Work in Progress: Planning

Reflection, Brainstorming 101

This past week, Dr. Michael Holmes, Professor of Communication Studies at Ball State University, assisted in teaching the Unclass on how to brainstorm.  Brainstorming seems to be such a trivial part of the design process, yet as a designer I have not fully understood what it means or how to correctly brainstorm.  Dr. Holmes began the lecture by outlining some of the barriers to creativity and brainstorming within a group environment.  These include:

Power and status relations - Often times, those with a higher status will guide a group in a certain way, which could often be the wrong way.

People’s fear of judgement - Let’s be honest.  People are afraid to be wrong.  If people have an idea and they think they will be judged, they will typically keep their mouth shut.

Left brain process - People often get caught up in thinking analytically.  We forget fail on using the creative part of our brain.

Competition of the floor -  With one person leading the group, often more shy individuals will fail to get involved in the conversation, thus their views and ideas are overlooked.

After listing these topics, Dr. Holmes referred back to the barrier, “People’s fear of judgement.”  This is a big one.  In a group setting, it is of the utmost importance to postpone judgement.  By doing this, the group will generate more ideas.  In the case of brainstorming, quantity is better than quality.  

Later, Dr. Holmes outlined a process suitable for brainstorming:
1. Define the problem, goal as a creative challenge
2. Set a time limit or idea limit
3. Voice your ideas together - not “one idea from each in turn;” the goal of quantity, not quality
4. Postpone evaluation and criticism
5. As a team, select the top 5 or 10 ideas

With this process, Dr. Holmes then led a quick activity where tBR was asked the following:  Think of unisex wallet design that shows expresses the design firm as forward thinking.  The results are below:


Another process outlined is known as the Van de Ven’s Nominal Group Technique:
1. question, problem or goal is provided
2. timed rapid, silent, individual idea generation
3. round-robin pooling of ideas; duplicates eliminated; similar items clustered
4. discussion
5. [repeat if desired]
6. anonymous voting or ranking

With this process in mind, tBR was asked to design a contemporary desk for a college student.  Some of the results are listed below:

Overall, the brainstorming activity will be beneficial to tBR as we continue to look for our next design problem.

A Review: The Innovator's Dilemma

Moving outside of the IDEO literature, I've been working my way through the pages of Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma.  I was quite interested in chapter 8 where it discusses the actual practicality and effects design thinking has upon a work space.  Specifically it touches on how the process is expected to work from an idea of innovation to creation of a finished product.

Christensen touches on several topics, listed in subsections.  The first of which is the framework of the business.  Three distinct elements are derived from the company's framework: Resources, Process, and Values.  No company is without these as they have an undeniable effect upon the ability to identify one's own capabilities and disabilities.  When a company or person is better able to understand these points, and what role they play in their capabilities, they can are better prepared to face their own disabilities.

He then goes into speaking about the relationship specifically between Processes and Values.  The combination of these two is without question, and leads to understanding something Christensen refers to as "Sustaining vs. Disruptive Technologies."  Simply put, not all innovations merit creation.  It is more than possible that while innovative, it will not produce results in a marketplace, and thus is not worth wasting time on.  These disruptive technologies can often be hard to see for what they truly are, so knowing how to expand the views of one's own self or company is important to say the least.  In summery, it is dependent more-so on the relationship of technological innovation vs. market need.

Another subtopic presented is the idea of how to cope with change by creating more capabilities within the organization.  This growth is important as it allows the fluid reaction of a company to remain relevant in a marketplace.  He breaks this process down into three key processes:

• "Acquire a different Organization whose processes and values are a close match with the new task."

• "Try to change the processes and values of the current organization."

• "Separate out the independent organization and develop within it the new processes and values that are required to solve the new problem."

Using these processes, a company can begin to understand how and where it can alter it's previous Processes and/or Resources to yield new results.  This can conflict with Values held by the company, and so it can be difficult to react to; but can indeed be invigorating and stimulating to the desired goal of the organization.  Christensen breaks this process down into a graphical representation, which of course captures the process in a simple, yet effective manner.

