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REV: MARCH 6, 2013

AMY C. EDMONDSON

Phase Zero: Introducing New Services at IDEO (A)

op yo In July 2002, Douglas Dayton looked out across the space where designers, engineers, human factors experts, and other specialists worked in teams and reflected that it was not easy to evaluate the recent project carried out for mattress manufacturer Simmons. Dayton was a design engineer and head of IDEO’s Boston office. IDEO was a design and innovation firm known for the extraordinary range of products it had designed and its innovative approach to the design process.

For the Simmons project, IDEO had embarked on a service that was not intended to result in a tangible product, at least not right away. Whereas a typical design project progressed through four phases designed to “do the thing right,” this service, known as “Phase 0,” was intended to help a client “do the right thing.” Rather than design a new product based on pre-specified needs, Simmons had asked IDEO to help it “look for unmet needs that exist and to identify new product opportunities.” The project proposal, entitled “Understand and Innovate,” described Phase 0 services as helping clients understand the world in a new way and innovate accordingly. At first glance, mattresses were not exciting territory for the firm, but as the team researched mattress consumers— conducting literature reviews, site visits, and interviews with customers and salespersons—they grew intrigued. One later recalled, “The more we looked, the more we found.”

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Now two months after their final presentation to Simmons executives in Atlanta, Georgia, the team was still buzzing from the client’s enthusiastic response to the Phase 0 project’s identification of a new market, embodied in young singles. Dayton, however, wondered whether the team’s work would have a lasting and