Design_at_the_edge

The interaction of business, technologies and culture

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Originally uploaded by Mussels

As my present blog theme is about design technologies and how they can make a difference to our innovation hit-rate I thought it useful to reiterate 'stuff' that might underpin our thinking on this theme.

“Businesses today face an increasingly stark choice. They can aim simply to be the cheapest – and leave themselves vulnerable to being beaten on price. Or they can achieve secure growth with design at the heart of their strategy acting as a catalyst to completely new offerings.”

-  Digby Jones, ex-Director General Confederation of British Industries.

I read a piece by Prof. Andrew Hargadon that I immediately felt comfortable with

“The difference between successful and failed ventures is often determined by the subtle but critical details of their designs. Not simply the look and feel, or the ease-of-use that endear products to end-users, but also the technical, market, and business choices that provide value and create loyalty among retail partners, suppliers, investors, and others, down to the members of the development team.”

If we take a simple view of the organisation then we can say that it is the complex interaction of Business, Technology and Cultural factors both inside and outside the organisation that will determine how it performs.

We can think of the three factors driving interactions between people, who without implicit guidance are likely to look at the innovation projects from their own point of view and being concerned about their own disciplinary knowledge clusters.

The disciplines are lifted off a chart in the general presentation by Tekes, but serve to illustrate things that matter within each factor and their overlaps... and the yellow area at the centre? That is innovation.

If we think of the triangular interactions that need to go in order for innovative products to emerge then we get this

As each group tends to look at an idea from their own point of view, and there is a tendency to drag the project conversations in to their own domain:

The Business point of view will be to ask "Is it viable? will we gain market share? Make money?"

The Technology pov is "Is it feasible? Dowe have the technology capabilities to get it to work?"

The Cultural pov is "Is it a valid idea? Does someone find it desirable?"

If we use design technologies and techniques to make ideas tangible then we can change the behaviour of the individuals and reframe the conversation

We can imagine the technologist and the person responsible for defining the product ( could be a marketer that talks with an external design house or an internal designer) having a conversation about the "interaction" of the product and its user; whilst the marketer might talk with the board in terms of fit with the "brand" which then leads on to another conversation about the "look and feel"of the experience. Meanwhile logistics might be concerned about how it impacts the existing products and overall profitability and the effects on the "system" of any different technologies. This leads to conversations about the "role" of the product in the overall portfolio of activities and its impact on existing arrangements in sales channels i.e. its "implementation".

Small wonder then that, in a separate, linear conversation view of the world, we end up with products whose impact is diluted compared with the idea originally put forward and it is often late.

If we look at the best way to operate in the yellow zone then we need to step into a Design Space where we leave behind our narrow functional point of view and ask "What we are we creating- does it enable a change in the life of our customer" and "How are we going to make sure we deliver on the promise of this idea?"

So, how do we improve our innovation hit rate?

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Originally uploaded by IC Pod

Whenever we read about innovation, be it in the technology sector or FMCG we are told that 70% of our launches are withdrawn within a year as they fail to meet expectations -either as a valid offer for the customers (do they love it?), or as a viable product/service (Have we made money doing it?).
The interaction of global communication, speed of change and competition all ensure that incremental improvements are no loger enough for long-term survival and growth. But the rate of improvement of technologies also means we have the potential to radically improve our innovation and design capabilities, activities and results. I wrote here of what I regard as the five technology clusters that we need to master and exploit in order to have a shot at substantially improving our innovation performance.

The evolution of the list came from considering the process and what participants needs will be.

