Unlock Innovative Solutions to Revolutionize Approach with Design Strategy by Nancy C. Roberts

Challenges in Wicked Problem Territory. Embark on a transformative journey with Nancy C. Roberts’ “Design Strategy,” a groundbreaking book that redefines problem-solving in today’s complex world. Discover the power of strategic, systemic, and regenerative design to navigate and conquer ‘wicked problems.’

Dive deeper into the world of innovative problem-solving by continuing to read about how “Design Strategy” can reshape your understanding and approach to modern challenges.

Genres

Design, Business, Innovation, Strategy, Problem-Solving, Systemic Thinking, Organizational Development, Sustainability, Educational, Leadership.

“Design Strategy” by Nancy C. Roberts offers a novel approach to tackling the world’s most pressing challenges, such as climate change and poverty. The book delves into ‘wicked problem territory,’ a domain characterized by high conflict over problem definitions and solutions.

Roberts advocates for design as a strategic tool to bridge the gap between current states and desired outcomes. She emphasizes three levels of design—strategic, systemic, and regenerative—to address issues within organizations, interconnected systems, and the relationship between humanity and nature.

Review

Nancy C. Roberts’ “Design Strategy” is a compelling and insightful read that provides a fresh perspective on addressing complex issues. The interdisciplinary case studies and integration of theory and practice make it an invaluable resource for professionals across various domains.

Roberts’ focus on strategic, systemic, and regenerative design offers practical frameworks for navigating and resolving ‘wicked problems.’ The book is a testament to the potential of design thinking in creating a more sustainable and equitable future, making it a must-read for anyone interested in innovation and problem-solving.

Recommendation

“Wicked problems,” like climate change, habitat loss and financial volatility, pose new and complex challenges that will require innovative solutions. But with this opportunity comes a tremendous responsibility, given the massive human cost of being wrong. So says Nancy C. Roberts, a professor of defense analysis, who uses design thinking as a tool to help people drive innovation. Her insightful work will help readers cultivate the skills that change agents will need to tackle these issues and build a better world.

Take-Aways

• Humanity can’t afford to ignore “wicked problems,” but it can’t agree on their definition or scope.
• Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity characterize wicked problems.
• Embrace “design strategy” to imagine a better future and then make it a reality.
• To design a better world, start by improving your mindset.
• Change agents must develop emotional intelligence, intuition and a three-dimensional view of time.
• Leverage design practices when tackling wicked problems.
• Those who oversimplify wicked problems and fail to self-reflect are “morally wrong.”
• Improve the world with collaborative, decentralized, design-informed approaches.

Summary

Humanity can’t afford to ignore “wicked problems,” but it can’t agree on their definition or scope.

Humanity has entered The Great Acceleration: an era in which human activity is reshaping the Earth’s ecosystems with unprecedented swiftness. People working across disciplines must navigate a growing number of issues related to this reality, ranging from climate change to the instability of financial markets. Design theorist Horst Rittel coined the term “wicked problems” in a 1967 seminar at the University of California, Berkeley. He noted “the mischievous and evil quality of these problems, where proposed ‘solutions’ often turn out to be worse than the symptoms.”

“In our journey into wicked problem territory thus far, we find wicked problems that we can’t define, causes that we can’t identify, solutions on which we can’t agree, and results and consequences that we can’t anticipate or control.”

According to Rittel and his colleague Melvin Webber, wicked problems tend to have three common qualities: First, they have no single problem frame – a wicked problem’s definition, significance and proposed solutions may evolve and vary wildly, depending on people’s values and assumptions. Second, wicked problems’ interconnectedness means that a problem’s ties with other issues make each problem symptomatic of another one. Third, categorical solutions do not apply because of wicked problems’ uniqueness. For instance, the problem of deforestation in the Amazon has no bearing on deforestation in Borneo.

“Design is an intentional act, a conscious effort to seek something new.”

Proposed solutions for wicked problems are also rife with difficulties. People lack clear criteria for determining solutions. Because of wicked problems’ complexity, winnowing potential solutions down to a reasonable array of choices becomes little more than an arbitrary process driven by decision makers’ values and preferences. Often, proposed solutions are not actual fixes but rather an attempt to improve the situation instead of eliminating the issue. And solutions can have unknowable consequences whose repercussions only arise after the fact. When solving wicked problems, you get only “one shot,” and you don’t get the opportunity to learn through trial and error. Yet the stakes are so high that problem solvers rightly fear choosing incorrectly.

