Harold - I've been following this line with interest, and have wanted to
jump in at many points. At OCAD University we have been developing a core
track in systems-oriented design and social systems for an MDes in Strategic
Foresight & Innovation. We employ these seminal references throughout, and
retrieve and discuss some of the vanguard work of the 60's and 70's that is
still being actively developed by theorists and practitioners today, in
social design and dialogic design.
I have to say I side with the notion that design thinking is made entirely
too much of. For the reasons Richard Buchanan identified in the core reading
Wicked Problems in Design Thinking (Design Issues, 8 2, 1992), design
thinking will never (or should never) really become a definitive process.
Like you said, it is a stance, a way of thinking and doing that can be done
and thought in the sciences, medicine, as well as in product innovation.
Buchanan's point from this paper that "there is no subject matter of design
as such" resonates with this declaration. That design content is about the
particular, and becomes more obtuse in the general. JC Jones' Designing
Designing (1979) is another helpful paper here.
While managers might be trained in both systems thinking and design
thinking, and it may help them become better managers, there are limits to
effectiveness. I am also a "programmer" when I edit Wordpress, but I don't
claim a public profile as "programmer." It misleads our communities to
distinguish as designers when (many) are really participating in
collaborative design. We leave behind humility as this edifice front is
constructed bit by bit. And I think it blurs the few distinctions of the
design stance to say they are "designing."
Yet I don't reject it entirely. There is value in the tools and practices
people generally refer to in systems thinking and design thinking. I wrote
an online piece in Integral Leadership Quarterly in 2009 about this:
Learning the lessons of systems thinking: Exploring the gap between Thinking
and Leadership. http://designdialogues.com/publications/
I'd patch on a few good systems thinking references, but after one of our
favorite's, Bruno Latour's A Cautious Prometheus, where Latour makes the
observation (based on design theorist Peter Sloterdijk's stance) that
design, as opposed to say building, demonstrates a kind of humility in its
incompleteness, in its willingness to empathize, try, but not perfect. I'm
still looking for that humility, but it's a great point of view!
In this approach to systemic design, in our program we like some classics
and some more obscure social systems approaches:
Rittel, H. and Weber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,
Policy Sciences, 4, 155-169.
Ulrich, W (1987). Critical heuristics of social systems design.
Gharajedaghi, Jamshid, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A
Platform for Designing Business Architecture
Ozbekhan, H. (1967). The triumph of technology: "Can implies ought." LA, CA:
King Resources. White paper.
And works of Aleco Christakis, John Warfield, and Ozbekhan and the problems
with "problem solving" and Flanagan (2008) Scripting a Collaborative
Narrative (Design Management Review. Summer, 82-89.) on dialogic design.
Best, Peter
Peter H. Jones, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, Strategic Innovation Lab
Faculty, Strategic Foresight and Innovation
OCAD University, Toronto
http://designdialogues.com http://designwithdialogue.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Harold Nelson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 12:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Does anyone remember: NASA, 1980s, Hazmat, the future ©
Derek
A couple of resources that may be useful as you explore the nature of
designing. I would highly recommend H. Simmons Science of the Artificial.
There has been good work on moving beyond this seminal work but this would
be a good start. I would also recommend reading Russell Ackoff's work on
ideal design. He does an excellent job explaining the symbiosis of analytic
and synthetic thinking. I would also highly recommend Horst Rittel's work on
Wicked Problems and concepts like 'sachzwang'-a German term for 'coercion by
facts'. An insight from his writing for me was that: description and
explanation do not prescribe action and prediction and control do not
justify action.
These resources define an interesting branch in design's family tree. Good
stuff I think. The above authors make a case for design that has nothing to
do with hubris, just great scholarship.
Harold
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