We wrote of the top level process as 3R's and 6D's so

We will have our 8 Design Space stakeholders working as a dream team to create new knowledge as they move along their Design Journey at each stage of their journey they will need representational tools to make their ideas, concepts, models, prototypes tangible to each other and all other interested parties. In otherwise we need to be able to visualise the design at any stage on the journey with the right fidelity to catalyse the right conversation. Show a potential consumer a beautifully finished realistic physical mockup and they will assume it is a finished work; show them a rendered sketch and they realise it is a rough concept and respond accordingly. We can tabulate 'things' we want to do at each stage.. this is just a quick stab at a list:

We need to embrace an iterative "fail forward-cycle back" approach to maximise learning

 

which means we have a great deal of sketches, illustrations, feedback data, etc, etc, to create and manage... we might therefore look at the activities from another (Design Space) point of view:

In Design Space it will be great if we can represent our thoughts, insights ideas and concepts using 2D and 3D sketching, drawing and modelling tools... we then need to visualise them in an appropriate form (e.g. rendered 3D model), but we also need to simulate how we will use "it" how we will make it, distribute it, etc.etc. and visualise the appropriate results. We will need to manage this cloud of data, information and digital artefacts we are generating and collecting. It will be great to make things tangible in a physical sense too. We also need to keep everyone up to speed on this project seeking and accepting critical comment from people wherever they are located. This implies we need to build a collaboration infrastructure.

So we now have 5 strategic design technology imperatives:

1. Digital Design Modelling

2. Design Simulation and Visualisation

3. Physical Modelling and Prototyping

4. Master Data Management

5. Collaborative Infrastructure

first mentioned here.

It is worth remembering that the models we build and visualise, digital, virtual, physical are what can drive our innovative behaviour. Michael Schrage put my thoughts into words in his book Serious Play

"The value of prototypes resides less in the models themselves than in the interactions - the conversations, arguments, consultations, collaborations -- they invite. Prototypes force individuals and institutions to confront the tyranny of trade-offs. That confrontation, in turn, forces people to play seriously with the difficult choices they must ultimately make. The fundamental question isn't, What kinds of models, prototypes and simulations should we be building? but, What kind of interactions do we want to create? The latter question aims at the heart of strategic introspection. Consequently, the design focus - the value emphasis - must be on the quantity and quality of human interactions that modelling media can support. Who should be working together? What should they be talking about? Who should see the model next?"

So how do our 5 meta technologies support such activity? And how do we exploit them more effectively?

Design is the most successful social science

12:01 28 June 2007 Image(3322)
The Daily Telegraph today published an article about the amount of technology that the Europeans have created for the iPhone.

Rich Gold, once a research leader at Xerox PARC, once stated

“Design is the most successful social science ever created.”

Picture uploaded by Udo Herzog . Used with thanks under CC.

Realising that organisations are dependant on the collaborative interactions of their design teams I contemplated  why my old team were so successful, sitting as they did at the intersection of design house, development, manufacturing, suppliers and marketing and buying and....etc.

We developed this model to describe the competences necessary to create the potential for the emergence of a winning team.

So how do we actually enact this model in order to achieve a stream of 'winning products and services'?

Design4 meets design research

empathy
Originally uploaded by lorelei

This post by Audrey Carr, found via All this ChittahChittah, prompted me to overlay what may represent her thoughts on design research onto my Design for Consumer/competitiveness diagram described in "Quality or quantity". One of the keys to doing the right research seems to be working out roughly where you are on the design journey; whether you are confirming the validity of your idea or its viability. The answer will drive the type of research to be done. Early on in the project questions like "How unique is this new product or service?" are more important than "How likely are you to purchase this new product or service?" so different techniques will be deployed. I have also added Going to the Gemba; observing the consumer in their environment to discover intriguing habits that may become insights at the start of the product/service creative journey.
So my diagram (which is thinking in progress) looks like this

I have added a feedback loop from trends to insights to convey the need to do some initial exploratory work to set off the process.

Changing the way we work- in the round

Office: research in progress
Originally uploaded by wili_hybrid.