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity characterize wicked problems.

Modern-day wicked problems are intimately tied to four primary characteristics of today’s world, which you can remember using the acronym VUCA:

• “Volatility” – When change is linear, its effects are proportional. For example, a 10% decrease in labor hours at a factory results in a 10% decrease in output. But today, growth is occurring exponentially, making effects challenging to predict.
• “Uncertainty” – Humanity is facing “a vague and blurred future with unknown unknowns.” When destabilization occurs within complex adaptive systems (CASs), the systems eventually reach a “bifurcation point”: An overabundance of possibilities makes it impossible to predict the future with any certainty. Following destabilization, systems either repair themselves, collapse or evolve, giving rise to new forms of systemic order.
• “Complexity” – Change is happening within complex, interconnected systems created by globalization.
• “Ambiguity” – Competing solutions and pathways exist, and it’s unclear which ones are in humanity’s best interests.

Embrace “design strategy” to imagine a better future and then make it a reality.

Design strategy centers around inspiring creativity, effecting change, and positively transforming human life through design thinking and processes. According to Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, the five steps of design thinking are: “empathize,” by observing what challenges people are facing; “define” the problem; “ideate” solutions; “prototype” designs; and “test” the product. The author adds two more phases to this list, beginning with “initiate” – identifying a direct design challenge, generating interest, securing funding and gathering a team — and ending with “implement,” which involves moving prototypes from the design studio into real-world contexts and adapting them as needed to serve people’s needs better.

Design is rooted in eight main principles. Design is:

1. “Future-oriented” – Designers imagine what could or should exist instead of what exists now.
2. “Human-centric” – Human-centered design (HCD) has empathy at its core. Designers aim for a deep understanding of how people will interact with, use and perceive their products.
3. “Context-specific” – Design problems exist within socially constructed situations.
4. “Exploration-driven” – Designers gather data on the problem through interviews, archival searches and observations.
5. “Creativity-dependent” – Creativity is a foundational part of the design process. Designers work to generate novel and often unexpected solutions.
6. “Prototype-anchored” – Designers communicate “what could be” to others through prototypes.
7. “Testing-reliant” – Designers solicit feedback, trying out different iterations of their prototypes until settling on the one that best solves the problem.
8. “Implementation-attentive” – Designers working in wicked-problem territory must leave their studios to implement and test their ideas in the field.

To design a better world, start by improving your mindset.

Design solutions emerge from a designer’s mindset, including that person’s values, assumptions and contexts. How you make sense of the world shapes the things you create and the solutions you can imagine. If you change your mindset, the effects will flow into all you create. As Otto Scharmer, the co-founder of the Presencing Institute and the MITx ULab, and a senior MIT lecturer, explains, “Form follows consciousness.”

When tackling wicked problems, you must therefore start with your mindset. Aspire to eliminate any biases, judgments or habits that may prevent you from approaching complex situations with an open mind. According to Scharmer, you can upgrade society’s “operating systems” – its democratic and economic structures – by expanding your consciousness and learning how to view, or “sense,” systems through others’ perspectives. So strengthen your ability to see what and how others see.

“Before we begin to design and redesign our world, we need to look inward to examine our assumptions and preferences to understand the kind of thinkers and problem solvers we are.”

Scharmer describes the steps you must take to overcome patterns of behavior and thought that prevent you from expanding your perceptions in his “Theory U”: In the “co-initiating” stage, you take time to listen to what others share with you “and to what life calls you to do.” In the “co-sensing” stage, you observe the world around you with “your mind and heart wide open.” In the “presencing” stage, you mindfully connect to yourself and to the world on a deeper level. In the “co-creating” stage, you work toward a better future by creating prototypes. In the “co-evolving” stage, you transform systems with innovations that embody your holistic perspective.

Change agents must develop emotional intelligence, intuition and a three-dimensional view of time.

