Design is a Technology.

"Projects, processes and people are inherently ambiguous" is true for designers, but also, if I may, PMs. I'm continually surprised that PMs are often forced (by themselves, but also others) to treat projects as if there is no ambiguity. It does a disservice to all those involved, as well as the project, and often forces potential, risks and changes to stay submerged until they either surface in a catastrophic manner - or remain submerged, untapped and ignored. My experience of designers is they can be instrumental in surfacing the potential - the question is often whether the rest of the team/social infrastructure around the project can work with them to properly channel and develop the scope.

John Morley & All: There is no shortage of attempts around to narrow and describe what amounts to “stay in your box” definitions of design. It is recognized that these narrowing efforts often presented passively as being “helpful” are often being created by folks outside the design community with their own conflicting consulting self interests in the expanding terrain of design. Difficult but no big news there.? In 2017 we rounded up 50 of the most often appearing arguments in play around the subject of design / design thinking. Your argument has shades of 11,13,22,24,29,33 and 44. Design is facing many challenges in the face of complexity. Parts of the community are hard at work on addressing those challenges...other parts are not. In NextD Journal we have been writing on this story since 2005 so much material can be found there. www.nextd.org Arguments RoundUp.? Argument #11. Britches Too Big? Argument #13. Designers = Drunken Sailors Argument #22. IDEO Invented Everything Argument #24. Limitations of Design Thinking Argument #29. Design Needs More Science Argument #33. Stay in the Box Design Thinking Argument #44. Creativity Thinking = Design Thinking https://tinyurl.com/532cwa8b Good luck to all.

Bill Schmarzo

Creativity is the emergent and self-organizing force generated by the energies of mind, body and soul. Creative Producers are practitioners constantly testing theories on the killing fields of reality, continuously paying attention and figuring things out.

Wow John - I’m not sure if you are seeking to be contraversial but I think you might have succeeded :-) To pick up on a few points. Some may see design methodologies or design tools as technologies but these same methodologies and tools were designed. Technologies generally are seen as the outcomes rather that the practices. On the other hand, design [in verb form] is an embodied practice. In response to “Despite some assertions of human-centered design … Design is and always will be ‘a creative approach to problem-solving’”. Can a human-centred approach not be creative? I think the following should be questioned - “it does not busy itself with the ongoing intertwining of our internal and external lives”. Good design and good designers do exactly this. They embed a deeper appreciation of human psychology, sociology, etc into their practices. My overall comment would be that design [verb form] is an embodied activity and can be done well or poorly … a lot of poor design is because we do not seek to understand the systems into which our designs [noun form] fit. Narrowing the definition of design to a technology divorced of human understanding may offer an excuse for even more poor design practices and outcomes … ?