Introducing new ways of working can be very challenging! But to radically change the environment as well can raise anxiety to even higher levels. One way of addressing this anxiety is to use the concept of protected space to "seriously play" with the concepts to help people learn new ways of doing. We know that positive emotions are critical to learning and creative thought; the other side of the coin is negative attitudes. When something goes wrong a positive environment enables people to say "what can we learn from this to get over the setback", whilst a negative attitude leads to "Oh hell we have failed, people will be upset." Many years ago there was a site on the web that classified task outcomes as "Nice Try" or "Nice Work". I remember one about two people of similar skills doing a simulation of something on the computer scheduled to take two weeks. The client arrives after two weeks goes up to the first person and asks "How is it going?" The reply was "Well it could have been better. I've done the analysis and got the raw data that looks ok but I need a bit more time to make up the three days I lost waiting for the software people to fix a major bug I found." "Well Nice Try," said the client, moving on.

Going up to the second analyst the client nervously asked "How is it going?" "Fine!" came the cheery reply, "Here is the report you can see that things are ok but we can improve them by changing the radii by 10%." "Did I have any problems..no not really, apart from the software bug that I had to tweak to get round and get on with your job.. I've shown the software people how I fixed it and they are doing a patch to permanently fix it." "Well done! Nice Work!" said the client, " Can I send an engineer to talk to you about the radii?"

Building the conditions to encourage positive creative attitudes needs attention to the details of everything; the environment both physical and mental has a great affect on outcomes. A great space won't guarantee a successful outcome but an inadequate one certainly raises the odds of an unsuccessful one!

In the essay Light and Space in “Louis I. Kahn” By Robert McCarter

The great Louis Kahn wrote

“Architecture comes from the Making of a Room….The Room is the place of the mind. In a small room one does not say what one would in a large room. In a room with only one other person…the vectors of each meet.”

Fitting this with my own experiences (here) and Rich Gold's Ecology of Humidity then the space we need to live with Insights, ideas and concepts, play with them, expose them to other collaborators (Co-conspirators?) in an effective way and finally present them to Decision Makers for support and approval is different to the space we need to efficiently do a task.

Francis Duffy talks of The notion of creative Physical and computer-based spaces that embrace

sociability

connectedness

serendipity

memory

associations

metaphor

non-linearity

particularity...

qualities that endow spaces with meaning. Duffy says that from this perspective space will become more, not less, important as we strive to be more creative. But remember he talks of physical and computer-based spaces.

I conclude with a diagram specifying a Design Space for cross-functional, interdisciplinary teams to create new things. As these teams could be, mostly, separated in time and geography, a key challenge was to think how to help people who physically came together rarely, behave as everyday (interdisciplinary) teams rather than every month (multi-disciplinary or multi-functional) teams. The diagram, drawn about six years ago, served as a discussion piece with architects bidding to design and build it. Part of the thinking was to allow for "protected spaces" where people could excercise their creativity  without feeling the constraints that their functionalism imposed. The next challenge we addressed was how to facilitate re-entry to the stately progress of the main organisation. But these are future stories.

Iconic or what?

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Originally uploaded by IC Pod.

A key question these days should not be "is design important for business?" but "Is strategic design thinking embedded in our business culture or at least growing in importance?". At least ten years ago I was learning how to improve the packaging design process, using real projects to demonstrate our improvements and how they enabled better pack designs from all four viewpoints: Design for Consumer, Manufacture, Competitiveness and business Sustainability. We did not have an explicit way of communicating these four excellences but we tried to influence their outcomes whenever possible. This meant taking a creative view of the new design technologies that were emerging into the marketplace.

When we looked at our supplier base we found that there were 23 different CAD systems, all based on different logic systems, all using different mathematical foundations and some were 2-dimensional, 21/2-d or 3-dimensional; some suppliers used 2-d descriptions in CAD to drive 3-dimensional CAM systems in order to create complex 3-d toolpaths required to machine the tools; others made 3-d solid models out of CIBATool, a sort of plastic wood substitute, to use on their copy millers. We had our own milling machine connected to the CADCAM system and we could machine pack models that became quality control models for some suppliers and the copy-model for others.

One bottle design was our first regional standardised shape.. but unfortunately bottles from the pilot mould made by the various suppliers varied considerably, enough to affect the packing line performance which was unacceptable.

