2014/10/13 「創意大師 David Kelley 的設計思考哲學」

創意大師 David Kelley 的設計思考哲學

摘錄自：TEDxTaipei 網站                       2014/10/13

「我不夠有創意…」、「少了設計又如何？」、「設計不過是美感罷了！」在日常生活中，我們對類似這樣的對話似乎時有耳聞，但究竟「設計」真正的目的又是什麼？今天，透過 IDEO 創辦人 David Kelley 的「設計思考法」，和他多采多姿的人生故事，我們將揭露「設計」少為人知的一面，從他為各大知名企業：寶僑、Gap、HBO、柯達…，甚至是機場、醫院…打造的成功案例，到近來大家口耳相傳的史丹佛大學D. School，或許那個存於你腦中的「設計」概念將在瞬間成為歷史！

原文：Ideo’s David Kelley on “Design Thinking"

作者：Linda Tischler ｜

大名鼎鼎的David Kelley是知名創新設計公司IDEO和史丹佛大學設計學院(D. School)的創辦人，然而，就在他正達人生事業顛峰之際，他卻發現自己得了癌症…。

走進史丹佛大學 D. School 的課堂上，一股撲鼻而來的拉麵香味讓人瞬間忘了這是間教室，創意大師 David Kelley 就悠哉地坐在一張特大號的紅皮扶手椅上，和一旁的學生打成一片，絲毫沒有擺出一絲大師該有的架子。今天加州帕羅奧圖市（Palo Alto）的天氣相當不錯，外頭陽光和煦，氣溫約在 26 度上下，一道耀眼的陽光就灑落在大師背後的電腦螢幕上，形成一幅有趣的畫面；身兼創新學院和設計顧問公司 IDEO 創辦人的 Kelley 正滔滔不絕地和學生解釋「設計思考」（Design Thinking）的概念，一套出於他發想的創意理論，也是他當初決定成立這所學院的目的。

解題的公式：設計思考

D. School 今天的任務：改造大家以往對拉麵的概念，打造出讓人念念不忘的拉麵新體驗

一些學生顯然對這項任務感到有些迷惑，他們手足無措地用手中的筷子翻攪碗中的拉麵條，究竟「打造出完美拉麵饗宴」和設計又有什麼關係？是要想辦法設計出更精美的包裝？讓麵條變得更有嚼勁？還是要為這項大學宿舍的熱門食品添加些讓人愛不釋手的小玩意？

接著，Kelly 便對大家對今天任務的疑問解惑，外表身形削瘦、童山濯濯的 Kelley 蓄著一搓有型的八字鬍，他是個一眼就能讓人卸下心防的大好人，他說道：「有天我受邀到 Pacific Heights 用餐，在餐會上我告訴女主人說我是設計師…」，她接著說：「這樣啊，那你覺得我們家的窗簾好不好看？」 現在，讓我們把時空拉回教室，Kelley 鄭重表示，類似這樣的對話場景是絕對不會發生在 D. School 課堂上的！

「今天各位之所以會聚在這，是因為我們要開始從以往『設計師』的身分，進化成一位『設計思考者』！」，「當我們以設計思考者的角度看待事物時，我們便能展現出異於常人的創意，面對任何難題都會想出辦法迎刃而解！」

「我們要開始從以往『設計師』的身分，進化成一位『設計思考者』！當我們以設計思考者的角度來看待事物時，我們便能展現出異於常人的創意，面對任何難題都會想出辦法迎刃而解！」

見證設計思考的神奇魔力

這個概念顯然和以往我們對創意的定義大相逕庭，因為「設計思考」主張創新是可以從心所欲的，創意發想的過程就有如科學實驗般按部就班，這個概念完全抵觸了多數人，包括現場的 50 位學生，對創意的看法，Kelley 則笑著表示：「通常大家會認為，創意和靈感的泉源是來自天堂的天使，他們會在關鍵時刻顯靈，指引你下一步該做什麼。」

IDEO 公司目前有 8 個辦公處，擁有超過 500 位員工分佈在世界 3 大洲上，公司在處理任何任務上，從幫美國銀行刺激顧客存款額的計畫，到改善 Kaiser Permanente 醫院的護士輪班制度，都採用了 Kelley 的「設計思考法」，在過去 30 年內，IDEO 公司曾幫 Intercell 公司開發出滲透型的「無針疫苗」，成功幫寶僑公司（Procter & Gamble）旗下的食品品牌「品客」改頭換面，改造自行車品牌 Shimano，設計出更舒適宜人的自行車體驗，甚至還幫美國運輸安全管理局（TSA）重新設計了一套機場安檢通關程序，讓以往飽受旅客詬病的流程煥然一新。自 1978 年開始 IDEO 公司已累績了超過 1,000 項專利，並從 1991 年開始成為各設計獎項的常勝軍，獲頒的設計獎項高達 346 項，這份殊榮是其他設計公司望塵莫及的；如今，「設計思考」已成為 IDEO 公司營運的核心概念，在商業上的表現也毫不遜色，在年收益中貢獻公司高達近 1 億美元，這些都是利用設計思考，替幾家大公司解決問題的收穫，他們的顧客包括啤酒商（Anheuser-Busch）、Gap、HBO、柯達、萬豪酒店（Marriott）、百事可樂、PNC 集團，及其它上百家知名企業，IDEO 名副其實地成為了治癒美國和各國公司創新空洞的名醫。

2008 年時，Kelley 這位史丹佛大學棟梁之一的大人物事業正黃騰達，他獲頒國家設計獎（National Design Award）、美國工程學界的最高殿堂─國家工程學院（National Academy of Engineering）對他發出邀請函、史丹佛大學也邀他擔任工程學教授一職、甚至連英國設計大獎 Sir Misha Black Medal 也將大獎頒給他，讚許他長年在「設計教育上的貢獻」，紐約市設計博物館（Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum）館長 Cara McCarty 對 Kelley 的成就深表認同，她表示，Kelley 在推動設計創新概念上的努力絕對是其他人無法匹敵的。

