The Deep Dive:

July 13^th 1999, abc News did a report on a company called IDEO. In the beginning they show the “normal corporate workers day.” They say that it’s a bunch of stiffs sitting at a desk with alert minds and tireless machines doing the same routine every day. In other words, they are probably not likely to invite anything. IDEO shows a different side to working. They don’t discriminate based on your title or how long you've been with the company. They bounce off everyone’s ideas and everyone’s opinion matters.

The company was faced with a new project that needed to be completed in five days. They needed to innovate the supermarket shopping cart. The project leader is Peter Skillman. He is project manager because he is good with groups and not because of seniority. The rest of the team consists of different careers. Biology major, psychologist, marketing experts and so many more! Safety and theft were the first issues reported. The team splits up to see what the people who use, make, and repair shopping carts feel. They went around to different supermarkets and took pictures of the customers with their carts, and asked customers and the staff questions concerning the carts. They looked at the shopping cart from different perspectives to come up with useful and relatable ideas for the 21^st century shopping cart. Each group came back to IDEO and shared their ideas and everything they've learned to the rest of the team.

Day two is the deep dive! For the next few hours the ideas pour out and are hung on the walls! One idea was Velcro pants and Velcro seats for the children. When questioned about the idea, Dave says that you have to have some wild ideas, then you’re supposed to build on top of those wild ideas and they end up being great ideas.  “If everyone thinks the same and appropriately, you’d never have any points to build off of for a really innovative idea” says Dave. A few hours later the team narrowed down the ideas by voting on them. “Enlighten trial and error, succeeds over the planning of the lone genius” says Parker. This statement pretty much sums up IDEO's approach. At 6:00 pm, the team is ready to show their prototype shopping carts. There were some very interesting ideas the team came up with. One idea I personally liked was having an item scanner on the cart to keep track of how much money you’re spending. I think this could be very helpful to shoppers. Other ideas were personally calling for assistance from a worker at the supermarket through a little microphone, piling hand-baskets in a cart, a high-tech cart that gets you through the traffic at checkout, and a cart that is based on child safety. Many great ideas were made and carried out, let’s see what happens next!

It’s the final day of the shopping cart project. What do you know? They designed the entire cart in a day, then took that cart and fabricated it in a day. The cart they built costs the same as your average shopping cart, but looks and acts different in every aspect! Hand-baskets are stacked in a metal frame, there is a handle that ‘straps’ the children into the seat, the carts wheels turn 90 degrees so the cart can move sideways, and they saved the scanner idea from the prototype.

I think the team did a very good job with this project! They succeeded in making a low-cost 21^st century shopping cart. I think every new aspect that was added to the cart is useful and helpful! I loved the way their team worked together, and how they did their work. I like that they don’t discriminate based on your title or seniority. Every opinion and idea matters to this team and I think that is what keeps them going.