Case Notes/Answers
IDEO Human-Centered Service Design By Ryan Buell,
Andrew Otazo
Discussion Questions:
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, has hired a team of IDEO designers to
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
In preparation for class, please read the case and watch all of the videos in the online multimedia
interface linked below. Use the following questions to guide your preparation:
1. How would you characterize IDEO’s human-centered innovation culture, process, and
philosophy? What are the core elements?
2. As you watch the customer interview video (Chapter 3.2 in the online multimedia), use the
case’s Exhibit 7 to guide your thinking about the following question. What do you learn from
this customer that the team might use as it reimagines the movie-going experience? What are
the most important features of the way the team interacts with him during the interview?
, 5 -6 1 6 -0 3 8
RE V :AUG UST 21 , 2 0 20
TEACHING NOTE
IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design
Synopsis
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, hired a team of IDEO designers to
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
The case documents the 12-week project, using an integrated multimedia interface that gives
students an immersive, behind-the-scenes view of IDEO’s celebrated design thinking process. The
designers spent the first four weeks of the project drawing inspiration and conducting research in the
field. During this exploratory phase, the team observed and interacted with Cineplanet’s various
stakeholders (customers, employees, filmmakers, etc.) in Peru and Chile, to identify their latent, unmet
needs and define improvement opportunities to address through design. The team spent the next four
weeks in IDEO’s San Francisco office, engaged in the ideation process. During this concepting phase of
the project, the team generated concepts they believed might address those needs. During the final four
weeks of the project, the team returned to Peru for the prototyping phase of the project, creating tangible
prototypes of their top design concepts, which they tested with real customers in the field.
By providing students with a window into IDEO’s human-centered service design process, this case
provides a vivid contrast to the innovation culture and processes of many organizations, serving as the
basis for a discussion about how to turn creativity and innovation into organizational capabilities. The
case also highlights a paradox, wherein market leaders that are the most adept at serving their
customers can be particularly susceptible to losing sight of what matters most to those customers. The
case is a productive vehicle for fueling a discussion about what can be done to reinvigorate
performance in such organizations.
Suggested Assignment Questions
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, has hired a team of IDEO designers to
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
, 616-038 Teaching Note—IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
In preparation for class, please read the case and watch all of the videos in the online multimedia
interface linked below. Use the following questions to guide your preparation:
1. How would you characterize IDEO’s human-centered innovation culture, process, and
philosophy? What are the core elements?
2. As you watch the customer interview video (Chapter 3.2 in the online multimedia), use the
case’s Exhibit 7 to guide your thinking about the following question. What do you learn from
this customer that the team might use as it reimagines the movie-going experience? What are
the most important features of the way the team interacts with him during the interview?
Instructor’s Note: In addition to the written case, students should be given access to the multimedia
portion of the case study (HBS No. 615-703). Students may access the online multimedia using the link
address provided below:
http://eproduct.hbsp.harvard.edu/eproduct/product/m_ideo/content/index.html
(Note: HBS faculty should assign students the following link, which students will access using their HBS
login credentials: http://courseware.hbs.edu/cases/ideo/index.html )
Depending on the instructor’s teaching objectives, it may be appropriate to assign a subset of the
multimedia content. For details, please consult TN Appendix C.
Teaching Objectives
This case can be taught effectively to MBA students or to executives at any level in courses on topics
such as operations, innovation, service management, marketing, project management, and
entrepreneurship. At Harvard Business School, the case is taught in a required, first-year MBA course
on Technology and Operations Management, as part of a module on innovation management. In that
capacity, it additionally serves as a primer on human-centered design, as students prepare to engage
in a project to help a global partner develop or improve a product, service, or experience for a segment
of its customers. “Learning From Extreme Customers” (HBS No. 315-086) is an excellent companion
exercise that operationalizes the ideas introduced in the case around engaging with extreme customers
to generate path-breaking insights.
The case has also been taught in Managing Service Operations (HBS No. 620-090), a second-year
elective course on service management, as part of a module on Designing Successful Service
Operations. When used in that capacity, the case follows the “Designing Transformational Customer
Experiences” exercise (HBS No. 617-051), which reveals how our best service experiences create
emotional connections with us by delivering personalized responses to emergent situations, and by
resolving otherwise unmet needs. This case builds on that lesson by providing students with a primer
on human-centered service design, a process by which organizations can identify and address latent,
unmet customer needs.
When used in these contexts, specific teaching objectives include:
• To provide a vivid example of the design thinking process at work, so that students can
consider how each phase of the process contributes to solutions that are more compatible
with the needs and behaviors of customers, specifically:
2
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
, Teaching Note—IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design 616-038
o To illustrate the foundational roles of empathy and human-centeredness in the
design process, and how going to the field to observe and interact with
extreme users in the exploratory phase leads to a deeper understanding of
customer’s latent unmet needs and helps define design requirements (What are
the challenges we’re trying to address?)
o To consider the mindset that underlies successful ideation and iteration in the
concepting phase of the design process, and to contrast it with experiences of
managers in most organizations (How might we design solutions that address these
challenges?)
o To demonstrate the importance of making ideas tangible in the prototyping
phase of the design process, and the critical importance of re-engaging with
customers in the field to test and refine concepts before implementing them
(Do these solutions address the challenges?)