此外，Kelly 還有個人見人愛的妻子，一個他愛得不得了的女兒，和一大票朋友，在他的好友群中，也不乏幾張知名臉孔，如蘋果的賈柏斯和演員羅賓‧威廉斯。

David Kelly：癌症讓我更堅持自己要走的路

Kelley 就這麼過著事業有成、幸福美滿的人生，直到他發現脖子上腫塊的那天，一切都變調了。

那天，Kelly 人正在女兒小四的課堂上，教孩子們如何透過「設計思考」設計出更好用的背包，突然間他的手機鈴聲大作，醫生的號碼在螢幕上閃爍著，他踏出教室，把手機貼到耳邊，「你得了癌症」醫生的聲音毫不留情得透說話筒傳到他的耳內，Kelley 回憶起當時的狀況：「在得道消息後，我依然回到教室把課上完，但我的表現簡直是一蹋糊塗了。」

Kelly 得的是鱗狀細胞癌末期，在長達一年半來都被誤診為是腮紅腫，等到他發現不對勁時，癌細胞已轉移到淋巴結上了，「我可以從大家臉上的表情感覺到事情的嚴重性。」Kelley 淡淡地說。

從 Kelley 初步的檢驗結果來看，病情似乎不太妙，但身為一位天生的樂觀者，Kelley 相信透過信心和現代醫學的力量，他一定能戰勝病魔，不久後，腫瘤科醫師在他面前秀出統計數據：上頭生硬的數字冷冷地透露出一個訊息：他有 40% 的機率再活 4 年。「但就在我看到數字的那刻…」，Kelley 說道：「身為工程師，你對數據總有一定的敏銳度，我想這個存活率的算法一定和年齡拖不了關係，便隨即叫醫生拿出詳細數據讓我看，醫生看了看表單上的內容，病患存活率年齡的中間值是 56 歲，我當時正好就是 56 歲，所以我想我一定撐得下去！」

而之後 Kelley 所面對的，是一連串有如地獄般的磨難：化療、手術、放射線治療帶來的折磨正一點一滴的考驗著 Kelley 的意志力，發炎腫脹的喉嚨使他難以下嚥，揮之不去的噁心、嘔吐感使他無法專心閱讀，甚至剝奪了他看電視的權利，「我花了整整 9 個月的時間試著控制住嘔吐的欲望，在治療的過程中，他喪失了唾腺及味蕾的功能，整個人消瘦了一大圈、體重下滑了 40 磅。

Kc Branscomb 是 Kelley 的妻子，她也是前 IntelliCorp 公司的 CEO，夫妻倆透過賈柏斯而結緣，現今 61 歲的 Kelly 對他妻子在他住院期間提供的幫助讚不絕口，她全心全力照顧 Kelley，安排醫師看診、在爭取保險給付上絲毫不退縮，她對所有療程、藥物和其他大小事都瞭若指掌，但 Kelley 表示他的弟弟 Tom 才是那個幫助他脫離心靈苦海的救世主，「我們倆曾在同一個房間窩了 18 年…」他哽咽，接著說：「他犧牲了自己原本的時間每天都跑來陪我。」

Kelley 請弟弟負責處理一切對外聯繫事務，通知他的好友自己目前的狀況不方便和他們聯絡，Tom 補充說道：「有至少 100 個 David 的朋友告訴我，他們知道我哥不方便說話，但他們是他的超級好友，我哥看到他們一定會很高興的。」

Kelley 11 歲的愛女是幫助他走過低潮的支柱，「我不想在她成長過程中缺席，這個想法是激勵我撐下去的催化劑，但這當然也不是特效藥，就在你對人生已看開後，寶貝女兒的畫面突然浮現在腦中，你對她少了父親的童年感到於心不忍，此刻，渴望生命的火苗才又再度燃起。」

在帕羅奧圖市的 IDEO 總部內，Kelley 坐在一個未來感十足的帳篷裡，娓娓道來他的人生故事，在抗癌期間他也接受了精神科療程，「在你認清人生所剩無幾後，你開始思考究竟自己想做的是什麼，什麼才是你真心所愛的？假如不受時間所限，你又會怎麼規畫？」Kelley 和精神科醫生開始著手分析，試著找出自己心中的摯愛，最後他發現 IDEO 就是他的一切，為 IDEO 打拼就是他的人生目標，「我深信，協助大家重拾創造力是我來到世上的使命；我作的不是什麼大事業、我不是超人更非偉人，我的任務只是教大家學會左右腦併用，發揮創造力的潛能，幫助我們克服眼前的難題和抉策。」

「癌症讓我更堅持自己要走的路。」

Kelley 罹癌時，身邊好友無不使出渾身解數、千方百計地想找出能幫他復原的方法，他們寄一堆早日康復卡、電影、卡通給他，前 MIT Media Lab執行長、現於羅德島設計學院（RIDS）擔任院長的前田約翰（John Maeda）特地親手作了一個專屬網站送給 Kelley，網站裡掛著一張 Kelley 在白宮的照片，照片周圍則圍繞著 2001 年國家設計獎其他得主，但卻都有張 Kelley 的臉，網頁上頭亮著「沒有人不想成為 David Kelly！」

「David是那種有著神祕魔力、讓你不禁想要模仿的人」，前田約翰說，「他就像充滿智慧的芝麻街布偶一樣，人見人愛，讓人樂於支持他的想法，他為人謙虛簡樸，就像一個會在便利商店裡買思樂冰的大好人，不可否認地他是名真正的無名英雄！」

