Clarity: The Next Design Thinking Evolution

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MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION

Talking Up SenseMaking

Clarity: The Next Design Thinking Evolution Ana Barroso in Conversation with GK. VanPatter

“Five years ago no one could have guessed that by 2015 clarity would become the next design thinking competitive advantage but the mess that has been created around the subject now makes that rather clear.”

Part 3 of 3

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Question 3.

MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION

Ana Barroso: GK, you mention that your clients “needs have played a significant role in the development and fine tuning of what we do and how we do it. We

design from the outside in.” That seems very aligned with the past 7 years of

design thinking practice I have conducted in Brazil, with clients from very different industries and completely different challenges. Those are some of the variables that usually inform the tools we end up using in the sense making and change making phases of the design thinking process.

I personally have found that many pre-framed tools and canvas that are used in the market place were created with product, service and experience outcomes in mind, and in a organization transformation and social innovation context, they represent, to use your words; “a methodology misfit”.

In his article entitled “Why Everyone is a designer…but shouldn’t design” Mercin Treder talks about the importance of the designer in the facilitation of the design

process. Treder writes about bringing everyone into the design process, and then “kicking them out”. I would be interested to hear your view of Mercin Treder’s comments.

In Humantific-land, what tools are used to conduct the sensemaking and

changemaking processes? What is Humantific’s approach to collaboration and consensus?

[Note: This article was first published in October 2015 on G.K. VanPatter’s LinkedIn blog]

GK VanPatter: Hello again Ana: I am on my way back to New York from London and am happy on route to dive into this last part of our conversation. I did take a look at the “Why Everyone is a designer…but shouldn’t design” article by Mercin Treder. that you have referenced.

It seems to contain some interesting and dramatic constructions as well as several assumption wrinkles but lets pause to give Mr Treder credit for writing about an issue that many in practice grapple with.

He seems to be questioning the mainstream media Koolaid on the subject of design thinking and from my journalistic perspective the community needs more of that kind of writing.

“In essence, Mr Treder seems to be advocating for more courage on the part of design professionals in the face of what many perceive to be the dumbing down of design / design thinking”

In essence, Mr Treder seems to be advocating for more courage on the part of design professionals in the face of what many perceive to be the dumbing down of design / design thinking. In this regard I would agree. The design community including the design education community could use many more courageous leaders. Even if I do not agree with every detail of Mr Treder’s post it is, from my perspective, a constructive contribution.

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I would generally agree with your observations Ana, that “many existing design thinking tools and canvases that are used in the marketplace were created with product, service and experience outcomes in mind and in a organization transformation and social innovation context, they represent, to use your words; “a methodology misfit”.”

MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION

In the big picture sense the design community, such as it is, is always at not one, but rather numerous simultaneous given moments in a very long development maturity cycle. On any given day different parts of the diverse community are at very different points in the cycle. That can make for a confusing picture. If the truth were journalistically told it would be that right now a large part of the community is passing through what might be called the redepiction era. In part this is occurring because much of the graduate design education community were, for more than a decade, very slow to change internally, methodologically in response to external change occurring. One result is that the marketplace is full of highly qualified professionals trained to create products, services and experiences regardless of what the challenges now facing planet earth are.

At this moment the idea of an adaptive strategic design thinking is out in front of many of the actual methods being used and still taught in many of the graduate schools. Caught off guard by the massive move towards more fuzzy, complex situations many of the graduate design schools simply changed their marketing materials, not their methods. As a result the amount of energy being put into redepicting product and service creation as design thinking applicable to world peace size challenges is considerable today. Much of the community including the majority of graduate design schools are presently and often rather uncomfortably in the middle of that redepiction cycle.

The redepiction wave has created mountains of confusion around the subject of design thinking.

“At this moment the idea of an adaptive strategic design thinking is out in front of many of the actual methods being used and still taught in many of the graduate schools.”

Of course, sooner or later the logic of addressing massive organizational and societal challenges by creating more products, services and experiences was going to be pointed out as a rather silly assumption.

Journalistically right now we see a lot of writing on the subject of design / design thinking that reflects the transitional redepiction era. Upstream strategic design thinking visions are often being cited but then combined with downstream methodological orientations and traditional Design 2 logic. The vision of design thinking is often out of sync with the methods being referenced.