• To explore the role of variability in the design process, and how effective design benefits
from a regular modulation between divergent thinking (when choices are created) and
convergent thinking (when choices are made)
• To emphasize how design thinking is an organizational capability – a process married with
a distinctive organizational culture and structure
An analysis of the major issues is presented in the Case Analysis section of this note, and suggestions
for classroom instruction are presented in the Teaching the Case section. The note concludes with a one-
page class summary (TN Appendix A), suggested board plan (TN Appendix B), an overview of the
pre-class multimedia (TN Appendix C), an overview of the in-class multimedia (TN Appendix D) and
summary slides (TN Appendix F).
Case Analysis
The analysis of this case is presented in four sections, the first three of which chronologically parallel
the process used by the project team to re-imagine the Peruvian movie-going experience. We first
analyze the exploratory phase of the process, in order to understand the roles of empathy and human-
centeredness in defining the opportunities for design to address unidentified, unmet customer needs.
We then explore the concepting phase of the process, contrasting IDEO’s process for ideation with the
ideation process as experienced by managers in most organizations. We next present an analysis of the
prototyping phase of the process, considering the roles of making concepts tangible and testing them in
the field before implementing them. 1 We conclude with a brief discussion of how the operational
transparency inherent in the human-centered design process facilitates engagement by designers and
adoption of new ideas by managers and employees.
Exploratory Phase
The first step in any design process is to understand the unmet needs of customers that present
opportunities for innovation. Put differently, what are the challenges we are trying to address through
1 Some descriptions of the design thinking process categorize it as having five steps: 1) Empathy, 2) Define, 3) Ideate, 4)
Prototype, and 5) Test. With this conceptualization, steps 1-2 correspond with the “Exploratory Phase,” step 3 corresponds with
the “Concepting Phase,” and steps 4-5 correspond with the “Prototyping Phase.” An auxiliary slide that makes this connection
is included in the summary slides, and shown in TN Appendix F.
3
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
IDEO Human-Centered Service Design By Ryan Buell,
Andrew Otazo
Discussion Questions:
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, has hired a team of IDEO designers to
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
In preparation for class, please read the case and watch all of the videos in the online multimedia
interface linked below. Use the following questions to guide your preparation:
1. How would you characterize IDEO’s human-centered innovation culture, process, and
philosophy? What are the core elements?
2. As you watch the customer interview video (Chapter 3.2 in the online multimedia), use the
case’s Exhibit 7 to guide your thinking about the following question. What do you learn from
this customer that the team might use as it reimagines the movie-going experience? What are
the most important features of the way the team interacts with him during the interview?
, 5 -6 1 6 -0 3 8
RE V :AUG UST 21 , 2 0 20
TEACHING NOTE
IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design
Synopsis
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, hired a team of IDEO designers to
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
The case documents the 12-week project, using an integrated multimedia interface that gives
students an immersive, behind-the-scenes view of IDEO’s celebrated design thinking process. The
designers spent the first four weeks of the project drawing inspiration and conducting research in the
field. During this exploratory phase, the team observed and interacted with Cineplanet’s various
stakeholders (customers, employees, filmmakers, etc.) in Peru and Chile, to identify their latent, unmet
needs and define improvement opportunities to address through design. The team spent the next four
weeks in IDEO’s San Francisco office, engaged in the ideation process. During this concepting phase of
the project, the team generated concepts they believed might address those needs. During the final four
weeks of the project, the team returned to Peru for the prototyping phase of the project, creating tangible
prototypes of their top design concepts, which they tested with real customers in the field.
By providing students with a window into IDEO’s human-centered service design process, this case
provides a vivid contrast to the innovation culture and processes of many organizations, serving as the
basis for a discussion about how to turn creativity and innovation into organizational capabilities. The
case also highlights a paradox, wherein market leaders that are the most adept at serving their
customers can be particularly susceptible to losing sight of what matters most to those customers. The
case is a productive vehicle for fueling a discussion about what can be done to reinvigorate
performance in such organizations.
Suggested Assignment Questions
This case describes the human-centered innovation culture and service design process at IDEO, one
of the world’s leading design consultancies. In 2014, in reaction to a rapidly changing competitive
landscape, Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, has hired a team of IDEO designers to
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
, 616-038 Teaching Note—IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design
reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet’s management team wishes to better
align the company’s operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.
In preparation for class, please read the case and watch all of the videos in the online multimedia
interface linked below. Use the following questions to guide your preparation:
1. How would you characterize IDEO’s human-centered innovation culture, process, and
philosophy? What are the core elements?