Kelley 一身牛仔褲搭法蘭絨襯衫和條紋襪的悠閒打扮，開著雪佛萊卡車地穿梭在 IDEO 公司和史丹佛大學間，從他一身有如沙加緬度（Sacramento）茄農的穿著來看， 實在很難讓人把他和知名設計大師湊在一塊兒，（Kelley 也招認他愛車如癡的一面，他的收藏品有 67 年款法拉利、57 年款保時捷和一輛32年款的福特老爺車），即使是在相對偏僻的俄亥俄州長大，Kelley 並未因此就被地理位置的限制所拘束，Kelley 家中年紀最輕、小他 4 歲的弟弟 Tom 表示：「David自認他小時候的他是個怪咖，但其實他一點都不怪，他還組過搖滾樂團呢，你相信嗎？他曾是個搖滾天王！」在開往 Kelley 家鄉 Barberton 鎮的路上，現在就掛著一個以他為榮的路標，「歡迎來到 David Kelley 的故鄉 Barberton」。

邁向創新之路

自卡內基美隆大學畢業後，Kelly 任職於波音公司，他在那設計出他號稱「航空界史上重要里程碑」的傑作：波音 747 客機廁所「使用中」的標示牌！之後他回到老家俄亥俄州，於國家收銀機公司（NCR），作著相對死板的工作，而上天似乎注定要激發出 Kelley 體內的潛能，在 1973~74 年的石油危機期間，Kelley 在一次偶然的共乘機緣下，從其他乘客身上得知史丹佛大學產品設計學科的消息，Tom 表示：「若沒爆發石油危機，David 或許從此就只是位技術老練、卻感受不到工作樂趣的工程師。」

於史丹佛大學就讀期間，Kelley 遇到了他的恩師 Bob McKim，一位將心理學運用在設計上的先驅。Kelly 說道：「我當時就感覺到自己沒法適應大企業的模式，我不喜歡那些階級制度，只要能和朋友們一起工作我就心滿意足了。」

1978 年，Kelley 和幾位史丹佛的夥伴們創辦了一家設計兼工程公司，就開在帕羅奧圖市內的一家服飾店樓上，1981 年他們設計出搭配蘋果電腦圖像化介面的滑鼠，這傑出的項設計至今仍被採用。

對 Kelley 這顆 24 小時不停運轉的腦袋來說，矽谷就像是一個塞滿金銀財寶的大寶庫，指引他深入創新企業的營運方式，從惠普電腦的企業文化、全錄公司 PARC 研究處突破工程學和社會科學隔閡的創新技術，到已創新聞名的蘋果公司，這些經典傑著全都是滋養 Kelley 成長的養分。

到了 1991 年，Kelley 和設計出第一台筆電的 Bill Moggridge，及擅於科技產品視覺設計的 Mike Nuttall 決定把 3 家公司併成 1 家，開啟了 IDEO 公司注定不同凡響的一頁。

在帕羅奧圖市商業區的大樓群中，IDEO 公司的總部的風格就像是一所新潮蒙特梭利學校加嬉皮客公寓的綜合體，五花八門的標誌和畫架隨處可見、會議室的牆面上貼滿了便利貼，口香糖販賣機、木琴和芝麻街布偶 Elmo 就擺在一旁，顯然是衝著 Kelley 而來的幽默之舉，另一邊則停著一台改裝成會議區的復古福斯小巴，車頂上則放置了度假風情的海灘椅。

這些充滿童趣的裝飾想當然耳也是出自 Kelley 的巧思，因為他相信孩子在遭教育體系蹂躪前，就有如一顆渾然天成、富含創造力的璞玉，而 Kelley 為了實踐他設計教育的理念，他也在當地各校開設另類的教學課程，引導孩子們能夠靈活地操控左右腦，他也時常喜歡將英國教育先驅肯‧羅賓森爵士（Sir Ken Robinson）的名言掛嘴邊：「在教育學上，創造力和識字率的重要性是不分軒輊的」

Kelley 對設計教育的樂愛也讓他了解到自己對設計獨一無二的見解，足以吸引更多人加入他設計思考的行列，他也知道透過商業運作的方式，絕對能將他的想法推廣到全世界，「假如說改變世界是你的最終目標，那麼商業將會是你達成目的最快的速成法」。

IDEO 的另一項特色是，公司的運作模式並非總是一成不變的，他們就好比是一個有機體，不斷邁向進化之路，他們在協助客戶處理各項任務上，也都朝著這個方向前進，從早期在矽谷設計科技產品、專研設計體驗，到現在替各家創新力匱乏的公司進行診療，然而，即便公司的理念已逐漸成型，Kelley 在推廣設計思考概念上卻也花了不少功夫，IDEO 提供的服務非常簡單，它利用設計來幫助其他公司成長，但他們真正提供客戶的，更像是一個煥然一新的體驗，「就好像魚不知道自己是濕的一樣，我們最後才發現到，客戶真正得到的價值是他們在想法上的轉變，當他們懂得運用新概念的那刻，離成長、創新也就更近了」。

在一次和 IDEO 公司 CEO Tim Brown 的會議上，Kelley 的腦中突然閃過一個念頭：與其說 IDEO 主張「設計」，不如稱此為「設計思考」，Kelley 表示：「我不是個咬文嚼字的文人，但在「設計思考」一詞冒出頭的那刻我的確被震懾住了，因為到頭來這一切都符合邏輯，我可以稱自己為一位擅長設計法的專家，而非設計傢俱或車子的設計師。」

多倫多大學羅特曼管理學院（Rotman School of Management）院長 Roger Martin 發表他了的看法：「IDEO 完全改變了我們對設計的認知，他們把設計從物質轉移到改造組織上，這套創新的概念甚至可以運用在急診室和購物車上！」

而 IDEO 費勁功夫鑽研的創新理念也逐漸引起各家頂尖設計公司的注意，Martin 表示 IDEO 是第一家同時提供改造消費者觀感和企業結構、文化服務的公司，在進行創意革新時若只把焦點聚在單一方面，最終的效果可能就無法令人滿意。

設計思考對偏傳統保守，特別是注重市場行銷、工程的企業來說是一大挑戰，伊利諾理工大學設計學院院長 Patrick Whitney 就鼓勵過不少學生去 IDEO 闖蕩，他表示自己也曾看過不少排斥設計思考的案例，「很多學生都擁有企管和工程學位，在學校，他們學到了機會集合的概念，他們透過數字，找出自己最有把握的資訊，然後樂觀其成！」