It turned out that the conventional process for defining new packaging was breaking down. Consider the topline process

The basic process of designing that pack is very straightforward but when we consider the supplier base and the information flows between the parties involved  we see a very different picture

These flows are not really observed by the players involved in the project as they are looking at their little piece; if we are using an innovation funnel process this interchange of information leads to an opaque view of the process

The real problem with this model of the process of creating packaging is that it does not give sufficient weight to the affective elements of the total package; the non-rational and emotional elements need to be made explicit (opportunities) and their interaction with the technologies and supply chains available or imagined (constraints). So maybe a cross-section through our funnel should be the Design Space and the funnel should become more like this

The start of the packaging project will now be an exploratory phase: "Exploring the What" which is a divergent activity, bringing any relevant useful information and knowledge into the Design Space. This is followed by a convergent "Deciding the What" phase where the team sifts through the "stuff", clustering and looking for emergent routes that might be fruitful in achieving the projects aims.

At this point some selections need to be made; the 8 Design Space factors can be used to create a filter that will quickly determine which routes are more promising and one or more can be selected for more detailed work

So the next exploratory phase on "How to deliver the What"  will allow the team to widen their horizons; ignore constraints and discuss how they would tackle each What from the previous phase. Then comes the painful process of "Deciding the How", picking one or two routes to take forward into a detailed design phase. Painful? because this is the time that organisational culture can massively restrict the range of options the team is prepared to present for resource approval. It is here that more substantial, radical routes raise more questions than answers relative to the incremental ones, so may not seem as attractive. It is at this point that the gatekeeping meetings that look at all the projects seem threatening because the gatekeepers will ask their set of questions and hearing the answers, decide which ones to back. More substantial and radical ideas will get a rough ride, so why bother? In fact what is needed is a better way of feeding the funnnel so that more innovative projects can be protected longer and are resourced in a different way......? Maybe a different set of questions need to be asked. 

Designing the complete package

Lili's party
Originally uploaded by TikTik

Bill Buxton on the left in the photograph has published his book "Sketching User Experiences; getting the design right and the right design."

I was fortunate enough to read a draft and was very uncritical of its content because I really connected with the message.. A great deal of work has gone into since that draft and I am delighted to have the published work in my hands. There is a really thought provoking Case Study entitled "Apple, Design and Business" which is an erudite exposition of the interaction of Design (Culture), Technology and Business that went on across Apple's portfolio of product's and a more detailed examination of the iPod's success itself.

Bill has done an excellent job of visualising the Apple share price and the introduction of the various iPods (and elswhere the in the book same for other MAC innovations). Bill draws 14+ very interesting observations that are worth highlighting so I am repeating them here (you can read Bill's expansion of the points in the book):

1. It took three years for the iPod to become an "overnight success."

2. The iPod was not the first product in this space.

3. Apple was its own competitor.

4. Apple has arguably the best-designed product but that is relative.

5. Style and fashion are really important.

6. It took four generations of the basic iPod before it tipped.

7. The success of the iPod depended on a much larger ecosystem.

8. Jobs turned the Gillette model on its head.

9. Growth in revenue does not keep pace with growth in sales.

10. There was some (a lot?) of luck involved in Apple's success.

12. Le bon Dieu ast dans le détail (Gustave Flaubert)/God is in the details (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe).

13. Holistic design not only requires an ecosystem, it feeds one.

14. From the design and management perspective, the iPod is a different class of product than the iMac.

He concludes by stating

"I am being generous here, largely because it is hard to argue withthe iPod's success. However I believe that some of the design flaws in the device's user interface could- and likely would- have been caught if the user interface's designers had been involved earlier in the project.

Regardless of any shortcomings, it is clear that the iPod was an ovewelming business success. Less obvious, but perhaps more important is the following observation:

I am hard pressed to think of one part of Apple that wasn't critical to the success of the iPod.

The company had to be firing on all cylinders, with all the parts going in more or less the same direction. Sure there are some superstars among the protagonists. But despite that, and in keeping with the theme that runs throughout this book:

Everyone is essential, but no one person or group is sufficient on his or her own."

