Systems thinking in product design
Innovators often set themselves impossible goals where none of the existing tools and technologies applicable and they end up asking themselves new questions, gaining new perspectives and creating something that changes the game, transforms the industry.
Ecosystem design.
What is the role of Design Thinking in the rapid change we are experiencing in business today? Its defining feature is a human-centred design and is about cultivating deep empathy with people you are designing for. These people are no longer just the cogs in the machine or their job titles, they are humans, consumers, individuals. What I’m getting to is that this approach affirms the value of an engineer’s agility, an artist’s way of seeing, a designer’s intrinsic motivation, their intuitive understanding and imagination. We’ve challenged the linear and mechanistic models of thinking about products, services and organisations.
With the focus on the customer as a key-value and principle, we are seeing a shift towards a more tolerant (towards humans) understanding of what the business is for, its purpose. And embracing this new way of thinking demands a culture revolution in organisations. Postmodern organisations which nurture diversity and promote creativity, cultivate imagination, encourage collaboration, outperform their competitors.
Is this enough tho?
In today's hyper-connected world, is it enough for a human being who’s survival depends on its community to be seen as an individual? Is it enough for a successful business with its global operation, supply chain, customer base affecting many ecosystems to be seen as an isolated process?
We are not alone here. I’m not alone here. I have a social body, social circle standing behind me — family, friends, colleagues and my current emotional well-being and capacity to realise my goals depend deeply on the sincerity and integrity of those relationships.
We become unwell and suffer when our social and environmental needs are not attended to. Nature deficit, hyperactivity, depression, lead to the compromised immune system and early death. The strength of social isolation as a predictor of mortality has been found similar to that of well-documented clinical risk factors, smoking, obesity, physical activity.
Sustainability.
What can we do? What if we start measuring the value of the activities that create positive social and environmental impact. What if we quantify them as savings or gains and put into the business plan.
Inspired employees do over and above and feel good about it, don’t ask for overtime. Consumers perceive products made with care for the environment as an added value because it is. And of course, the diversity of the opinions is where the truth is, better products, healthier communities.
Making sense of and managing complexity.
The system is perfectly designed for the outcomes it gets. By giving attention to connections and relationships between things, ideas and people we map the context to provide a holistic overview of the system and identify the biases, meanings and value chains, gain a broader perspective about a product/problem or a business overall.
In the Cynefin framework, David Snowden defines 4 contexts for decision making: Simple, Complicated, Complex and Chaotic. Simple contexts are known by linear cause and effect, stable requirements and the application of best practices for the given situation. Complicated contexts may contain multiple right answers and good practices developed with expert analysis. Chaotic contexts are in the domain of rapid response, decisive action and have no manageable patterns, but often the best place for innovation.
Complex systems or complex adaptive systems may not be predictable according to the behaviour of the components. Trying to simplify the issue by breaking it down and analysing the parts won’t create understanding but may add to the confusion. Most situations and decisions in organisations are complex because some major change introduces unpredictability and we can only understand why things happen in retrospect. The founders of companies who built category-defining products, YouTube, Uber, Facebook, could not have predicted all the emerging patterns of use. Instructive patterns however can emerge if the team conducts experiments that are safe to fail. Rather than imposing the course of action, the leaders must patiently allow the path forward to reveal itself. They need to probe it first and adapt to the emerging future.
Good leadership requires awareness and openness to change on an individual level. Good leaders will know the right thing and how to do it by adjusting their behaviour and decisions to the given context.
We are living through an unprecedented level of change historically and today it may be the slowest its ever been from future perspective. Climate crisis, healthcare disaster, political unrest, economic instability… the complexity we are living and working demands a different approach to design.
To be continued…
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