誘發創新突破的定律

然而，在創新的種子開花結果前，必然得先解決一些積年累月下來的問題，面對並著手分析難題通常是解開謎題的不二法門，這個過程通常會是創新靈感露臉的大好時機，而設計進行這套流程正是 IDEO 的拿手絕活。

「在衝刺前先回頭看看」是 Kelley 花了不少時間才體悟到的哲學理念，在 80 年代中期，他提案的流程通常會對：理解、觀察、腦力激盪、設立原型幾大點進行個別分析，但他們的客戶通常會不耐煩地希望直接從步驟 3 開始，而 Kelley 也漸漸瞭解到前幾個步驟才是催化出創新點子的肥料，也是 IDEO 之所以與眾不同的原因，「對我來說，能領悟這點是相當重要的，我之後對不遵守遊戲規則的案子一概不予理會，因為他們忽略了真正的價值。」

從為開發中國家設計抽水機，到替 RED 公司研發音樂服務， IDEO 全都採用了這套流程，萬豪酒店（Marriott）最近也請 IDEO 幫他們改造旗下中等價位旅店品牌 TownePlace Suites，萬豪原本想將 TownePlace 酒店大廳轉為較為樸實親民的風格，但 IDEO 員工親自調查後發現，旅客根本不想待在大廳裡，IDEO 團隊計畫負責人 Bryan Walker 解釋：「在大廳中遊蕩意味著你目前無所事事，旅館大廳顯然是個讓人鬱鬱寡歡的地方，給人開朗映像的旅客會在入住前就規劃好活動，他們會到附近的網球場練球、去教堂走走、品嘗當地美食…」這讓團隊開始思索該如何把 TownePlace 增添些溫馨感，在一連串的腦力激當後，他們想到了一個好點子：在大廳牆上擺上一張超大地圖，並標示出旅客最愛的私房景點，這不僅能讓初次登門的旅客進一步認識當地環境，也讓旅客彼此有了話題可聊，一張簡單的地圖就這麼成了活絡社區感情的大功臣，其他分店一開始對此半信半疑地，但在設計團隊邀他們參觀位於舊金山倉庫的大廳樣本後，他們對這項設計五體投地，紛紛點頭答應，一年後，旅客對新大廳滿意度一舉增加了 16.8%。

就連寶僑公司也被 Kelley 神奇的魔力給吸引，寶僑執行長 A.G. Lafley 親自率領 40 名跨國領導委員兩度造訪 IDEO 總部，希望能從了解這家公司的生態，寶僑創新設計及策略部副部長 Claudia Kotchka 形容：「我們的資深經理簡直看傻了眼，他們領悟到設計不只是美感，解決問題的方法也不是只有統計和分析」，然而，即使在帕羅奧多市的經歷讓寶僑大開眼界，他們回到辛辛那提市後的情況可就沒想像中的那麼順利了，他們在設計流程中的創意始終無法在商業上取得票房，Kotchka 也因此受了不少打擊，她決定打電話向 Kelley、羅特曼管理學院院長 Rotman’s Martin 和伊利諾大學的 Whitney 求救，希望能透過 3 位大師的指引走過這次的難關，在 2005 年夏秋之際，3 位大師透過設計流程成功改造並整合了整個產品製造團隊和企業策略方向，他們甚至還培訓寶僑員工在往後的日子保有自己規畫設計流程的技能。

Kelly 說到：「不是所有工程都一定要我們包辦，我們提供客戶必要的能量，教他們釣魚而非吃魚。」

Kotchka 表示寶僑目前已有 100 多位自行培訓的設計師，「這樣的轉變實在太不可思議了！我們不僅設計產品，更將設計運用在工作、組織流程和生產過程上！」

IDEO 公司也將類似的手法傳授給西岸知名健保給付醫院 Kaiser Permanente，在成功解決 2004 年的一則任務後，IDEO 決定要改造 Kaiser 醫院因護士換班造成訊息傳達不彰的問題，而 IDEO 公司對設計理念的堅持也打動了 Kaiser 醫院，這家醫院之後成功杜絕了配藥不當的問題，更採用 IDEO 的設計，部屬一個能夠緊盯醫生、護士、藥劑師們開處方、裝袋和配藥動作的專屬團隊，光是美國，一年就有超過 150 萬人淪為用藥不當的受害者，而根據 Kaiser 醫院所有影音和學刊資料顯示，中斷醫護人員配藥動作是造成用藥不當的罪魁禍首，IDEO 設計團隊針對這點展開研究，他們改造藥物的運送流程、避免閒雜人等擾亂配藥作業，他們設計出寫著「別煩我！」的圍裙，在配藥機台前掛上紅色的「禁止進入！」標示，成功解決了配藥過失的問題。

這項設計腰斬了醫院的配藥過失量，同時使配藥效率上升了 18%，Kaiser 醫院目前已將這套設計流程推廣到其他 36 家相關醫療機構，也不吝嗇的分享他們成功的秘訣，Kaiser 醫院的創意顧問部長 Christi Zuber 表示：「Kaiser Permanente 一直都與創新為伍，IDEO 讓我們學會了運用設計來解決問題。」，或許我們很難想像麥肯錫這樣知名的管理公司會願意分享他們成功的秘訣，但 Kelley 在 IDEO 貫徹了他的理念，他相信能公司能運用的力量不斷進化。Kelley 在一場公司未來展望的會議上表示：「我樂於傳授成功的祕訣，因為我相信我們每一天都能想出更棒的點子，創新是永遠不會枯竭的！」

創新x多樣性x共享

Kelly 除了愛車成癡的一面外，他最愛的設計就是他的溫馨小窩，由他一位創立 Memphis 設計集團的名師好友 Ettore Sottsass 親自操刀，那是一棟蔓延伸展、有著折衷主義風格的超現實建築傑作，建物包括一棟專屬愛女的綠色獨棟建築、一個給太太專用的 2 層樓高的桶狀拱型辦公室，及一棟塊狀結構的客房，那也是 Kelley 在家中養病的好地方。