So go and read the book... in the meantime consider this:

I spent 15 years worrying (with others) about how to deliver excellent packaging that reflected and enhanced the product it contained. In other words packaging is from the point of view of the person who may buy, the most tangible manifestation of the total product.

My packaging boss once commented that "there is no person in the whole of this company that, sitting in their office, would question whether you should have knocked and entered the office. They would merely wonder why you had come and what contribution you needed."

If we reflect on this we can see that a packaging system has to be designed for the consumer, manufacture, competitiveness and sustainability. But it is the total package that determines the success or otherwise of each new product, or service. The total package covers both the functional and emotional needs of the consumer throughout their contact with the product (the consumer experience) and covers the communication, technologies and packaging system.. which describes most products (and services). The Design Pyramid allows us to "play" with these factors in a hierarchy of needs based on Maslow and so determine the relative importance of affordances we may be proposing to build into the product. How these affect the operation of the multi-functional, cross-organisational activities of the companies, departments and people that are creating the new "package" leads to the mantra:

"Together we are better."

The tools and processes that I am describing in these blogs come from the lessons I have learned on a journey through many innovation projects spanning a number of industries. These lessons support Bill's 14 points, but especially 13. which is about holistic design... the very reason I led the development of Design@The_Edge tools and processes.

Fire Juggling, or multitasking

Fire Juggling
Originally uploaded by Nicobobinus.

John Maeda posted my diagram on multitasking here, which in turn was a response to his original post. Sandwiched between them is an interesting filling "Converge or Diverge-Depends where you stand", which reminded me of two pieces of work that may complement John's thought-piece.

Rich Gold, when he was Manager - Research into Experimental Documents  at Xerox Parc, presented the idea of the Humidity of Spaces. I have one or two of his original slides, the original links have long since decayed (as predicted by William Mitchell in City of Bits). The metaphor (which his staff hoped he wouldn't use) went like this:

There are three types of space that we work in

In Rich's words: "What is a “wet space”? Well this room ( in which Gold was delivering lecture) is a wet space. You can smell, touch, feel each other; Pheromones and hormones are swirling; Very “mammal” - pack formations, leaders; Lots of gossip.

It is my experience that no project of any size can work without wet space to form the team.It unifies the team and the direction.

A “dry space” is being alone in your room. Door closed, email off, phone off, web off; There is time available to think, to dream ; Here you can write long pieces; Here you can read long pieces.

Dryness is required for any thoughts of any depth (Brainstorms (wet) can start thoughts, but only dryness can make them real).

Harder and harder to achieve in today’s world.

Dampness is new, only since the telegraph (though I get arguments). You are alone in your room; But you are connected via mediating technologies to one or more other people. Hence it has both wet and dry properties. In that sense it is the definition of telecommunicative. It is also “designed” since each medium has a series of design decisions which mould it (e.g. video screens are rectangular - when first imagined in the 19th century they were oval). Talking to my mother in Buffalo is a damp space.

Damp spaces are “prophylactic” in that they don’t allow everything through. This makes them MORE and not less valuable than wet spaces. The communicative act itself becomes more designed and can actually become art.  Damp spaces are not “poor” wet spaces - the total VR model doesn’t work.

What is interesting is that all three kinds of spaces are necessary

That there are flows between one and the next

Here is how just a simple PowerPoint presentation flows through the different spaces

Make PP in a dry space - present in a wet space - teleview in a damp space - take notes afterwards in a dry space - email in a damp space - have a meeting about presentation in wet space - have conversation around coffee in a wet space - have a phone conversation in a damp space - write a memo in a damp space - write a paper in a dry space - construct a business plan based on the ideas in a wet space - read the plan in a dry space - have another meeting in a wet space - write the minutes in a dry space - download to a PalmPilot in a damp space - make another PowerPoint presentation in a dry space

BUT WHAT ARE THE ARROWS?

The arrows in the previous slide are “media” modulated by “content”

Here are some examples:

A monitor is modulated by email, the web, text, images

Paper is modulated by black or coloured ink

The air between us is modulated by sound waves (words)

The phone system is modulated by electronic wave (words)

Media is usually stable and has an existential essence that remains even when modulated

The content is the thing which changes (and is usually intended)

.....and the second piece? I'll cover that in another post!