Overall it has been a great read.  I was elated to see that my own understanding of the application of Design Thinking in a work space aligned quite well with that of Christensen's work.  I believe this chapter not only captures the idea of it's importance, but also shows a very simple route to take to achieve optimal results for any number of processes.  As I said before, one of the hardest elements to overcome (besides that of taking the first step) is when a newly discovered process conflicts with a value held by the company.  At that point it comes to the company to determine what is more important.


"Ensuring that capable people are ensconced in capable organizations is a major management responsibility in an age such as ours, when the ability to cope with accelerating change has become so critical."

A Review: Ten Faces of Innovation

It has become more and more apparent to me why IDEO is one of the leading companies in understanding and progressing the concept of design thinking.  Tom Kelly, another of the IDEO crowd has produced a great piece entitled The Ten Faces of Innovation.  There are several chapters ranging from Anthropologists to Caregivers, and are all equally important and engaging; but for now I want to focus on the seventh in the line, The Experience Architect.

At first it took me a moment to understand the term, but the excellent conversational writing style very quickly underscores just what an "Experience Architect" is, and what their presence entails for a company.  For a more full understanding I wanted to break down the sum of their purpose into a simple phrase to kick this post off.  Very simply, an Experience Architect's responsibility it to open a business to the concept that "the first step in becoming extraordinary is simply to stop be ordinary."  While that may seem obvious... it is in fact the biggest and most cacophonous problem to overcome in the process.

Kelly states that "Experience Architects fend off the ordinary wherever they find it." I must believe that in some cases (much like the idea of not removing all constraints as I mentioned in my review of Change by Design) that not all ordinary elements should be removed or swept away.  People need something that they can connect with in order for a business to thrive.  That said, it is important to know and understand where these ordinary events can be altered ever so slightly to create a more memorable experience.  That to me is the first key.

The chapter continues to look closer at the multiple elements that go into making an Experience Architect.  These range from small pieces to grander, much larger scale elements, but each shares a common point.  In order to create a successfully extraordinary experience, being able to see both the big picture, and how the smaller elements combine to form said big picture are of equal importance.  Kelly goes into great depth about hotel chains, and how their luxuries pail in comparison to the singular purpose of a hotel room, the bed itself.  Yet, he still allows himself to note that something else, while probably never considered ahead of time by customers also has a fair presence in the overall experience, and that is the alarm clock.  Though I personally believe the overall affect the clock has no with the widespread induction of the smart phone into society, I still believe the point held quite solidly.  in any case, he calls these "Trigger Points." 

There are several other key points Kelly mentions concerning with business practices and the like, but overall the idea fits in very well with other works from IDEO.  This concept of big picture work by virtue of understanding small, singular issues makes all the difference in how the problems may reach a new, and unique outcome almost tailor fit to the issue at hand.  Two competing companies could both reach out to IDEO or any design firm (like The Break Room) with what would appear to be the same problem.  Yet this work seems to show that the source of that issue could be extremely different based on any number of factors, be they large or small; internal or external.  I believe that is essential to understand and how that knowledge is facilitated by the Experience Architect by putting it towards progressive action.

"When you 're in the "zone" off being an Experience Architect, you view the world through a simple lens, searching out experience elements in the status quo that are negative, or merely neutral, and then looking for opportunities to fine-tune them."

A Review: Change By Design (Part 1)

Well It must be something in the water, or perhaps the words because I have continued reading the works of Tim Brown.  This time it is the first few chapters from Change By Design.  The book is a look into Brown's thoughts on how design is in fact more than just design.  As he spoke about in his article I mentioned yesterday, the field is becoming increasingly diverse, and requires both expansion and integration into more areas than ever.  As this is the case, I believe I not only agree with the sentiment, but also believe the word "design" is becoming a social misnomer.

A parallel example would be the understanding of the word "film."  Many people still refer to movies and cinema as films.  However, they do not actually contain film, but are rather digital counterparts.  Yet society still understands the concept of what the word film means.  I feel this relates both directly and inversely with the word design as people tend to understand a basic definition of the term.  This however blinds them to the concept of the word having broader meaning and applications than they believe.  Thus the inverse relationship.