在 1983 年時，Kelley 和 Sottsass 開了一家結合義大利設計和矽谷科技產品的小公司（他們設計的電話，被紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA）列為館藏展品，但在市場銷售上卻吃了敗仗），他了解美國設計總被批為不如歐洲設計的原因，「他們認為設計就是美術，那是他們的文化，但我對名畫和畫家一無所知，這是美國不如歐洲的地方…」，或許美國設計在米蘭傢俱展上無法發光發熱，美國仍然有著其他國家少有的魅力：「多樣性」，從 Kelley 對設計的想法，民族大熔爐的人口結構都是灌輸我們創造出非凡創新想法的元素。

這正是創造出 D. School 的原料之一，一個能將數據至上的史丹佛大學生變身成創意思考人的童話世界，它對商業、法律、教育、醫學、工程…各個領域的學生都展開雙臂地熱烈歡迎，因為他們知道多樣性就是滋養創新的能量。

近幾年，各大學也爭相風靡跨領域合作的魅力，位處史丹佛校園 James H. Clark Center 的生物醫學工程及科學便是這場跨學科浪潮中的佼佼者，Kelley 花了 8 年時間才成功說服史丹佛大學接受他的瘋狂想法，成立一個沒有學位卻不失專業的設計學校終於美夢成真，Tom 說道：「在 David 一心想要打造 D. School 之時，他跑去校長 John Hennessy 面前，接著長篇大論地說『我知道學校在挖掘知識上的成就，我們有一堆諾貝爾獎得主把全部的心思花在鑽研各種難題上，但如果我們搞錯方向的話呢？要是答案不在地心深處，而是在無邊無際的水平線上？我想我們應該嘗試水平思考！』」憑著這股磅礡氣勢，Kelley 總算找到了知己，2005 年，他又說服了軟體公司 SAP 創始人 Hasso Plattner 掏錢投資 D. School 3500 萬美元，2008 年秋天，一棟占地 42,500 平方英尺的 Hasso Plattner 設計學院如期完工，屹立在史丹佛大學的校園內。

人在德國沃爾多夫總部的 Plattner 表示：「若美國想繼續保有創新王國的頭銜，相關得設計課程絕對是不可或缺的必要成分，對各類產品來說，設計或許是一種商業和市場手段，但 David 對設計的熱情已超乎了設計本身，也確確實實地打動了我。」

Kelley 對自己在史丹佛校園白手建立的設計王國還是多少感到有些難以置信，「我在這邊生活了 30 年了，從來沒有人會想正眼看過我，他們還曾經想縮減我的辦公室，那不過才 78 平方英尺大，現在我卻有辦法和校長面對面，討論我是否還需要其他新建物！」，校長 Hennessy 目前正考慮把創造力視為史丹佛大學另一個必修學科，就像外語學習一樣。

不論設計思考是否真的改變世界，Kelley 的拉麵設計學是否真的能派上用場，他對設計思考的憧憬和理念正活生生得在他親手打造的課堂上上演著，清潔用品公司 CleanWell 執行長，也曾是 Kelley 學生的 Dan Bomze 說道：「David 值得歌頌的一點是，他把生命奉獻在他所信仰及追隨的人上，他相信他的選擇一定會造福世界，從他身上，我學到了一個人從無到有的過程，而當他辦到後，卻樂於分享他的成果使大家與有榮焉，讓所有參與者都跟著他一起蛻變。」

Kelley 現在的身體已經完全康復了，他活力十足、創意無限，但每半年他還是得回醫院做身體掃描，以確保癌細胞沒有轉移到其他地方，他的經歷也再次讓所有人都體悟到，生命是消縱即逝的。

Kelley 坐在 IDEO 總部的帳篷裡，身子往前一傾地說：「我知道癌症隨時都可能復發，所以我最好把握這次的機會，盡我所能把信仰灌輸到大家身上，畢竟那真的挺管用的！」

來源   >   翻譯自文章：Ideo’s David Kelley on “Design Thinking"  ｜  翻譯：Paul

Ideo's David Kelley on "Design Thinking"

David Kelley, founder of the design firm Ideo and the Stanford d.school, was leading a charmed existence. Then he felt a lump.

By Linda Tischler

The smell of ramen noodles wafts over the Stanford d.school classroom as David Kelley  settles into an oversize red leather armchair for a fireside chat with new students. It's 80 degrees and sunny outside in Palo Alto, and as the flames flicker merrily on the big computer screen behind him, Kelley, founder of both the d.school and the global design consultancy Ideo, introduces his grad students to what "design thinking" -- the methodology he made famous and the motivating idea behind the school -- is all about.

Today's task: Design a better ramen experience.

Some students seem a little mystified, as they twirl noodles around their chop sticks. What does a "ramen experience" have to do with design? Better packaging? Curlier noodles? Adding a cute little forky thing to the cheap staple of dorm rooms everywhere?

Kelley, a lanky guy with a bald head, a Groucho Marx mustache, and a heartland-bred affability, tackles the mystery head on: "I was sitting at a big dinner in Pacific Heights recently, and I told my hostess I was a designer. 'Oh,' she said. 'So what do you think of my curtains?' " That, Kelley says, is not where we're going.

"You're sitting here today because we moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers," he continues. "What we, as design thinkers, have, is this creative confidence that, when given a difficult problem, we have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before."

"We moved from thinking of ourselves as designers to thinking of ourselves as design thinkers. We have a methodology that enables us to come up with a solution that nobody has before." -- David Kelley

It is a radical notion, in its way: the idea that creativity can be summoned at will, with a process not unlike the scientific method. That contradicts what most people -- including the 50 students sitting mesmerized before him -- have always thought. "That to be creative, an angel of the Lord appears and tells you what to do," Kelley says, laughing.