Designers must hone specific tools and skill sets to act as change agents. On a personal development level, you should build self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Learn to regulate your emotional reactions and cultivate an understanding of your limitations. Drawing from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, psychologist Daniel Goleman describes emotional literacy as “a master aptitude” that affects all of a person’s other skills and capacities. Aspire to master the five critical aspects of emotional intelligence: knowing your emotions; managing your emotions so that you can persevere through challenges; self-motivating, or developing the self-control needed to stick to your goals; recognizing others’ emotional reactions; and “handling relationships,” which may entail managing others’ difficult emotional responses.

“Designers are also agents of change. Not only do they have to learn the craft of design but they have to learn how to navigate the ‘whitewater rapids’ of the change process, especially in wicked problem territory.”

Change agents must cultivate intuition, developing the capacity to draw conclusions or understand something without conscious proof, evidence, support or reasoning. Author Malcolm Gladwell describes this capacity as “thinking without thinking” – an essential skill given that “gut feelings” play a vital role in a design project’s early, chaotic and ambiguous phases.

Change agents and designers must be able to think in terms of what systems thinking expert Bill Sharpe calls the “three horizons of change”: The first horizon embodies the status quo – you perceive how events might unfold if no transformative change occurs. The second horizon is the “transition zone” in which you can see the push and pull between those who wish to retain the status quo and those who want to change it. The third horizon is aspirational: You imagine how the world could shift in the long term if a proposed change is implemented.

Leverage design practices when tackling wicked problems.

Three types of design thinking can serve you in wicked-problem territory:

1. “Strategic design” – As James Carlopio explains in Strategy by Design, strategic design can help organizations trigger the innovative transformations needed to thrive and adapt. Designers assess an organization’s inputs – for example, social and technological trends – direction and design elements, and results. They also consider external factors such as competitive threats and new technologies. Designers then determine potential interventions to help organizations achieve their desired outcomes.
2. “Systemic design” – Systemic designers create interventions to help stakeholders see better results within a system. For instance, they may introduce new ideas into educational systems to help local school districts improve learning outcomes.
3. “Regenerative design” – Taking inspiration from ecosystems and ecology, regenerative design centers around complex interrelationships, such as those between human social systems and natural systems. Regenerative designers aim to improve the health of all living systems by using practices such as “biomimicry,” or using nature as a model for healthy communities; “cradle-to-cradle” production, which eliminates waste by ensuring products either remain within closed-loop systems or return to the environment as biological nutrients; and “nested” designs for “systems within systems” that exist on a micro and macro level.

Those who oversimplify wicked problems and fail to self-reflect are “morally wrong.”

Those working on wicked problems must be aware of the moral weight of their work, which systems scientist C. West Churchman refers to as the “moral principle.” Be wary of those who provide simple solutions for aspects of a wicked problem. Such solutions usually do not view the problem holistically or fully consider potential human and planetary failure costs. As world-builders, designers must take the responsibility of co-creation and the moral and ethical dimensions of each problem seriously. Familiarize yourself with ethical codes and professional guidelines, such as the Institute of Architects’ 2020 Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

“Designers are trained to solve problems and improve people’s lives, but improving lives is not a value-neutral activity.”

You may find accepting the weight of designing in wicked-problem territory unnerving. Systemic designer Herald Nelson and interaction design theorist Erik Stolterman suggest three steps to help you learn to trust your personal design process: “Live the examined life” by connecting to your own moral compass and thoughts; engage in constant “reflection-in-action,” examining your design practice; and live in accordance with your authentic purpose or “calling.”

Improve the world with collaborative, decentralized, design-informed approaches.

Some view the decentralized microlevel on which design projects occur as a disadvantage when dealing with complex issues. Though coordination can be a challenge, political scientist Elinor Ostrom argued against the belief that people won’t change their behaviors to benefit the collective without top-down, externally imposed action. She asserted that embracing the familiar ethos “think globally, act locally” can empower communities to take responsibility for finding solutions that work for them and to move toward collective goals like reducing emissions in mutually beneficial ways.

“How we think, what we value, and everything we do has an impact on our planet and those who inhabit it.”

The planet has undergone unprecedented changes in recent years, including rising sea levels, the expansion of oceanic “dead zones” and rapid biosphere alterations triggered by factors like habitat loss. But there is also great opportunity to use design thinking to create a better future for all.

About the Author

Nancy C. Roberts is professor emerita of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Operational and Information Sciences. She uses design strategy to help government and business leaders innovate and become better problem solvers.