Brown believes design has a place in most every field, and that it should be utilized to help create new, less constrictive means of approaching tasks within several fields.  He does caution it's implementation not to become too sweeping, as some constraints are required for maintaining constructive frameworks, but could very easily be used to break the barriers of negative constraints on the workforce.  Brown believes this will lead to a more constructive approach of design thinking which allows for businesses to understand that problem solving is more social than spacial.  Thus creating more societal connections and getting more people involved to reach a broader and more diverse group.

This change to the system could allow for a sort of new chemical reaction to occur, which could allow for more definitive and usable ideas to be followed through upon.  But in order to achieve this idea, companies must allow for a co-mingling of their workforce in constructive environments.  He speaks to design teams being segregated from other employees who are "the 9 to 5'ers" and how this fragmentation of a company leads to stagnation in it's creative approaches.

Brown mentions this could be prevented by implementing project rooms like those at IDEO to more industries.  At first I was confused given his a fore mentioned dislike of segregating thinkers from one another, but it all came together when he mentioned that the people were not forced into these areas, but rather were capable of using them with anyone, and constantly be surrounded by others in similar environments working towards any number of global or local issues.  This mixture of people and ideas, thoughts and viewpoints allows for new chemical reactions to occur between people and new solutions to be conceived.

It brings everything to a full circle.  The focus and need for design thinking to be a social element, rather than a hard science approach is important.  Also important is the understanding that the word design means so much more than the aesthetic values an object may have, but rather the effects every element related to the object has upon it.  Like viewing it as if it were the center of a large bubble diagram.  I feel like the final words of the first chapter explains his approach perfectly.

"Design is now too important to be left to Designers."

A Review: Design Thinking & Prototyping

Recently I read through an article from IDEO's Tim Brown in the June 2008 Harvard Business Review on how he breaks down the "art" or Design Thinking.  I refer to it as art for a few reasons, but mainly because of his use of how design thinking all surrounds a single focal point, people.  While it could be defined a science for many of the same reasons, what I read felt much like an emphasis on emotional and charismatic connections between work and designs.

For example, I was captivated by the process it describes on pages 88 and 89 where he describes a process of thinking in a metaphysical sense, which is a more cyclical and "spacial" process rather than milestone, linear processes.  This creates a radically different style of thinking when it comes to approaching issues.  If we allow ourselves to step back and approach a problem is a different way, we open ourselves to the possibility of new outcomes.

He continues by speaking about the iPod as being not the first mp3 players, but the first to "appeal to us both emotionally and functionally."  He frequently speaks to an idea of allowing for a style of thinking that juxtaposes people with solutions.  He concludes by writing "They require a human-centered, creative, iterative, and practical approach to finding the best ideas and ultimate solutions.  Design thinking is just such an approach to innovation."

I believe that this exactly where and why design firms have such an intricate part to play in the business market.  Allowing for outside thinkers to review an issue from an exterior position can help expand the view of any given situation and allow for positive growth.  Beyond that, allowing for a close relationship between the problems and the people they afflict is crucial to success. 

What's Next?

As tBR continues to move forward, we are faced with a “wicked problem.”  How do we move forward?  Our goal is to create something that can improve or maximize the efficiency of our daily lives.  In the passage, Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning, Rittel and Webber state:

“By now we are all beginning to realize that one of the most intractable problems is that of defining problems (of knowing what distinguishes an observed condition from a desired condition) and of locating problems (finding where in the complex causal networks the trouble really lies).”

As of today, tBR is defining these problems.  We are faced with the challenge of determining what works, and why it works.  Also, what does not work, and how are we going to fix it.  The Break Room is a firm centered on innovation, not invention.  IDEO provides us with several precedents that can assist us in our design thinking process.  We must always remember, its not just the chair, its the experience of using the chair.  At Starbucks, it's not just the coffee, its the coffee experience.  tBR looks forward to improving the human experience in whatever fashion we can.