring the team has clear responsibility, clear accountability, and is able to innovate quickly. The author, Janet Rae-Dupree, writes “By breaking huge business units into smaller, nimbler teams, companies stand a chance of rekindling the creative spark that got them rolling in the first place.”
Ben Grimes, a high-tech CTO, makes another important point: “By making sure products in development meet customer needs each step of the way, Avocent has been able to avoid spending weeks correcting errors in the final product”. How did they do it? By empowering a small, cross-functional team who involved customers throughout the product process.
In my experience, when it comes to creating a more effective team, smaller is better — customers and organizations see better results sooner, and the people on the team are energized and eager to take on the next challenge. Count on it.
– Jeff
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