This odd-ball dynamic can be seen in numerous main stream media articles that have appeared recently in Harvard Business Review www.humantific.com

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MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION including “Design For Action”, “Design Thinking Comes of Age” and many others. Product creation legacy orientation runs deep in numerous current writers on the subject of design thinking at the moment. This odd-ball dynamic entangled in the mess of redepiction seldom adds clarity and most often adds to the mountain of confusion around the subject. Not surprisingly most discussion lists are also overwhelmed by the redepiction methodology force-fit logic. As practice-based methodologists we believe this bumpy moment will eventually pass.

Eventually the methods of design thinking will more broadly catch up with the adaptable vision often seen in the media. This shift has already occurred in the strategic design community but has not yet occurred in the broader design community. This shift will eventually occur more broadly not because it’s a good idea but rather due to globalization….an entire subject for another day.

Acknowledging that writing on the subject of design / design thinking in the middle of the redepiction era is complicated, messy and confused we weave our way through an avalanche of posts, checking in with the weather on a regular basis. Without some kind of sensemaking framework like NextD Geographies it can be a confusing picture.

Inevitably Mr Treder’s post contains numerous assumptions being made around complex muddy terms such as leadership, design, facilitation, problem-solver, designer, design process, skill-set, skills ladder, etc. Each of these terms have multiple meanings which make writing about them precisely rather difficult. For example the term “facilitation” seems to have one meaning in the design community and a different earlier meaning in the applied creativity or CPS (creative problem solving) community as do the terms “problem solver” and “skills ladder”. I am not sure we can get to all of that in this short conversation Ana. ☺ I did appreciate Mr Treder’s noble thrust towards being a straightshooter, telling it like it is. I would liked to have seen some of that straight shooting in the direction of acknowledging that UX design is not meta design in that it begins downstream with an assumption that a UX challenge exists. The redepiction dynamic seen in Mr Treder’s article and many others like it has caused as much confusion around the subject as the many instant experts writing about design thinking.

“I did appreciate Mr Treder’s noble thrust towards being a straightshooter, telling it like it is. I would liked to have seen some of that straight shooting in the direction of acknowledging that UX design is not meta design in that it begins downstream with an assumption that a UX challenge exists.”

Mr Treder references Don Norman, a well-known and highly regarded Design 2 practitioner. Norman’s interests, concerns, values and logics probably mirror those of Mr Treder. No big surprise there.

Does Don Norman work in the realms of organizational and societal transformation? As far as I know this is not his expertise. He speaks www.humantific.com

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MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION from a specific product creation related vantage point and adds value in that context. Design 2 is one of numerous operational contexts that now exist. Today each design geography has its thought leaders.

Utilizing the NextD Geographies framework to help make sense of Mr Treder’s post we can imagine that each geography probably contains multiple perspectives on the now widely discussed slogan that “Everyone is (or isn’t) a Designer”.

That notion might make less sense at the scale of poster design, toothbrush design or interface design and make more sense at the scale of organizations, communities, policies and or societies.

Like many other design related questions the context of challenge scale is important. There is not one perfect answer.

Regarding your question about collaboration and what we do at Humantific: We find that considerations and approaches to collaborative cocreation change from scale to scale. Cocreation has a long history in the applied creativity community and much less history in the design community. Some writers like to be dramatic using terms such as “kicking” participants “out” of the process at various points. In less dramatic terms it is quite common for a strategic design team to figure out when to include various experts and nonexperts in any innovation cycle. No strategic design practice that I know of has everyone involved at the same level of detail throughout every stage of a process cycle.

Lets keep in mind that in Design 1 and 2 what is often being produced are externally directed consumer goods. In Design 3 and 4 the notion of internal buy-in is typically more important. It is rather common knowledge that involvement in process by constituents is key to obtaining buy-in. Of course there is an art and a science to enabling buy and buy-in. The former are primary dynamics of Design 1 and 2 and the later of Design 3 and 4.

We do find that in addition to the often confusing redepiction wave underway in the marketplace even more confusion is added into the mix when some writers don’t seem to know where the various terms and techniques came from historically. Redepiction and miscrediting in design thinking journalism represents a confusion double whammy. In the interest of clarity for our readers I will point out a couple of hiccups that appear in the “Why Everyone is a designer… but shouldn’t design” article.

