Innovation: The Impact of Cooperation
I used to be envious of the inventors who were responsible for designing the future of our society. They have worked to create devices that make immeasurable impacts on our lives, thus I thought they had to be more in touch with the world than I was. For the longest time, I didn’t buy into the “we are all innovators” mentality. I was never dissuaded from innovating, I just didn’t believe I was capable of success. I thought there must be something special about the people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, that I could never attain. And I know I’m not alone.
We, as a society, glorify inventors. We put their creativity on such a high pedestal, that it is as if we view them as more than human. The issue with this mindset is that it doesn’t consider all the players involved in the creation of any given product, device, or service. Apple, for example, couldn’t have been made without a whole team of developers and entrepreneurs working towards it; yet as a society we chock Apple up to “Steve Jobs.” We rarely even consider Steve Wozniak, the other founder of Apple!
As I began to explore Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), many of the perceptions I had about innovation changed quite drastically. My previous experiences with design had been in a non-collaborative environment, and I felt judged exclusively on my innate artistic ability. This was very discouraging to say the least. However, in HCDE, the entire design process is very collaborative. HCDE takes much more of a wholistic approach to designing products that deeply considers the user. In every step of the design process, from research to ideation to prototyping and evaluating your product, there is a team to support you and the product. The HCDE process also has requires an extensive arsenal of skills, that challenges the typical notions of design and teamwork. User research, for example, is just as critical to human centered design as ideation and the final product.
I find that designing in teams has a very beneficial impact on the final product. Everyone is capable of coming up with unique solutions to problems, regardless of feasibility. Having a team of people coming up with ideas, even if they are outlandish, greatly increases the likelihood that a successful idea will come out of an ideation session. Sure, working in teams can be painful. There is psychological proof that people put less effort in when in a group setting. It is called social loafing, and all of us have experienced it at one point or another. Yet, it is only in teams that I can see myself as an innovator. If you are working on a team with people who are just as passionate about the product as you are, the effects of social loafing dissipate. I now believe we are all capable of innovation, under the right circumstances and with the right team supporting us.
