Dear Chris Heape
My comments were about the perrenial need and the current opportunity that
exists for a new digital tool set that could help offset the very problem of
trying to get a contemporaneous documentation on any live project in the
real world and in real time. It is indeed extremely difficult to get a post-
project review to provide any deep level of insight since each of the
participants have a particular view of the project from their own vantage
points and this does influence the collective view as well. If I look back
at the various experiences that we have had at NID to try and capture and
build case studies (with limited success) it has been due to some of the
inherent difficulties in managing post-project reviews and documenting these
in some form of objective records that can be of use later in education and
research.
You have stated that the review meetings with a sharing of experiences and
process artefacts helped - QUOTE - "......so in a sense there was a kind of
re-alignment of the personal understandings of the project and the common
understanding then generated could help the way forward." - UNQUOTE
This is indeed true since the post-project review does tend to be a session
for smoothing out many layers of pent up communications between team members
as well as an avenue for looking for lessons from the experience and it need
to be managed with a great degree of sophistication. This reminds me of the
great film Roshomon by Akira Kurosova where five actors relate in a
dramatised manner their own points of view of a single incident, each with
their unique points of emphasis and with a great deal of variety which
represents real life perceptions fairly acurately. Similarly all players on
a design team would carry their own real and imagined sequences which would
need to be re-aligned through the de-briefing processes. In many cases
theere is a conflict of credits, imagined or real which would get sorted out
by some established process of the Institute. All this does produce new
learning and a degree of humility for team contributions vis a vis
individual excellence.
The other example of externa model that has proved to be very effective is
the use of a history wall as created by Charles and Ray Eames for their
various extibition design projects and these techniques were used at NID by
the Eamses for the Nehru Exhibition. The History wall and its use are
described in the book "Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth
Century" by Pat Kirkham, MIT Press, 1995. pp 266 - 298. Such history walls
or time-lines drawn in real-time on a digital work-flow system and digital
tool set could help resolve some of the needs expressed in these exchanges
on design learning.
With warm regards
M P Ranjan
from my office a NID
12 September 2003 at 3.20 pm IST
-----------------------------------------------------
Prof. M P Ranjan
Faculty of Design and
Head, NID Centre for Bamboo Initiatives
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380007
INDIA
Fax: 91+79+6605242
Home: 91+79+6610054
Work: 91+79+6639695 ext 1090
------------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 6 Sep 2003 07:52:01 +0200, Chris Heape <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Dear Ranjan and Chuck,
>
>Firstly, I'd just like to thank you both for the very rich and precise
>exchanges that you have brought to this thread. I have really enjoyed
>them and learnt a lot.
>
>Ranjan on sept 2nd you wrote:
>
>"...Now this brings me to the key issue for innovation in the design
>workflow of a learning organisation. Can we help create tools for
>designers that would facilitate their capture and reuse of the complex
>action sequences and the associated data of their various actions so
>that such reflection can be made an integral part of their review
>proceses leading to embedded learning from
>all ongoing tasks? ... since many just seem to loose interest in the
>task stages once the event is past and a satisfying synthesis is
>achieved..."
>
>This reminds me of a discussion I had once with a project manager after
>we had completed a project. The project had lasted about 18 months. We
>- 5 of the team members - had an informal reflection session on the
>development of the project. There was a "chairman" who came form
>another department and had no knowledge of the project. He recorded the
>minutes and managed the session. The main speaker was the project
>manager, who very much told his version of events, with a few remarks
>from the rest of us. This took roughly an hour and that was it. A few
>weeks later I asked the project manager what would happen to the
>minutes and was told that the "chairman" of the session would write
>them up and file them away "so that others could see them when a new
>project was started in the division".
>He continued "... I don't know why we bother really. Nobody can see the
>point of reading reports. They can't relate to the project. They can't
>understand what we've been through from reading a report and would like
>to do it their way anyway..."
>
>I wondered if you might be interested in the alternative approach
>below, that was used by a colleague of mine at our institute, Birgit
>Fabius, for her doctoral thesis. It is a deceptively simple approach
>and a very powerful tool. I think it is a good example of how one can
>develop methods and techniques that can support design learning in a
>professional context.
>
>A group of designers, involved in the development of a cooling
>controller project were asked by a design researcher to reflect on the
>project’s progress, by recounting the paths taken hitherto (Fabius
>2003, Fabius 2001). A large sheet of paper, 2mtr x 4 mtr, on which a
>timeline has been drawn, has been pinned to the wall. The designers
>recount the project’s progress using discussion, negotiation and
>various artifacts to represent the events and activities that have
>taken place. The designers pin up e-mails, budget proposals, video key
>frames, photos, prints of drawings, sketches and written comments.
>There is often lengthy discussion between the designers as to exactly
>what happened when and what was used when.
>
>The beauty of this approach is that it can be done at any stage of a
>project. In Birgit's case, if I remember correctly, the technique was
>used to reflect back in time, but the conclusions reached were meant to
>be used as a future strategy model for the designers. The designers
>ended up discussing at length, what had actually happened, so in a
>sense there was a kind of re-alignment of the personal understandings
>of the project and the common understanding then generated could help
>the way forward.
>
>The other interesting aspect that came to light, from my point of view,
>was the range of artifacts that had been used throughout the design
>process that were needed as a reference in order to re-tell the story.
>As indicated above these artifacts were very varied and had a character
>that were quite apart from the more traditional drawings or models.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Chris.
>
>references:
>
>Fabius B (2003) Design as learning across contexts
>(Ph.D thesis in preperation), Mads Clausen Institute, University of
>Southern Denmark, Sønderborg
>Fabius B (2001) Learning from design reflection - Retrospective stories
>of industrial development processes. SEFI.
>
>
>-----------------------------------
>
>from:
>
>Chris Heape
>Senior Researcher - Design Didactics / Design Practice
>Mads Clausen Institute
>University of Southern Denmark
>Grundtvigsallé 150
>6400
>Sønderborg
>Denmark
>
>e.mail : [log in to unmask]
>telephone : +45 6550 1671
>http://www.mci.sdu.dk
>
>--------------------------------------
>
>home:
>e.mail : [log in to unmask]
>telephone: +45 7630 0380
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