“We do find that in addition to the often confusing redepiction wave underway in the marketplace even more confusion is added into the mix when some writers don’t seem to know where the various terms and techniques came from historically.

Redepiction and miscrediting in design thinking journalism represents a confusion double whammy.”

Mr Treder states: “You can use the How might we approach of design thinking.”

Not exactly. Folks with knowledge from other changemaking neighborhoods know that the invitation stem “How might we” www.humantific.com

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comes from the applied creativity (CPS) community, not the design MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION community. Somewhat ironically it is a device that was created by Dr. Sid Parnes to be used as part of a broader upstream technique called challenge framing, which is not typically found in the traditional downstream design community.

Mr Treder states: “Good design is about making decisions.”

Not exactly. Convergent thinking, ie: decision making is only one half the design process and if the truth were told it would be that convergent thinking is typically significantly overly represented cognitively by folks with non-design backgrounds. For a number of good reasons we don’t want the design process to be equated to decision-making. In addition, we don’t want the folks selling decision-making as the highest form of value to overpower and redesign design or integrative thinking in that direction. That’s a formula for disaster. That’s a formula for the opposite of inclusive innovation.

Mr Treder states: “Everyone is a problem solver.”

Not exactly: While many adults have learned some version of problem solving lite 99% of professionals with graduate degrees operating in organizations were not schooled in how to do complex problem finding and solving in cross-disciplinary settings. 100% of the organizations that we work with are cross-disciplinary in nature.

Mr Treder states: “Everyone is a design participant but you’re the expert.”

As organizational change practitioners we would say this quite differently. Everyone can be a participant in the innovation design process. The professional designers can provide the crossdisciplinary process leadership expertise, and on many projects content expertise in the form of two or more individuals. Process facilitation is not a content roll. Content (subject matter) expertise is not process expertise.

“We do subscribe to the philosophy that everyone has the capacity to be creative. We do subscribe to the notion that everyone can participate in any design, innovation or changemaking process.”

It might help if I clarify that much of the work we do at Humantific involves the deliberate construction of inclusion. Since our founding a decade ago inclusion has been and remains, underneath everything we do in terms of innovation strategy, culture building, team dynamics, methods, information, the work environment, etc.

Having said that, we don’t subscribe to the popular social media notion that everyone can be everything by watching a few Youtube videos. We do subscribe to the philosophy that everyone has the capacity to be creative. We do subscribe to the notion that everyone can participate in any design, innovation or changemaking process. www.humantific.com

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MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION We don’t subscribe to the notion that with 15 minutes of training everyone is a professional level engineer, designer or scientist.

In most subjects there is a continuum or skills progression ladder that is hard to argue with and design is no exception. Numerous such progression ladders exist. Participating in a process is not the same as having deep expertise. Lets respect the degree of effort and dedication that all folks have put into their disciplines.

Considering the complexity of challenges often being faced, diverse deep skills are needed.

Everybody isn’t instantly everything but everyone can respectfully bring their background, knowledge, experience and skills into any innovation cycle.

For our Humantific clients what we do is create a systemic way to ensure that diverse thinking styles and views are included in the innovation process. We can get to that at a team and culture building level without converting everyone to an instant designer. For us that’s a bit of a side road, more sloganeering then reality, and not central to our changemaking, capacity building mission. Knowledge regarding how to construct inclusive human-centered innovation cultures has been part of our strategic design practice for at least a decade.

We know from experience that it is not enough to wishfully say we should respect each other’s differences. To do this work, tools, methods and knowledge are required in order to make the case for innovation diversity bullet-proof and sticky at the level of behaviors.

Other professionals such as engineers approach and lead innovation enabling in much differently ways. How human-centeredness works itself out at the scale of organizations and societies is what the new work is often all about today. Strategic design thinking is well suited to operate in this context.

“For our Humantific clients what we do is create a systemic way to ensure that diverse thinking styles and views are included in the innovation process.

We can get to that at a team and culture building level without converting everyone to an instant designer.”

We have written about this elsewhere. To keep it simple, we see and explain design thinking this way: Design Thinking (also known as Meta Design Thinking, Strategic Design Thinking, and Transformation by Design) starts upstream with no outcome assumptions and results in diverse outcomes.

