people

Is your corporate culture keeping you from designing great solutions?

UPA 2010 27 May 2010

Wendy A. Castleman, Ph.D. Principal XD Research Scientist

Culture

An alternate view of culture…

My World

Does culture impact creativity?

Influences on Design Creativity

Personal character, personality and skills

Physical environment

Cultural environment

Team who could design creative solutions

Personal character, personality and skills

In a place where the team could design creative solutions…

Physical environment

What culture would best support designing great solutions?

My Proposal:Ideal Cultural Environment for Designing Creative Solutions

PerspectivesIterative Experiments

Customer Input &

Feedback

This is fun!

Cultura

l enviro

nment

5 Corporate Cultures…

•Approval•Planning•Correct•Committee•Talk

…that inhibit designing creative solutions

Culture of Approval

belief that the best answers are high-up in the organization

Customer Input &

Feedback

There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.

– Ken Olsen (founder of Digital Equipment Corporation)

Culture of Approval:Radical Ideas get killed off

too easily.

Perspectives

Culture of Planning

belief that you can always be successful if you strictly adhere to plans

Culture of Planning:Closed off to

new ideas too soon.

Iterative Experiments

We are a software company

Culture of Correct

belief that there is only one answer

Culture of Correct:Alternatives

aren’t explored

Iterative Experiments

???

Culture of Committee

where everyone must be on-board for things to move forward

Perspectives

Culture of Committee:Fosters needless

complexity and delay

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

- Sir Alec Issigonis, Designer of the Mini

Culture of Talk

where employees are encouraged to tell others what their ideas are and why they are good before experimenting

Iterative Experiments

Culture of Talk:Don’t test crazy ideas

and don’t focuson the experience

This isn’t fun!

Multitouch

•Use multiple fingers•Use Gestures•Feels natural

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myuibe/4310116720/

RECOGNIZING YOUR CORPORATE WORK CULTURE

Activity:

Recognizing Your Work CultureDiversity Everyone is

IdenticalMix Everyone is

Different

What counts? Group Consensus In-between Single Person’s Opinion

Experimental Stick with the known

Reuse what works

Always try something new

Iterative Never Look Back Regular Evaluations

Never Stop Testing

Customer Involvement

Check with customers at the end

Regular feedback and course correction

Do exactly what the customer wants

Teamwork Everyone does their part alone

Expertise guides, but all collaborate

Entire team does everything

Playfulness Work is serious Playfulness is valued equally

Fun is everything

(other_____)

WORKING WITH OR CHANGING A CULTURE

Working with the culture of approval

customers

Working with a culture of planning

Plan

-Experiment-Look for surprises

Working with the Culture of Correct

believed correct

should be

wrong

crazy

might work

another

another

another another

another

another

Working with the Culture of Committee

Working with the Culture of Talk

ApprovalPlanning

CorrectCommittee

Talk<your culture>

No man is an island… - John Donne

Perspectives

Customer Input &

Feedback

This is fun!

Iterative Experiments

What can you do to make your culture a better place to design in?

Activity: Making a plan

• Identify 1 to 3 cultural barriers that you face• Fill out the 2 left columns of the page• Find a partner• Discuss each other’s cultural barriers and generate at least 2

ideas for how to counteract or overcome those barriers• Fill in the 2 right columns of the page

Discussion

Questions? Wendy_Castleman@intuit.com

Find these slides and my current ramblings at:http://deepunderstandings.blogspot.com/