Creative Spaces can enhance Design Activities

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Originally uploaded by markart.

Terry Hajduk and Lori Gee (Herman Miller) say that 

"Space drives behaviours and behaviours need to change for our society to reach its learning goals".
We can improve learning with the quality of the space.
The right space does not guarantee success,
BUT
the wrong space can make success unlikely."

Now

"Innovation' isn't what innovators do....it's what customers and clients adopt." says Michael Schrage, "It's also reaction to the prototype."

Innovation is the end result of the creation of new knowledge. The amount of new knowledge created is an indicator of a product or services' newness; newness to the consumer, the organisation and to the world. So innovation is a learning process. Learning takes place in various ways as I have blogged here.
A great innovation process will take each type of learner on a design journey closing the gap between what we think we need to know (vision) and what we think we know. 83% of potential learners (action learners plus people oriented) will learn by doing and interacting- small wonder that models, prototypes and simulations are such powerful platforms for innovative thinking. The other 17% will go out and about to exhibitions, lectures or just read about new 'stuff' that can enable the team to use even more knowledge-building blocks to reach their goals.. and they need space too.

John Maeda quoted Henrik Bode of Bell Labs

"The more you know, the more you learn,

The more you learn, the more you can do;

the more you can do, the more the opportunity."

So maximising the opportunities for learning must be a priority if organisations truly wish to be known for their innovative offers. So this sort of office probably makes creative success unlikely

[photo originally Uploaded on by jamiefreaky ; used under CC]

Perhaps a different kind of space is called for....

[photo originally uploaded on by Scootie ;used under CC.]

Stop being lazy...or your customers will punish you

Stop being lazy...
Originally uploaded by divinemisscopa.

Design Space puts the consumer at the top of the octagon for good reason... if you put them anywhere else... below the top factor you will live, if you are lucky, to regret it. Yesterday's Independent on Sunday headlines "Drinkers win the battle of Lewes".

" What began as a walkout by regular drinkers, and then turned into a campaign uniting the residents of a rural Sussex town against the might of one of Britain's biggest breweries, has finally ended.

Drinkers at the Lewes Arms were furious when the pub's owners, Greene King Brewery, decided to pull the locally brewed Harveys Best Bitter from the pumps last year in favour of its own beer.

It prompted a boycott that lasted for five months, with the 220-year-old pub's takings decimated. Drinkers formed the Friends of the Lewes Arms and took refuge in the town's Constitutional Club, which became the unofficial headquarters of the campaign. Profits plummeted with the pub left almost deserted.

In a humiliating climbdown, the brewery has now decided to reinstate the award-winning Harveys bitter - promising that it will be back on sale by the end of this week. Greene King's chief executive Rooney Anand admitted the company had underestimated the depth of feeling and said: "The decision to return Harveys to the bar is the right one."

photo link

The ability of consumer groups to organise themselves around what they want and to say "No" to the brand owner or supplier who has better ideas undermines the brand unless they can find more new customers than the ones they loose (which ultimately costs them more than keeping the ones they have got)...in Tom Asacker writes

" A brand is an expectation of someone or something delivering a certain feeling  by way of an experience." So a strong brand must deliver that experience to a level that delights the customer. Tom Asacker continues

"What expected feeling attracts people to our brand?

Are we communicating it?

What expected feeling keeps them engaged with us?

Are we delivering it?

What expected feeling will draw them away from us

Are we monitoring it? "

The brewery failed to think through its (bottom-line driven ) actions, and paid the price

The IOS article continued

" Getting Greene King to do a U-turn has been incredible. I think a combination of the drop in profits and bad publicity has made them change their mind."

See their campaign website for the "whole story"; the customer is King even when ranged up against Greene King. It is good if we remeber that bottom line efficiency improvement can be divided into two segments... those that are customer neutral in their affect and those that do affect the customer.