2. As you watch the customer interview video (Chapter 3.2 in the online multimedia), use the
case’s Exhibit 7 to guide your thinking about the following question. What do you learn from
this customer that the team might use as it reimagines the movie-going experience? What are
the most important features of the way the team interacts with him during the interview?
Instructor’s Note: In addition to the written case, students should be given access to the multimedia
portion of the case study (HBS No. 615-703). Students may access the online multimedia using the link
address provided below:
http://eproduct.hbsp.harvard.edu/eproduct/product/m_ideo/content/index.html
(Note: HBS faculty should assign students the following link, which students will access using their HBS
login credentials: http://courseware.hbs.edu/cases/ideo/index.html )
Depending on the instructor’s teaching objectives, it may be appropriate to assign a subset of the
multimedia content. For details, please consult TN Appendix C.
Teaching Objectives
This case can be taught effectively to MBA students or to executives at any level in courses on topics
such as operations, innovation, service management, marketing, project management, and
entrepreneurship. At Harvard Business School, the case is taught in a required, first-year MBA course
on Technology and Operations Management, as part of a module on innovation management. In that
capacity, it additionally serves as a primer on human-centered design, as students prepare to engage
in a project to help a global partner develop or improve a product, service, or experience for a segment
of its customers. “Learning From Extreme Customers” (HBS No. 315-086) is an excellent companion
exercise that operationalizes the ideas introduced in the case around engaging with extreme customers
to generate path-breaking insights.
The case has also been taught in Managing Service Operations (HBS No. 620-090), a second-year
elective course on service management, as part of a module on Designing Successful Service
Operations. When used in that capacity, the case follows the “Designing Transformational Customer
Experiences” exercise (HBS No. 617-051), which reveals how our best service experiences create
emotional connections with us by delivering personalized responses to emergent situations, and by
resolving otherwise unmet needs. This case builds on that lesson by providing students with a primer
on human-centered service design, a process by which organizations can identify and address latent,
unmet customer needs.
When used in these contexts, specific teaching objectives include:
• To provide a vivid example of the design thinking process at work, so that students can
consider how each phase of the process contributes to solutions that are more compatible
with the needs and behaviors of customers, specifically:
2
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
, Teaching Note—IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design 616-038
o To illustrate the foundational roles of empathy and human-centeredness in the
design process, and how going to the field to observe and interact with
extreme users in the exploratory phase leads to a deeper understanding of
customer’s latent unmet needs and helps define design requirements (What are
the challenges we’re trying to address?)
o To consider the mindset that underlies successful ideation and iteration in the
concepting phase of the design process, and to contrast it with experiences of
managers in most organizations (How might we design solutions that address these
challenges?)
o To demonstrate the importance of making ideas tangible in the prototyping
phase of the design process, and the critical importance of re-engaging with
customers in the field to test and refine concepts before implementing them
(Do these solutions address the challenges?)
• To explore the role of variability in the design process, and how effective design benefits
from a regular modulation between divergent thinking (when choices are created) and
convergent thinking (when choices are made)
• To emphasize how design thinking is an organizational capability – a process married with
a distinctive organizational culture and structure
An analysis of the major issues is presented in the Case Analysis section of this note, and suggestions
for classroom instruction are presented in the Teaching the Case section. The note concludes with a one-
page class summary (TN Appendix A), suggested board plan (TN Appendix B), an overview of the
pre-class multimedia (TN Appendix C), an overview of the in-class multimedia (TN Appendix D) and
summary slides (TN Appendix F).
Case Analysis
The analysis of this case is presented in four sections, the first three of which chronologically parallel
the process used by the project team to re-imagine the Peruvian movie-going experience. We first
analyze the exploratory phase of the process, in order to understand the roles of empathy and human-
centeredness in defining the opportunities for design to address unidentified, unmet customer needs.
We then explore the concepting phase of the process, contrasting IDEO’s process for ideation with the
ideation process as experienced by managers in most organizations. We next present an analysis of the
prototyping phase of the process, considering the roles of making concepts tangible and testing them in
the field before implementing them. 1 We conclude with a brief discussion of how the operational
transparency inherent in the human-centered design process facilitates engagement by designers and
adoption of new ideas by managers and employees.
Exploratory Phase
The first step in any design process is to understand the unmet needs of customers that present
opportunities for innovation. Put differently, what are the challenges we are trying to address through
1 Some descriptions of the design thinking process categorize it as having five steps: 1) Empathy, 2) Define, 3) Ideate, 4)
Prototype, and 5) Test. With this conceptualization, steps 1-2 correspond with the “Exploratory Phase,” step 3 corresponds with
the “Concepting Phase,” and steps 4-5 correspond with the “Prototyping Phase.” An auxiliary slide that makes this connection
is included in the summary slides, and shown in TN Appendix F.
3
This Teaching Note is authorized for use only by ELENA PIKULINA, University of British Columbia until Feb 2024. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
or 617.783.7860.
