Jurgen,

It seems to me that to verify or justify something, you need to know
what to measure and you need a metric to measure with.  Even when
deciding which posts to read, I'm sure you have an internal "meter"
that tells you when - based on the subject, the author of the message,
the length, etc - whether you're 'justified' to read it.  And that
measurement might change as you read the message.  And I'll bet that,
if you had the time and inclination, you could externalize those
criteria.

The problem of justifying or verifying the contribution of design in
an organization is *way* more complex, but one deals with it in the
same way.  Assuming one can distinguish a design activity from a
non-design activity - in itself not necessarily easy - one must track
the impact of that activity throughout the organization.  Sometimes
the effects aren't fully realized till long after the activity is
finished, so it's not just complexity across the organization, but
complexity in time (as if the organization were a function of time as
well as other things).

I don't even know if such an undertaking is tractable, let along
feasible.  But that's what design research is for (among other
things).

On the question of whether knowledge is transferable from outside
design, I suggest we won't know till we try.  You acknowledge that the
body of knowledge of design is not that large yet.  If that's so, then
we can't know if it will transfer without trying it.  That's another
reason for design research.

I would, however, suggest with respect that there's a great deal of
knowledge that is already in 'design' - only its sequestered in
specific design disciplines.  Before we start looking in other
disciplines, I think we should be looking for knowledge that is in
specific design disciplines but that could be transfered (albeit
possibly with some alterations).  I would surprised if we could not
start to develop a body of knowledge of design-in-the-broadest-sense
by trying to pull together knowledge that now only exists in specific
disciplines.

Cheers.
Fil

On 19 July 2011 14:59, Jurgen Faust <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Filippo,
>
>
> thanks for your time and thought. It is interesting to compare design with what happened before the Big Bang.
> But if enterprises spend money, at a certain point they are going to evaluate what design will contribute. Since I was many times involved in University decisions, I sometimes asked similar questions. Can we verify an investment, can we justify when we spend money and resources?
>
> The same I am doing when I am reading such posts, even if not quantitatively justified, I will stop reading and posting if I don't see a value anymore. The reason: I have limits, timewise, therefore limited ressources.
>
> It is a valuable statement that we should as well look outside our discipline, in adjacent practise. Many interesting models, theories about design, I didn't find in 'narrow design' research. The body of knowledge is still not big enough and substantial reflecting on designing is often found in adjacent fields, I do agree.
>
> But finding models of measuring in other disciplines and fields, we need to ask always are these models transferable?
>
> Clearifying or getting closer to what happens when we involve design, when we are designing, and whether we can differentiate it from other activities like management isn't an easy task, or might be impossible, or it might not be appropriate, since we have to do with what Buchanan called fourth order design.
>
> Existing in-vivo is another interesting question? The question of exist(ing) might be even oposed to the question of in-vivo, since existing might reduce design to a partial entity and therefore is creates a contradiction to an in-vivo situation.
>
> But all these framing and reframings will help, so I hope, making a decision, whether it is valuable to spend some time researching whether we can measure the impact and value of design.
>
>
>
> Jurgen
>



-- 
\V/_
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/