The Innovation Lab is a lean startup operating inside of Nordstrom.

What We Do

We move through ideas quickly, using whichever technologies make sense. Our process incorporates methodologies and practices from Design Thinking, Lean Startup, agile, and lean thinking.

How We Work

The lab is a collaborative studio space with post-its and note cards everywhere. We opt for pairing stations over cubes, and our door is always open to anyone to stop by, ask questions, or come in and collaborate.

What’s Next

A new year means new challenges and new connections. If you are a customer who would like to share an experience, a peer that would like to connect, or a team that would like to collaborate, contact us.

Our Process top

Design Thinking

Design Thinking provides a roadmap to creative & human-centered solutions. It challenges us to see the world through the eyes of our customers, uncover latent needs, and generate innovative solutions that are desirable, feasible and viable.

Lean Startup

Lean Startup focuses on building the right thing for our customers. It gives us a framework for delivering validated learning with tools like the build-measure-learn loop, continuous delivery, and innovation accounting.

Agile & Lean

Agile & Lean optimize our process and enable us to move quickly. Once we know what to build—agile is how we build. We pair on work, test-drive our ideas, and develop iteratively. Lean reminds us to visualize our work and reduce cycle time.

Join Our Team top

Call me, maybe?

In 2012 we enjoyed meeting a variety of developers, designers, and multidisciplinary candidates who impressed us with their talents and perspectives on innovation. As this year comes to a close and we move into 2013, we have decided to pause hiring, as we take on new challenges, learn from our customers, and support the future of retail at Nordstrom.

The section below is the model we use for identifying ideal lab members. Feel free to use it for inspiration or if it resonates with you please apply to be considered the next time we expand.

Interested in seeing other opportunities with Nordstrom ?

What does a lab member look like?

You:

Thrive on challenge. When did you fail last?
Are curious & always learning. What are you working on right now?
Can deal with constant change. When were you last surprised?
Have mastered at least one skill of your trade but you’re not defined by it. What can you teach us? Can you wear many hats?

What we build:

A new product every week or two.
Validated learning: we build experiments, not applications. We pass the working ones on to other teams.
Risky projects: we expect 80% to fail.
High leverage: we expect that 20% that succeed to have a huge impact.
New & diverse technologies: web, mobile, and sometimes even infrastructure.

How we do it:

A modern development stack: for web apps, we use Rails, RSpec, Heroku, and cloud storage
Pull from Agile, Lean, Customer Development, and Lean Startup to find an edge.
Let you choose the tools to do your job
Work as a team: sit together, pair, write tests, create personas, and story map.
Meet after work every week and figure out how to do it better next week.

Skills we need now:

Development (Ruby, iOS, whatever…)

Skills we always need:

Big data
User Experience
Visual Design
Personalization
Design Thinking

Internships:

Currently, there are no internships available in the lab; we’ll post as soon as the opportunity arises!

If mind maps are your thing, here’s the mind map we created together while brainstorming about hiring: