The Ten Faces of Innovation

Thomas Kelley is the general manager of IDEO and the author of two books on Innovation. The Ten Faces of Innovation is based upon Kelley's work at IDEO, a consulting firm specializing in innovative design work.

Kelley bases The Ten Faces of Innovation upon the premise that successful and innovative organizations are comprised of people who play many different roles. The most destructive of these is the "Devil's Advocate." Kelly suggests that, although the Devil's Advocate usually attempts to frame their comments as being productive and provocative, their real purpose is simply to derail innovative and creative ideas.

Kelley contends that innovative organizations need to discourage the role of the Devil's Advocate and develop and promote characteristics and skills which he describes as the ten faces of innovation.

The Ten Faces of Innovation are:
1. The Anthropologist
2. The Experimenter
3. The Cross-Pollinator
4. The Hurdler
5. The Collaborator
6. The Director
7. The Experience Architect
8. The Set Designer
9. The Care Giver
10. The Story Teller

Kelley notes that it is not necessary for an organization to have all of these personas present on every team for innovation to occur, nor do each of the roles have to be equally weighted. Most organizations have people capable of fulfilling these roles and that it is imperative that organizations value and foster these skills and characteristics if they wish to be truly innovative.

Who would fulfill these roles in the typical school district? How could a school district foster the skills of the The Experience Architect? Or the Anthropologist?

I have included more about the different "Faces" in the CCIU Shared Research Database. You can access the database by clicking on the Posting title. If you need a user name and password, please contact John Branson: johnbr@cciu.org