Ideo -- which now counts more than 500 employees in eight offices on three continents -- has drawn on Kelley's methodology to do everything from stimulate customer savings at Bank of America to revamp nursing shifts at Kaiser Permanente. Over the past 30 years, the firm has tackled the challenge of delivering a needle-free vaccine for Intercell, building a better Pringle for Procter & Gamble, revitalizing the bicycling experience for Shimano, and rethinking airport-security checkpoints for the TSA. It has racked up more than 1,000 patents since 1978 and won 346 design awards since 1991, more than any other firm. The design-thinking process underpins the company's near $100 million in annual revenue, drawn from a client roster that has included Anheuser-Busch, Gap, HBO, Kodak, Marriott, Pepsi, and PNC, among hundreds of others. Ideo has, in short, become the go-to firm for both American and foreign companies looking to cure their innovation anemia.

Until about a year ago, Kelley, the man at the epicenter of this expanding universe, was on a roll. He had received a National Design Award, been inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, held an endowed chair at the Stanford School of Engineering, and even won the Sir Misha Black Medal for his "distinguished contribution to design education." Cara McCarty, curatorial director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, summed up his influence: "Kelley has pushed our definition of design more than anybody in this country."

He also had a loving wife, a daughter to whom he was devoted, and a vast circle of friends that included Apple's Steve Jobs and actor Robin Williams.

Then, one morning, he noticed a lump on his neck.

Kelley was helping a fourth-grade class at his daughter's school use design thinking to create better backpacks when his cell phone rang and his doctor's number came up. He stepped out to take the call. "You have cancer," the doctor said. "Just like that," Kelley recalls. He went back into the class to finish the lesson but, he says, "I was a mess."

It was stage-four squamous cell carcinoma, which had gone misdiagnosed -- as "inflamed fish gills" -- for a year and a half. During that time, it had migrated to his lymph nodes. "I could tell by looking in people's eyes that this was a big deal," he says.

Preliminary tests looked worrisome, but Kelley, an optimist, figured that with good energy and good medicine, he could prevail. Then his oncologist sat him down and gave him the statistics: He had a 40% chance of being alive in four years. "That was the moment," Kelley says. "As an engineer, you say, 'Show me the data. This has got to be for older people.' So the doctor looks at the chart and the median age is 56. I'm 56. So it's right on me."

What ensued was sheer hell. Chemo, surgery, radiation. Mouth sores. A throat so raw he could barely swallow. Nausea so severe he couldn't concentrate enough to read or even watch TV. "I spent nine months in a room trying not to throw up," he says. The treatment wrecked his saliva glands and his taste buds. He lost 40 pounds.

Kelley, now 58, says his wife, Kc Branscomb, a former CEO of IntelliCorp whom he met through his buddy Jobs, was masterful at orchestrating his care, marshaling doctors, haranguing insurance providers, keeping on top of appointments, medications, and daily life. But, Kelley says, it was his brother, Tom, who got him through the rough patches psychologically. "Here's a guy I shared a room with for 18 years," he says, choking up. "Basically, he gave up his life to be there for me every day."

David asked Tom to negotiate his relationship with the world, alerting friends that his brother wasn't up to communicating with anybody. "More than 100 people came to me and said, 'I know David's not talking to others, but he'll talk to me. I'm a special friend,' " Tom says.

It was the thought of his 11-year-old daughter that kept Kelley fighting through the lowest moments. "At first, you think, 'I don't want to miss her growing up.' That's motivating, but not that motivating," he says. "It's when you manage to get out of yourself and start thinking of her that you get the resolve to continue. When you think, I don't want her not to have a father -- then you want to stay alive."

In the recovery phase, Kelley was assigned a psychiatrist. "When they tell you that you don't have that many more years to live, you ask yourself, What is it that I want to get done? What is it that's going to make me feel good?," he says, sitting in a neo-yurt at Ideo's Palo Alto headquarters. "Given a finite amount of time, how do I spend it?" Kelley and the shrink began parsing his days, calibrating which activities were the most satisfying. "The punch line is that one of the things that's really fun for me is Ideo," he says. Working at the firm he built fits into Kelley's lifelong mission: "I really do believe I was put on the planet to help people have creative confidence," he says. "I don't have 27 agendas. I'm not the sustainability guy, or the developing-world guy. My contribution is to teach as many people as I can to use both sides of their brain, so that for every problem, every decision in their lives, they consider creative as well as analytical solutions.

"The illness has given me more resolve to do that."

When Kelley got sick, his friends were desperate to find ways to help him, sending cards, movies, cartoons. John Maeda, formerly the associate research director of MIT's Media Lab and now president of the Rhode Island School of Design, built a Web site with a picture of Kelley at the White House, surrounded by other 2001 National Design Award winners -- all with Kelley heads -- under the banner, EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE DAVID KELLEY.

"David is the kind of person you aspire to become," says Maeda. "He's like a brainy Muppet. You want to hug him, stick by him, and support what he stands for. He doesn't wear a fur stole or sunglasses. He's like the guy you run into at the 7-11 getting a Slurpee. I like the idea that he's an anonymous superstar."

Watching Kelley, in his jeans, flannel shirt, and striped socks, shuttling between Ideo and Stanford in his greenish-yellow '54 Chevy pickup, you're more likely to think he's a Sacramento tomato farmer than one of the country's great design minds. (A self-confessed "car nut," Kelley also has a '67 Ferrari, a '57 Porsche, and a '32 Ford in his fleet.) Even as a boy growing up in Ohio, Kelley saw the world from a different angle. "David believes he was a geek," says Tom, the youngest of the four Kelley siblings and four years David's junior. "But it's not true. He had his own rock band, for chrissake! Even then he was a rock star." At the town line, there's now a sign that trumpets, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING BARBERTON, HOME OF DAVID KELLEY.

After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, Kelley took a job at Boeing, where he designed what he calls a "milestone in aviation history": the 747's LAVATORY OCCUPIED sign. He eventually moved to National Cash Register (now NCR) in Ohio, a similarly dispiriting experience. Fate intervened during the 1973 -- 1974 oil embargo, when Kelley met a guy in a car pool who told him about Stanford's product-design program. "Without the oil crisis, David may have spent the rest of his life as a very capable but moderately unhappy engineer," says Tom.

