Monsters in the borderlands: Designer-academics in action (original) (raw)
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Reframing and Strategic Transformation
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As the problems and opportunities facing our organisations are becoming more open, complex, dynamic and networked, professionals are turning towards the designing disciplines to find inspiration for new ways of working. To really embed innovation, the impact of design should move beyond the project level and impact the strategy of the organisation, and possibly its processes and structures. In this paper we use a case study to investigate what design can do to help create such deep changes. The case study is an early social design project, which allows us to take a longitudinal perspective: ten years on, what has actually happened with the new frames and ideas of the initial project? What has followed? Has this project influenced strategic innovation? Or did it all come to naught? We discuss the lessons learned in this project to inform our understanding of the real impact of design, and its limitations. This leads us to posit a practice-based ‘theory of change’.
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Supporting knowledge creation in design-led multidisciplinary education
The case for this PhD by published works is based on reflection on a 32-year career in design practice and higher education. In particular it focuses on the analysis of 12 years of action research in design-led multidisciplinary innovation education that employs an iterative, enquiry-based, constructivist, group-learning pedagogy. Contemporary design is operating in an ‘expanded field’, working across public, private and third sectors to address increasingly complex, networked and rapidly-evolving situations which call for a multidisciplinary approach. In such contexts individuals able to use design to facilitate knowledge-creation within diverse multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder groups have a particularly valuable role to play. This study is built on the premise that the act of designing represents a creative, constructive synthesis of knowledge drawn from different disciplines. Design, in this case, is positioned as a facilitatory practice, conceptualised by the author as Co-Sp...
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The Role of Idea Generation Techniques in the Design Process
Academy for Design Innovation Management Loughborough University, London , 2018
Managing the ideation phase in the design process has always been challenging and crucial both for new product or service developers in industry (Sowrey, 1990; Alam, 2006) and for students in their design studio projects. There are several strategies for fostering creativity in early phases of the design process, known as Idea Generation Techniques (IGT) (Smith, 1998). Since IGTs have been indispensable part of the design process (Korkut & Doğan, 2010; Börekçi, 2017; Börekçi, 2015; Umulu 2017; Van der Lugt, 2005), it has motivated a study to find answers to the following questions: What are the roles that IGTs play in the design process? How important are the IGTs for the design process? To what extent are the practitioners of IGTs satisfied with available techniques?
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Understanding the behaviour of design thinking in complex environments
2016
The objective of this dissertation is to contribute empirical evidence on the behavior and effectiveness of design thinking for tackling problems in complex environments. This thesis aims to make three contributions: first, it seeks to identify and explore the history and evolution of design thinking to date, synthesizing common definitions. Second, it seeks to contribute empirical evidence on the behavior of design thinking in highly complex environments. Third, the investigation aims to explain the underlying mechanisms that enable emergent behaviors to occur in the design process, contributing knowledge and understanding on how to apply design thinking in complex environments. This research will explore the behavior of design thinking as it tackles complex problems and examine how design thinking shapes, and is being shaped by, complex environments.
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The Perceived Attractiveness of the Designer in Innovation Processes
2018
Firms increasingly collaborate with designers to adopt a more open and creative design approach for management and innovation purposes. Yet, despite frequent collaboration, the benefits of collaborating with designers remain difficult to predict. Recurrent conflicts from opposing values characterize collaborations, which might hinder or stop the work process. Scholarly contributions focus on characterizing these opposing logics and distinguishing between the roles for designers in innovation. However, to date, we have little knowledge about how to overcome the inherent opposition and mitigate misunderstandings about the role of designers and innovation processes. This article therefore examines different understandings of the role of designers in innovation. It contributes with three different perspectives of the role of designers in innovation and discusses the consequences of distinguishing between such different roles.
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Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change
Participatory design occurs when professional designers do design work with the community members who will use the design. Traditional (colonial) participatory design leaves the choice of methodology in the hands of the professional designer, the leader or facilitator, who often chooses extractivist methods and methodologies, contradicting the very relationality, equity, and participation intended through participatory design. Using such methods in participatory design creates situations in which participating community members conduct extractivist, transactional methods against their own communities. In contrast, Radical Participatory Design decolonizes participatory processes as communities not only equally participate, but also equitably lead the design process, naturally leading to asset-based methodologies. Though Radical Participatory Design is a type of relational design because the design process is done relationally elevating relational knowledge and expertise, we go furthe...
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