Design Sojourn’s recent post triggered my own mulling on the word process and current conversations around design thinking.
My working definition of process is a sequence of activities that result in a predictable or pre-defined outcome.
A mature process is one that is:
- repeatable,
- can be transferred to a different set of “actors” (with training), and
- is continously optimised and improved.
Processes are fundamental to any business operating at a large scale. In fact, some may argue that process IS the raison d’être for corporations. Certainly, my career at Intel taught me that its strategic competency is in manufacturing processes, not necessarily the technological invention that people might assume.
So it’s no surprise that design has often defined itself as both “…the process and product of imagination” (Paul Rand). In design’s continual search for acceptance by mainstream business, appropriating the qualities of process is perceived as essential for success. In my previous post on the 8 Voices of Innovation, the “creative process” is called out as one of those key discourses, assuring business that “anybody can be creative if you learn these skills and follow these steps.”
But in discussing the design process, we entertain two potentially dangerous assumptions. The first is that design IS a process. The second is that there is A single, unifying design process.
Let’s start with the second one first.
Design is…
Many of the design thinking conversations today forcefully assert not only that design is a process, but that it is essentially synonymous with user-centered design processes, which unite researchers and designers (and an inter-disciplinary team) together in an iterative series of investigations, prototypes, and evaluations of design.
For example, from IDEO’s Web site:
“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” —Tim Brown, president and CEO
From 18 years of experience I can attest that the different groups of people, using similar human-centric activities, in the same or related domains, will generate broadly similar ideas and concepts. That is a process for sure. And it is a process in which designers participate. But I suspect that neither designers nor business are ultimately satisfied with that answer.
Why? Because business doesn’t always need predictable or similar outcomes to what everybody else can achieve! Often, they need just the opposite.
So, there is more than one design process, then?
If a singular design process isn’t necessarily the ultimate ambition, that doesn’t necessarily mean design isn’t a process, does it? There could be many divergent design processes?
Maybe.
If you look things that purport to be a design process or the design process, there is usually a black box for “designing.”
It may not be called that, it might be called “create” or “imagine” or “ideate” or whatever… But they mean the mysterious and magical, seemingly inexplicable part that tends to reside inside individual people’s brains and hands rather than in the shared and rationalised activities of a team.
What we’ve described is a process in which design and designers play a role, but not the process of design itself.
In Design Sojourn’s presentation on Design Thinking Is Killing Creativity, he quotes Kevin McCullough’s refections on Roberto Verganti saying:
“We should remember that designers learn by doing, not by learning and practising a theory, designing involves a lot more tacit knowledge than in other areas of business. It’s therefore hard to believe that senior managers can change their thinking habits of a lifetime after a workshop or two working with designers. And, to be frank, to suggest as much devalues what designers do.”
In these models, the most fundamental acts of design are essentially a combination of talent and practice. Like a sport or a musical instrument – performance, not process.
The black box of creativity is smooth, it’s pretty, and it appeals to many of our cultural beliefs about art and subversive invention. And unlike a repeatable design process, it absolutely offers the promise of unique imagination and disruptive vision.
Seductive, for sure. But virtually unmanageable within most commercial environments.
Alternatives, then?
I’m a huge Verganti groupie and enjoy having a meal and stimulating conversation with Roberto when he comes to London. But he is generally content to let go of process completely, and instead rely on visionary leaders and cultural interpreters to transition design-driven innovation into a corporate context. I’m not quite so ready to walk away from the black box of design.
The phrase that jumps out in the McCullough quote above is tacit knowledge. All the knowledge that designers get into their brains by seeing and doing, and express back out again by building and making doesn’t have to remain unarticulated and incomprehensible.
An emergent model of design practice is taking shape. And as Design Sojourn hints at, it’s a model in which method (but also theory) take a dominant role over process.
There are methods that make tacit knowledge (otherwise known as cultural meaning) visible and explicit – available to be worked with. The analytic methods.
There are methods to imagine and shape new types of cultural meaning. The design methods.
There are methods to connect these with teams, organisations and businesses. The interpretative methods.
Those methods can be combined and recombined in an infinite number of ways, tailored to the needs of a particular context. Within that context, that sequence of activities can mature into a process, delivering manageable, repeatable and predictable outcomes. And that process will in turn shape the context, changing the business that developed it. A reflexive practice for disruptive innovation.
In other words, you don’t start with a design process. But through the practice of meaning-centred design, you can emerge with new types of processes for your business that are unique, mature, and provide a competitive commercial advantage.