At Stanford, Kelley met his mentor, Bob McKim, a pioneer in using experiential psychology in design. "I had an intuition I couldn't survive corporate America," Kelley says. "I hated the hierarchy and just wanted to work with my friends."

In 1978, Kelley and some of his Stanford pals banded together to launch a design and engineering firm, and opened for business over a dress shop in downtown Palo Alto. In 1981, the firm created the mouse that controlled Apple's graphic interface. Its descendants are still in use today.

Silicon Valley was a great place for a restless mind like Kelley's to soak up ideas on how innovative companies work, from HP's iconic culture to Xerox PARC's breakthroughs in marrying engineering and social science to Apple, where the idea that business is a mission reached full flower.

In 1991, Kelley's firm merged with two others -- those of Bill Moggridge, who had designed the first laptop computer, and Mike Nuttall, whose skill was in the visual design of technology products -- to form Ideo.

A cluster of buildings on a side street near Palo Alto's business district, Ideo's headquarters look like a cross between a cool Montessori school and a crash pad circa 1970. There are tubs of markers and easel pads of paper everywhere; Post-it Notes litter the walls of conference rooms. A gum-ball machine, xylophone, and Tickle Me Elmo lie nearby, critical elements in the latest company prank, a global Rube Goldberg contraption, which began with a coin drop in Palo Alto and bumped and rattled its way, with occasional electronic leaps, through the company's seven other offices. A vintage Volkswagen bus has been converted into a meeting area, complete with beach chairs on the roof.

The playfulness of the place is utterly intentional, an outgrowth of Kelley's conviction that children are naturally creative -- at least until the educational system beats it out of them. To test out his theory, Kelley has several educational programs going at local schools to try to teach children to be as adept with their right brains as with their left, and he's fond of quoting British educator Sir Ken Robinson on the topic: "Creativity is as important in education as literacy."

As much as Kelley loves teaching, though, he knows that his ideas can attract more powerful acolytes -- and be disseminated more widely -- through business: "If the goal is to change the world, the business part changes the world faster."

What's remarkable about Ideo is that it's constantly reprototyping its own business model much as it would those of its clients. From its early work designing tech products for Silicon Valley, it moved to designing experiences, and it's now on to tackling the hurdles that prevent design solutions from getting traction within an organization. But even as that expertise evolved, Kelley struggled to explain it. Ideo was pushing its clients forward, using something it called design, but what the firm was really doing was more transformational. "Just like a fish doesn't know he's wet," he says, "we didn't realize that our real contribution was that the companies we worked for didn't think like us. And when they did, it really had a lot of advantages for them."

In a meeting with Ideo's CEO, Tim Brown, in 2003, Kelley had an epiphany: They would stop calling Ideo's approach "design" and start calling it "design thinking." "I'm not a words person," Kelley says, "but in my life, it's the most powerful moment that words or labeling ever made. Because then it all made sense. Now I'm an expert at methodology rather than a guy who designs a new chair or car."

"They went meta on the notion of design," says Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, referring to the shift from object design to focusing on organizational processes. "They concluded the same principles can be applied to the design of, say, emergency-room procedures as a shopping cart."

While the "deep dive" ethnography that Ideo uses as a foundation for its process has since become table stakes for most top-tier design firms, Martin says Ideo was among the first to recognize that to redesign a customer experience, you also have to redesign organizational structures, culture, etc., or you won't produce the experiences you want.

Design thinking represents a serious challenge to the status quo at more traditional companies, especially those where engineering or marketing may hold sway. Patrick Whitney, dean of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), who sends many of his graduates off to Ideo, says he sees this resistance all the time. "A lot of my students have MBAs and engineering degrees. They're taught to identify the opportunity set, deal with whatever numbers you can find to give you certainty, then optimize."

But some problems need to be restated before a big, new idea can be hatched. It often helps to take the problem and break it apart, before putting it back together in a whole new way -- the synthesis or abstraction step. That's where the creative leap often occurs and what Ideo's process is designed to unearth.

It took Kelley a while to appreciate the power of stepping back before forging ahead. In the mid-1980s, he says, he used to write proposals with the various phases of the process -- understanding, observation, brainstorming, prototyping -- priced separately. Clients invariably would say, "Don't do that early fooling around. Start with phase three." Kelley realized that the early phases were where the big ideas came from -- and what separated his firm from a bunch of management consultants. "That moment was really big for me," he says. "After that, I'd say, 'No way, I won't take the job if you scrap those phases. That's where the value is.' "

Now, all of Ideo's projects employ the process, whether to redesign water pumps for developing countries, or to devise a music service for (RED). Marriott recently hired the firm to overhaul its TownePlace Suites, a chain of mid-range extended-stay hotels. The company had originally hoped to set the chain apart with snazzier, more guest-friendly lobbies. But after hanging out in the hotels, Ideo staffers discovered that guests were reluctant to be seen in the lobbies at all. "If you're hanging there, it means you basically have nothing to do," says Bryan Walker, the Ideo team's project leader. "They were really sad spaces." The happiest guests were those who'd managed to bond with the larger community -- by joining a nearby tennis club, finding a church, frequenting a restaurant. That led to a brainstorming session on how to make TownePlace feel more like a temporary home. One result: a giant wall map of the local area that highlights guests' favorite discoveries, and not only introduces newcomers to the area but also spurs conversation among them -- itself a community builder. Skeptical franchisees were trotted through a prototype built in a San Francisco warehouse, and won over. A year after the rollout, guest satisfaction with the new lobbies has increased 16.8%.

Procter & Gamble, too, has been seduced by Kelley's ideas. With CEO A.G. Lafley leading the expedition, for example, the company's entire 40-member Global Leadership Council has twice come to Ideo headquarters for a total immersion in the firm's process. "Our senior management was blown away," says Claudia Kotchka, former vice president for design innovation and strategy. "They learned that design is more than aesthetics, and that there are different ways of solving problems than the analytical methods that most disciplines teach."

