Dear Ken, Jerry, Chris, Chuck, Erik, Francois and all,
I'm aware of the many reasons and habits that underpin how designers and
design researchers use the terms 'stakeholders' and 'legitimate'. I feel it
is practical experience not theory or the opinions of designers that
suggests a change is needed.
I'm coming from practical experience in looking at the way people's
perspectives are included in design decisions: three decades of my personal
experiences during the 70s, 80s and 90s in projects involving community
participation in design decision-making. I along with many others have found
it's helpful to distinguish stakeholders from other constituencies on the
ground of stakeholders having a legitimated financial stake. This is because
in practical terms it is closely tied to who can participate in negotiation,
whether communities can legally enforce their direct participation in
negotiation on design decisions - or whether participation is just a
patronising sop to design ethics.
Like many others who have worked on both sides of design, I 've been
involved in projects in what is now formally called 'community participation
in planning' or community activism. Community participation in planning
involves people who are not normally part of the design process having
direct input as full members of the negotiations on decisions of urban and
rural design that affect them. Being direct participants in the negotiations
about design decisions is very different thing from the sop of designers
'imagining' that they can include the views of individuals and others.
Community activism typically involves situations that are socially,
politically and emotionally tense. Most commonly, the 'enemy' are those in
the design professions, urban planners and government decision makers along
with the landowners, commercial concerns, bankers, land and property
developers, and government rates departments.
On the community side is those with an interest because the designs and
outcomes directly and indirectly significantly affect their lives - yet they
have no legitimated power to participate in negotiations about design
decisions. On the other side, are those, the 'official stakeholders' with
the legitimated power to participate directly in negotiations to make the
design decisions - usually because they have financial interests - because
their right to participate in negotiation is embodied in law.
Comes to mind some useful advice from Dr Ram Singh in Industrial Relations
at Lancaster University in the early 1970s 'Make sure to know the difference
between 'negotiation' and 'consultation' and make sure you get the right to
negotiate'.
Those who are financial stakeholders get the power to be in the negotiations
that make the design decisions. The constituencies who are 'consulted' and
represented (perhaps) in the minds of designers get no rights and negligible
power to influence design decisions.
A practical example. One difficult negotiation here in Australia in the 90s
involved trying to bring to light and remedy a secret deal between land
developers of a major subdivision and the city's urban planners and
councillors. This secret deal involved putting in place by stealth and
secrecy, urban design decisions and carefully worded caveats on land that
would maximise profit for developers which would be paid for in the future
by unexpected losses of house buyers in the community. In short, house
buyers would be misled to pay too much for their houses and planning rules
would be changed to disadvantage them and benefit land developers and the
city council. There have been three corruption inquiries on this city and
its governance and urban planning in the last ten years, which implies that
this 'design or planning problem' was possibly corrupt and illegal in its
origins.
Trying to even begin to address this design issue was next to impossible.
Participation and negotiation within the design decision-making context
depended wholly on whether one was a financial stakeholder in the land
planning process. This land planning design process occurs very separately
from 'owners' decisions about buying the houses'. In short, owners of houses
and others in the community were constituencies but not financial
stakeholders and hence were not permitted to either start or be part of any
negotiations to expose or remedy the situation in any formal way. When
attempts were made to expose the problem and rectify it, community
constituencies were dismissed, refused access to documents, and refused
access to decision-making negotiations within the city governance and
planning systems.
A solution was only eventually possible because of a pathway by which the
community constituencies could be represented by _legitimated stakeholders_
that could insist on starting and participating in negotiations. In this
case, the legitimated stakeholders were the Ombudsperson and the Solicitor
General. The situation was resolved to the community's benefit soon after
their participation in negotiations.