Product Design Thinking starts downstream with product creation assumptions and results in product outcomes.

Service Design Thinking starts downstream with service creation assumptions and results in service outcomes.

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Experience Design Thinking starts downstream with experience creation assumptions and results in experience outcomes.

MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION

All of these approaches are being sold today in the marketplace (and by various graduate schools) as design thinking. It is presently quite a mess out there.

Understanding that this confusing mess around design thinking now exists what Humantific recommends to organizational leaders who are considering the possibility of building some form of design thinking capability, is to step back and from a sensemaking perspective, better understand the various differences, options, intentions, limitations and possibilities before investments are made.

Don’t go build a downstream Product, Service or Experience Design Thinking capacity and expect it to preform like an upstream Strategic Design Thinking capacity. While they all add value, we suggest being clear about what challenges you seek to address and what value you seek to create! One simple thing to do when someone brings up the subject is simply to ask: Which design thinking methodology are you talking about?

The good news is that today marketplace expectations around the subject of design thinking are changing. Savvy organizational leaders now expect less spin and more clarity. With the design education institutions up to their eyeballs in marketing redepiction spin, there is a need for strategic design practice leaders to advocate turning the corner in the direction of a new era of advocacy for design thinking clarity. Perhaps ironically most graduate design schools are now poorly positioned to lead the clarity evolution in design thinking. That turning is not likely going to come from the academic community anytime soon. That turning is already underway in strategic design practice.

“Part of the next cycle will see many organizational leaders coming to terms with the realization that product/service design thinking methodologically is not a Swiss army knife. In the future there will be a better fit between methodologies and challenge scale.”

A decade in the making, the evolution of strategic design remains in motion with mainstream media finally catching on however imperfectly. Clearly there is need for a new generation of strategic design journalism...another topic for another day.

On the horizon, part of the next cycle will see many organizational leaders coming to terms with the realization that product/service design thinking methodologically is not a Swiss army knife. In the future there will be a better fit between methodologies and challenge scale.

Five years ago no one could have guessed that by 2015 clarity would become the next design thinking competitive advantage but the mess that has been created around the subject now makes that rather clear. A new imperative has emerged and that is simply being more www.humantific.com

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clear about design thinking, what it is and isn’t from a methodology perspective. Understanding how, where and when to tap into various versions of design thinking has become key.

MAKING SENSE OF INNOVATION

We are certainly happy to be playing a small role in advocating that turn away from the old redepiction spin era and towards an embrace of much more clear thinking on design thinking.

Let the clear thinking on design thinking era begin.

I am curious to know what you thought of Mr Treder’s article Ana? Ana Barroso: A lot of what you have mentioned had caught my attention when

I read the article, and I also specially appreciated Treder’s intention to dispel the “everyone is a designer” myth that has been so wrongly perpetrated by design

thinking enthusiasts that position themselves as innovation experts. I see a whole lot of that in the marketplace right now.

The excitement that the design mindset has brought into the business

environment by young and enthusiastic entrepreneurs trying to lead all sorts

of complex projects may have reinforced that idea to participants of product,

service and experience design thinking processes. Being heard, “thinking outside of the box”, working with professionals from different areas is usually novelty in a corporate context and it gives clients the feeling that they are entering

the innovation space – and for that reason they can’t seem to fully appreciate the

difference between mature innovation practices and young design entrepreneurs.

So it’s import to bring attention and a sense of clarity to what are complex

problem-solving skills, the difference between facilitating participation and actually conducting cross-disciplinary innovation, between process and content expertise.

All those things are very muddy in the article, and that is a mirror of what I see in the marketplace.

That’s where formal training comes in, not to mention practice. There’s a whole lot that has been done and published in the past not only in design but in other fields of knowledge, by brilliant thought leaders, that inform the best of what

we see going on right now in terms of organization and social transformation.

Humantific does a great job making things clear, understandable, teachable and visual for the industry.

GK VanPatter: It has been fun and constructive in the past few weeks to chat with you online and off Ana. We know you, we like you and we like Brazil!

This year we hope to bring Humantific to 3 new countries. Is Brazil ready for Humantific?

Ana Barroso: Woooo Hooo Lets do this!

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