You Ve Got to Be Careful If You Don T Know Where

Jason Magidson Idealized Design

You’ve got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going because you might not get there.

Yogi Berra

Idealized Design of the Academy of Vocal Arts

In 1997, the management of the Academy of Vocal Arts (AVA), a small, premier opera training school based in Philadelphia, decided to engage the entire organization in an idealized redesign of the institution. There was no crisis, only a desire to make it the best opera school in the world.

At the time, a few things were holding AVA back. Bold ideas were being discussed, but not widely, so they were not getting the support required for implementation. There was no shared vision of what the stakeholders wanted the organization to become. The school was overreliant on a small number of benefactors. Well-known graduates did not stay connected with the school. The school was not well known outside of the opera world.

Idealized Design kicked off with an all-day session involving 48 stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, board members, benefactors, and management. The participants were divided into four teams of mixed stakeholders. The teams were instructed to pretend that AVA had been destroyed the night before and they were to design their ideal from scratch. The idea is to get them to focus on what they want rather than getting caught up in what already exists. During the first two hours, they generated a list of bulleted statements or “specifications” about the ideal AVA. In the next hour, they began creating a design that would bring about the specifications.

After lunch, the subteams presented their designs to each other and then went back into their subteams to go into more detail and to incorporate aspects of the other teams’ designs that they liked. The designs were subsequently synthesized. In the following months, a core team added additional detail and planned implementation.

AVA implemented many aspects of the overall design. Five years later, AVA repeated the Idealized Design process, updating their earlier design with what they had learned from its implementation.

In addition to attracting the very best students, the design was directed at producing well-attended performances, increasing public awareness, and attracting more people to opera by holding more performances in more locations. Students were to receive enough financial support to eliminate distractions from money worries. The design also included measures to engage alumni in the school.

The design included a state-of-the-art facility with individual training rooms, soundproof practice areas, a large area for building scenery, and a performance theater. At the end of the kickoff session, people unanimously agreed that to realize this facility, the academy should buy the building next door—doubling the facility size. AVA subsequently approached the owner, who agreed to sell. One benefactor was so inspired that she contributed $2.5 million for buying and renovating the building.

The design called for attracting more of the best students by: engaging the media to make more potential students aware of the academy; having faculty, staff, and students attend a variety of opera performances scouting for talent (which they began doing); providing financial support; and providing challenging performance opportunities.

To generate media coverage, AVA invited prominent alumni to participate in its performances, which attracted newspaper and radio attention. A local radio station began broadcasting AVA’s performances. National Public Radio profiled AVA and a student who had debuted at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

AVA’s Idealized Designers realized that media exposure and alumni participation were not sufficient for attracting the best students. New York’s Metropolitan Opera, a strong competitor for potential students, was paying students who participated in their apprentice program. Idealized Design helped AVA realize that they would need to offer at least full tuition plus cost-of-living stipends. AVA’s increased media exposure enabled it to attract additional funds for fellowships and cost-of-living stipends for almost half of its students. Also, to convince potential students that going to AVA was more attractive than the Met’s apprenticeship program, the academy had to offer more prominence in its performances. The new message was that AVA would support student development while moving them more rapidly into starring roles.

Because of their involvement in Idealized Design, the participants “owned” the design and became strong advocates for its implementation. Their enthusiasm was evident to financial supporters, who helped double AVA’s endowment.

AVA demonstrates Idealized Design’s application in the nonprofit sector. Idealized Design has been applied in many other situations, including the design of enterprises, products, processes, services, facilities, communities, and systems. Such examples can be found in a new book entitled Idealized Design (Ackoff, Magidson, and Addison 2006).

Idealized Design: The Basics

Idealized Design is a powerful method for generating “discontinuous improvement”—that is, breakthroughs. Participants pretend that whatever existed was destroyed last night and they are starting from scratch in designing what they ideally want today. One of the key characteristics of Idealized Design is that it begins at the end—the state desired today—and enables people to work backward, thus removing many apparent constraints, mostly self-imposed.

Idealized Design can be used in both crisis situations and where managers want what they are managing well to become even better.

Outcomes of Idealized Design include breakthrough ideas, quick wins, and ideas that improve efficiency. Additional benefits include strong commitment to implementing, improvements in morale and productivity, and empowerment.

Idealized Design starts with initial kickoff sessions (see figure 1) ranging from a half day to two days depending on the complexity of what is being designed (simple product—half day; redesign of organization—two days). Follow-up sessions, held over subsequent weeks or months, involve creating a design that will bring about the desired properties or “specifications.” The design is circulated to a wider audience for input on how it can be improved. A completed design is then settled. Implementation planning takes place in parallel.

Team Ongoing fleshes out Team ideas/ Initial agrees on idealized design in learnings detail over design and enhance the design develops sessions following design over weeks / implemen- time months tation plan

Figure 1. Idealized Design Steps in Initial Kickoff Session Table of Uses Typical Setting(s) Project Length Key Events/Number of Participants Nonprofit Organization 1 day 1-day kickoff Opera school wanted to 48 people become best in world. 2 weeks Working team formed 6 people on core design working team 6 months–1 day every 2 Design document developed weeks Planning/governance team of 8 Implementation planned and executed Department Creates a New IT Half-day Idealized 40 people (4 sessions with 10 System for Employee Use Design sessions held for people) the development of the first procurement system (for spend analysis) New system helps procurement 12 weeks Core design team of 5 people department save millions of Prototype iteratively formed to lead prototype dollars annually developed and reviewed development 45 people involved in design review and enhancement 90-minute prototype 40 people review and feedback sessions 14 weeks 3 programmers, program manager, System programmed, and a 2-person review team from tested the business function System rolled out, with training

About the Author

Jason Magidson ([email protected]) is director of innovation processes at GlaxoSmithKline, where he has applied Idealized Design with employees and suppliers. For more than 20 years, Jason has engaged end users—the source of most innovations—in product, service, and system design. Jason has written for publications including Harvard Business Review and is coauthor of the book Idealized Design: Creating an Organization’s Future (Wharton School Publishing, 2006). Jason received a B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the Union Institute and University. Where to Go for More Information

References

Ackoff, Russell L., Herb Addison, and Jason Magidson. Idealized Design. Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2006. Magidson, Jason. “Shifting Your Customers into ‘Wish Mode’: Tools for Generating New Product Ideas and Breakthroughs. In The PDMA Toolbook 2 for New Product Development, edited by Paul Belliveau, Abbie Griffin, and Stephen M. Somermeyer. John Wiley & Sons. Hoboken, New Jersey, 2004. Magidson, Jason, and Gregg Brandyberry. “Putting Customers in the ‘Wish Mode.’” Harvard Business Review, September 2001.