From my experience and the literature, there are many other examples. These
expose the reality that in practical design terms, it is essential to
understand the key differences in power, control and design between
stakeholders with a financial stake who are entitled to be part of the
negotiation process and other constituencies. I feel that design research
and designers benefit from making this distinction
One of the critical weaknesses of designers' and design researchers'
perspective on stakeholders is that they are typically themselves in a
legitimated financial stakeholder position with a seat at the negotiating
table. Designers are already part of the' in-crowd' in power terms. It is
easy and patronising for designers from that position to suggest that 'of
course we consider everyone who is affected as a stakeholder'. There is 30
years of literature on community participation activism that points to the
failure and naivety of that view.
The discussion of ethics and a broader position on participants in design
and design-affected constituencies is not new. There are several
well-established literatures from the 60s to the present - mostly outside
what many designers and design researchers read. Some of it is
public-focused. I remember the 'Whole Earth Catalog'! Some of it was
carefully reasoned such as Illich's writings on design (Tools for
Conviviality etc). Some is design-focused. (I recently asked for
identification of some diagrams on the topic that turned out to be by
Papanek in the 70s - see <http://www.love.com.au/unknown/>
www.love.com.au/unknown/ - unfortunately as sharp, relevant and apparently
new now as thirty-five years ago). In research terms, this pathway has been
strongly maintained outside the design research fields under a variety of
different headings such as 'alternative technology', 'appropriate
technology', ' technology transfer', 'studies in science and technology',
'community participation' in ways that make the contemporary literature on
'eco-design' or 'collaborative design' often seem simplistic.
I'm aware designers and design researchers commonly use the term
'stakeholder' in a particular way that allies more with its use in 'news
bites' than the serious literature on community participation in design.
I've found the constituency - stakeholder distinction to be analytically
helpful. In Mitsubishi terms - 'please consider'.
Ok, some practical stuff and references for constituencies and design:
I agree with Jerry's earlier post on users. He describes a position already
well established (30 years?) in for example, systems design (Checkland,
Ackoff, Flood, Jackson, and Senge). The idea of the learning organisation
follows the same path but somewhat later. Some of marketing theory is
similar. For example, Tellefsen as has defined Constituent Market
Orientation:
'An organisational learning circle where members of the organisation
identify the current and future needs of its constituents and the factors
that affect the satisfaction of their needs, spreads this external
information internally in the organisation, and co-operate in order to
prepare and implement innovations based on the external information with the
aim to improve the need satisfaction offered members of the constituencies.
This learning loop will over time promote an organisational culture superior
in the ability to produce values for a defined set of constituencies'.
Where the organisation comprises all those involved in creating and using a
design, this aligns well with Jerry's post.
As an example of a broader picture of some of the constituencies involved in
design activity, see the diagram in the PowerPoint at:
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2002/BT&TL%20DRS%20Common%20G
round.ppt>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2002/BT&TL%20DRS%20Common%20Gr
ound.ppt (make sure you get all of this line!)
Some other docs on constituency analysis in design contexts are:
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2003/jlim_cmoovm_bt&tl.htm>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2003/jlim_cmoovm_bt&tl.htm
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2003/CMO%20&%20des_management
.htm>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2003/CMO%20&%20des_management.
htm
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2002/2002%20CG_design_man_CMO
_BT&TL.htm>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2002/2002%20CG_design_man_CMO_
BT&TL.htm
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2001/2001%20WeB%20CMOVO%20BT&
TL.htm>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2001/2001%20WeB%20CMOVO%20BT&T
L.htm
The full references to the published versions are available at:
<http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Publications.htm>
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/Publications.htm
A couple of Bryn Tellefsen's publications on this area are:
Tellefsen, B. (1999). Constituent Market Orientation. Journal of Market
Focused Management, 4(2), 103-124.
Tellefsen, B. (Ed.). (1995). Market Orientation. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, PhD, FRDS, AMIMechE
Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Group
Key Researcher at Centre for Extended Enterprise and Business Intelligence
Research Associate at Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Visiting Research Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Development
Management School, Lancaster University,Lancaster, UK,
[log in to unmask]
____________________
|
