Praise for Ideaflow
These authors are masterful at demystifying how any organization can turn creativity into a steady practice.
Chris Flink, former CEO and executive director of the Exploratorium and former IDEO partner
Utley and Klebahn were by far the most transformative professors we had at Stanford. Ideaflow finally makes their lessons available to aspiring innovators everywhere. If youve ever wondered whether you have what it takes to put something new out into the world, read this book.
Maite and Itziar Diez-Canedo, cofounders and coCEOs of Via
Utley and Klebahn share proven tools and insider tricks from their renowned consulting expertise and best-in-class programs so that these game-changing ideas flow to the rest of us.
Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less and professor of engineering and architecture at the University of Virginia
A founders secret weapon. Ideaflow is full of tools for everyone seeking to innovate constantly, build thoughtfully, and grow quickly.
Diarra Bousso, founder and CEO at Diarrablu
How do you invent whats next? Simply try to learn how to have more and better ideas. Ideaflow offers eye-opening techniques combined with practical insights into how anyone can establish creativity as a daily practice in their lives.
Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt, Googles chief innovation evangelist and adjunct professor at Stanfords d.school
Cant imagine where ManiMe would be without Jeremy and Perry. The coolest thing I learned is that we need to have a founders mindset long before the product is ready for the market. They liberated my thinking, significantly accelerating our launch without unnecessary worry!
Jooyeon Song, cofounder and CEO of ManiMe
The core teaching of Ideaflow of getting out into the real world, quickly, is the antithesis to my training as an MBA, but Ive since become obsessed with the art of experimenting, iterating, asking, and listening in order to build a massively impactful company that is unique in the marketplace. Founders shouldnt miss this book.
Aishetu Dozie, founder and CEO of Bossy Cosmetics
Two masters of the craft provide a road map about how you can develop your creativity practice and help those you work with do the same.
Linda A. Hill, chair of the Leadership Initiative at the Harvard Business School and coauthor of Collective Genius
Over the last decade, Jeremy and Perry have become my go-to innovation gurus! This book is essential reading for anyone running an organization that desires to enhance and expand innovation. Beware the tidal wave of ideas that will follow once you start reading!
Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt Hotels Corporation
Portfolio / Penguin
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright 2022 by Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn
Foreword copyright 2022 by David M. Kelley
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Utley, Jeremy, author. | Klebahn, Perry, author.
Title: Ideaflow : the only business metric that matters / Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn.
Description: New York : Portfolio, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022019058 (print) | LCCN 2022019059 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593420584 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593420591 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Organizational effectiveness. | Creative ability in business. | Success in business.
Classification: LCC HD58.9 .U85 2022 (print) | LCC HD58.9 (ebook) | DDC 650.1c23/eng/20220815
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019058
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019059
Cover design: Jennifer Heuer
Book design by Alexis Farabaugh, adapted for ebook by Cora Wigen
pid_prh_6.0_141630000_c0_r0
PERRY
To Annie, Parker, and Phoebe for teaching me that ideas from the heart matter most.
JEREMY
To Michelle, whose quest for inspiration first caused me to wonder.
The truth is that for every good idea, there are a thousand bad ones. And sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.
Marc Randolph, cofounder of Netflix
Contents
Foreword
One of the biggest surprises for new students at the d.schoolwhether they are head of a major company or were head of their high school classis the idea that quantity creates quality.
Many come to Stanford searching for quality. At the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (aka the d.school), they hope to learn how to generate world-changing, breakthrough ideas. What we tell them from the get-go is to ignore good and bad in the early rounds and shoot for lots of ideas instead. To go for volume before judgment around quality can set in. This notion of separating idea generation from idea selection can come as quite a shock.
What these students learn, and world-class creators already understand, is that its hard to distinguish good ideas from bad ones before trying them out to see what happens. Without a reliable process for real-world experimentation, its hard to know which novel solution is worth pursuing in the first place or how it might be improved later. The surefire approach is to create as many scrappy solutions as possible and then test them rapidly with real people.
As d.school students learn, this means turning creativity into a practice. We dont teach our students to sit on their heels until inspiration hits them and then sprint into action. Problems dont wait until the mood strikes. To keep the flow of ideas steady, they learn ways to find diverse and surprising sources of inspiration that will feed a stream of ideas to test. The practice of nurturing this ongoing torrent of ideas is transformative for them. Its as useful in everyday life as it is in creative work.
When it comes to delivering these essential lessons and the habits and practices of exceptional creativity that go along with them, you are in capable hands. Jeremy Utley and Perry Klebahn are gifted teachers who actively assist leaders and their organizations with solving real-world problems. They have been empowering d.school students for over a decade. They are also skilled and prolific creative practitioners themselves. They know how creativity works and, just as important, they explain it lucidly in this book.
Together, Utley and Klebahn have written an essential resource for entrepreneurs, inventors, managers, students, leaders, and anyone else who seeks to reliably develop more and better ideas.