Ideo's entrance
A sweet welcome
A foam insulated waiting area - great acoustics
The table in the middle is actually a stack of papers.
Space is important at IDEO. They see how it directly influences people's ability to work with one another, share information and how they feel about work when they arrive every morning. John from Berkeley also honed in on the importance of space in creating a dynamic and energizing work environment that breeds innovation.
IDEO however has taken it to the next level. Some highlights:
- A welcoming entrance as you see above
- Main work spaces involve a set of desks in the center (not everyone has their own desk) and project spaces surround the desks where teams set up shop and work until the project is completed. Most project spaces have 3 walls and are lined with sticky notes, sketches and inspiration pieces (these were top secret and no pictures were allowed).
- Meeting rooms are shared, have been named by staff, and range from formal meeting rooms to a hollowed out bus (seriously)
- The main common space is the cafeteria. It's very homey and is designed to foster casual interactions. In the mornings they have staple breakfast items as a way of bringing people together, along with a few couches. One interesting item is a touch-screen that displays IDEO's own "People pages" meets Facebook. Profile pictures constantly scroll by so you are reminded of who's around and if there is a face you don't know you can just touch their picture and their profile pulls up. Every time someone posts an update, their profile opens up and is displayed. They found that having this up in a public space where people knew others were watching has driven its adoption and usage.
- IDEO's work is displayed nearly everywhere. It's a constant reminder of their accomplishments and inspires pride in their work.
- Who's in charge of developing IDEO's space? While they have an Experience team that thinks through how space is used for knowledge sharing and their work, they emphasize that each individual and team is in charge of shaping their own space.
- Some questions for us: What's on our walls? What should be on our walls? What kind of spaces do we need to support our work? You can write you comments and thoughts below.
4 comments:
Interesting. I like the idea of having our work posted on our walls. Except that sometimes the work is sort of sensitive. Is there such a thing as confidential walls?
By the way I heard today that the new World Bank building on Connecticut Avenue has open space, everyone together. Lots of possibilities.
I also like the idea of a table that is a big pad of paper.
Joy - to answer your question about confidential walls - yes. How I saw them doing it, they have project rooms that are given to each 3-6 month project, so the team has a space to work, get messy with expirimenting with ideas, brainstorming, prototypes, etc. They can close the doors, its their space.
They still have their desks to go back to, but when working on that project - they have that space and are surrounded by it.
What is this new WB building you mentioned!?
I like the idea of showing their work everywhere. In the dot.com I worked for we had a 'done wall' where we put our to do lists from past projects.
It was kinda goofy looking back at how bad ideas from a year ago seemed!
Post a Comment