Ivy Ross at BIF-2

Consider, if you will, the platypus—an Australian mammal with a streamlined body, webbed feet, broad tail and a long, distinctive bill that is soft and pliable.

To most people, the platypus is an oddity, a bizarre creature that looks like a beaver with a black duck's bill attached. To Ivy Ross, however, the platypus is pure inspiration.

It was in 2001, when she was head of design and development for the Girls' Division of Mattel, that Ross was smitten with the platypus. Charged with developing a new hit toy for pre-teen girls, Ross was looking for a way to fire up her employees' creativity. The platypus, a unique creature that combines aspects of different species, struck her as a symbol of the ideal project team.

So was born Project Platypus, an experiment in multi-disciplinary design that eventually revamped Mattel's corporate culture. Choosing employees with diverse talents from various fields, Ross took them away from their regular jobs and moved them into a studio where, for the next 12 weeks, they engaged in an intensive and unusual brainstorming process.

The first two weeks were devoted to an array of eclectic activities designed to break down corporate hierarchies and inspire creative thinking.

"Having been an artist myself"—after college Ross launched a jewelry-design business, and today her pieces are in the permanent collections of a dozen museums, including the Smithsonian and London's Victoria and Albert Museum— "I began by thinking about what I do when I'm truly innovative, what my methodology is, and then tried to think how I could apply that to groups of people," Ross says.

"People need to be free to explore. And I work hard to create environments that are fun, creative and fluid. That's how, in this day and age, we're going to start to make new connections."

Over time, Ross brought in an improv-comedy artist to talk to the group about free association of ideas; a Jungian analyst to talk about creativity; a psychologist to talk about child's play; an expert in collaborative living systems; and a researcher in music and brain-wave activity.

The ‘mental grazing' produced big time results. By the end of the 12 weeks the team had produced the Ello Creation System, a building set for girls hailed in the toy industry as ingenious. Mattel employees began clamoring to participate in subsequent iterations of Project Platypus, which also produced new brands that Mattel went on to manufacture, contributing millions to the company's bottom line.

For Ross, Project Platypus was the culmination of a lifetime's work in design, beginning with the influence of her father— a well-known industrial designer who created the classic Studebaker Hawk automobile—continuing with her jewelry company and through positions at Calvin Klein, Coach and Swatch, among other companies.

"I grew up with a creative father; I saw him apply his creativity to anything and everything, so I think it's just in my nature," Ross says. "If you understand what innovation and creativity is, you can apply it to anything."

Today Ross is executive vice president for product design and development with Gap Inc.'s Old Navy chain of casual-clothing stores. At Old Navy she doesn't have the luxury of 12-week retreats to spark creativity, so she has condensed Project Platypus into a four-day version of equally wide-ranging inputs designed to get employees to approach their work from new angles— "cleansing the palate," as Ross calls it.

"I believe in systems theory, that the parts are greater than the whole, but you can't just throw people together—you need trust and freedom so they can build on each other's ideas, and an environment that maximizes the spark and passion," Ross says. "I play more of the role of an orchestra conductor than a boss, understanding what kind of diverse minds you need to tackle a problem and what abilities the group has."

She thinks about the orchestra analogy for a second, then reconsiders.

"Actually," she laughs, building on the idea of throwing diverse ingredients together and stirring them up, "maybe it's more like making a good chicken soup."