Still, despite the P&Gers' enthusiasm in Palo Alto, once they got back to Cincinnati, ideas created in the design process kept getting stuck as they ran smack into the commercial side of the business. This frustrated Kotchka, who called in Kelley, Rotman's Martin, and IIT's Whitney to help her find a way to break the deadlock. Over the summer and fall of 2005, the three came up with a prototype of an integrated approach that took a product team through the design process all the way through the impact on strategy. What's more, they trained the P&G employees to facilitate such programs on their own.

"Our dent in the universe doesn't mean we have to do all the digging," Kelley says. "We empower our clients. We teach them to fish."

Kotchka says there are now more than 100 internally trained facilitators within P&G. "It's amazing how the process scales," Kotchka says. "We try to use it not just for products but for how we work together, how we organize, and how we develop processes."

The Ideo School for Anglers taught similar tricks to the giant West Coast health-care provider Kaiser Permanente. After a hugely successful 2004 project that Ideo conceived to improve information transfer during nurse-shift changes, the firm's philosophy inspired Kaiser's own innovation center. Recently, that facility tackled the problem of medication error, and using Ideo's techniques, deployed a team to shadow nurses, doctors, and pharmacists as they prescribed, filled, and administered medications to patients. In the U.S. alone, more than 1.5 million people are harmed by medication errors annually; Kaiser's information -- videos and journals -- from the observation phase revealed that interruptions were the main driver behind errors. The team took that insight and brainstormed solutions ranging from streamlining the process for medicine delivery to protecting the process from other employees. They then prototyped tools -- including aprons that said LEAVE ME ALONE! and red DO NOT CROSS! lines in front of pill-dispensing machines -- that could solve the problem.

The program has been so successful -- reducing interruptions by 50% and increasing on-time delivery by 18% -- that Kaiser is now rolling it out to its 36 facilities and responding to inquiries from around the world about its effectiveness. "Kaiser Permanente has always been innovation driven," says Christi Zuber, director of Kaiser's innovation consultancy, "but Ideo gave us a teachable approach." It's hard to imagine McKinsey giving away its proprietary techniques, but Ideo's largesse is in sync with Kelley's mission -- and with his confidence in his own company's ability to reinvent itself. "I can give our methodology away," he says at a staff meeting on Ideo's future, "because I know we can come up with a better idea tomorrow."

Besides his mania for cars, one of Kelley's primary design passions is his house, designed by his late friend Ettore Sottsass, the founder of the design collective Memphis. It's a sprawling, eclectic masterpiece with multiple, asymmetrical wings: a green one shaped like a Monopoly house for his daughter; a two-story, barrel-vaulted office for his wife; a blocky guest house, where Kelley spent most of his time while he was sick.

In 1983, Kelley started a small business with Sottsass linking Italian design with Silicon Valley technology (their product -- a phone -- made it into MoMA but failed in the marketplace), and he understands the frequent criticism that American design is inferior to European. "The rest of the world defines design as an artistic discipline," he says. "They were taught culture. I wasn't taught who painted anything. So as Americans, we're at a disadvantage." But while Americans may be underrepresented at the Milan Furniture Fair, he says, the United States has something few other countries can match: diversity. The way Kelley sees it, our polyglot populace gives us an extraordinary advantage in generating truly creative ideas.

That idea was one of the animating forces behind the d.school -- a place that would help analytical Stanford types become creative thinkers. The school would welcome students from business, law, education, medicine, engineering -- the more diverse, the better.

In recent years, universities across the country have developed an obsession with cross-disciplinary collaboration. One of the foremost success stories, the James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, is right on the Stanford campus. Still, it took eight years for Kelley to convince Stanford that his unconventional idea -- a school that grants no degrees, but functions as more of a specialized graduate program -- had merit. "When David was making the case for the d.school at Stanford," says Tom Kelley, "he went to [university president John] Hennessy and said, 'Look, we're good at "deep." We have Nobel Laureates drilling down into esoteric topics. But what if there are problems that aren't solved by deep, but broad? We should have a side bet in broad.' " In that climate, Kelley's notion finally began to find an audience. By 2005, he had persuaded Hasso Plattner, a founder of the software giant SAP, to pony up $35 million to the d.school. The new 42,500-square-foot home of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, smack in the middle of the Stanford campus, will open this fall.

"Programs like this are absolutely necessary if the U.S. wants to maintain its position in innovation," says Plattner from his company's headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. "For many products, it's a mandatory strategy for survival. And David's so passionate, he can even motivate me."

Kelley is still a bit astonished at what he has been able to pull off at Stanford. "I've been here 30 years, and nobody paid any attention to me at all," he says. "At one point, they were trying to reduce the size of my office -- which was 78 square feet. Now I'm sitting in meetings with the president, with him asking if I want another building." Hennessy is now talking about making creative confidence a requirement at Stanford, just like a foreign language.

Whether or not design thinking revolutionizes the world and all its ramen experiences, Kelley's influence is sure to live on in the institutions he has built and the people he has touched. "David's legacy is that he spends his life doing things he believes in, with people he believes in, with the abiding faith that it will lead to good things," says Dan Bomze, CEO of CleanWell and a former Kelley student. "From David, I've learned that there has to be someone to create something out of nothing. He embodies that. But he makes people feel he couldn't have done it without them. Anybody who spends time with him comes away transformed."

"From David, I've learned that there has to be someone to create something of nothing," says a friend and former student. "David embodies that. Anybody who spends time with him comes away transformed."

As for Kelley, he's currently cancer-free, energetic, and full of plans. But every six months, he has to submit to a scan to make sure the disease has not metastasized. It's a terrifying reminder that, as for all of us, life is short.

"So I sit here today," he says, leaning forward in the shelter of the Ideo yurt, "knowing there's a chance it could come back. So I better make some hay. I better get my religion in place in as many people as I can. It's working really well."

[Image courtesy of IDEO]

A version of this article appeared in the February 2009 issue of Fast Company magazine.