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Balancing Design and Systems Thinking for Greater Impact
- 1. Achieving Impact: Balancing Design Thinking & Systems Thinking @terrie_chan @solutions_lab
- 2. The MaRS Solutions Lab is a public & social innovation lab that tackles complex social and economic challenges that requires systems change.
- 3. The MaRS Solutions Lab is a public & social innovation lab that tackles complex social and economic challenges that requires systems change.
- 5. Complicated vs. Complex SpaceX Student hunger • Rational experts • Top-down planning • More spreadsheets
- 6. Complicated vs. Complex SpaceX Student hunger • Rational experts • Top-down planning • More spreadsheets • Adaptation • Collaboration • Rapid iteration
- 10. “Design thinking is a human- centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” - Tim Brown, IDEO
- 11. Source: d.school
- 12. Source: Chris Jackson, DNA | @northwardsds
- 13. Products
- 16. SYSTEMS THINKING
- 17. “Businesses and human endeavors are systems… we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system. And wonder why our deepest problems never get solved.” - Peter Senge
- 18. sunistanani “to cause to stand together”
- 19. “You think because you understand “one” that you must therefore understand “two” because one and one make two. But you forget that you must also understand “and”.” - Sufi teaching story
- 20. DESIGN THINKING
- 24. DESIGN THINKING
- 25. SYSTEMS THINKING
- 26. “Systems fool us by representing themselves as a single event.” - Peter Senge
- 27. Example
- 29. “How can we create a resilient tender fruit economy in Ontario, in a way that provides economic, environmental and social benefits?”
- 30. Ontario Tender Fruit Lab / 2013- 2014 Research Phase Workshop Phase Implementation
- 31. Ontario Tender Fruit Lab / 2013- 2014 Research Phase Workshop Phase Implementation
- 32. Is this really the problem we are trying to solve?
- 33. Ontario Tender Fruit Lab / 2013- 2014 Research Phase Workshop Phase Implementation
- 34. Workshop 1: Seeing the System Experiences
- 35. Workshop 1: Seeing the System Experiences Workshop 2: Designing Interventions
- 36. Workshop 1: Seeing the System Experiences Workshop 2: Designing Interventions Workshop 3: Prototyping Solutions
- 37. Ontario Tender Fruit Lab / 2013- 2014 Research Phase Workshop Phase Implementation
- 40. Creating a Better Eating Experience Niagara Fruit Forever Skin in the Game Marketing Ontario Stone Fruit New Varieties 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Editor's Notes
- To introduce the context of where I work -
- 1) What are PSI labs and why do we tackle specifically complex challenges? To begin -
- The hypothesis to how you get from point A to B is generally pretty clear, you are quite certain of the kinds of people you need in order to solve this problem, and the problem space you’re playing with is pretty stable – the laws of gravity won’t change while you’re trying to build a rocket, the costs of materials won’t fluctuate… So your trajectory for tackling this problem is quite clear. But complex problems function differently. Problems like student hunger– why do kids go hungry? There are many reasons why kids go hungry and they will differ if you’re trying to solve it in Toronto vs. Canada vs. Hong Kong. Based on which neighborhood the kid lives in, in what country, under which education jurisdiction, and in what family… the cause and effect of the problem can be very different.
- You need a team . You need to collaborate with as many people involved within the system as possible. And as you learn deeper about the problem space,
- Social Innovation Lab Guide / Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation & Resilience Systems Thinking: Eric Trist and Tavisstock Institute; dinner party Computer Modeling: Have you ever wondered why your phone number is 7 characters long?That’s because our human brain can only hold up to 7 nodes +/- 2. In complex systems you need to understand way more than 7 nodes, and computers can help with that Social Innovation: We’re at MaRS today – a place where social entrepreneurs and startup entrepreneurs are trying to seek out new ways to bring more value to our society
- Empathize: when you deeply understand the needs and motivations of the users you’re trying to design for Define: this is actually the main reason why I got into practicing design thinking is really understanding the problem to And as a practitioner, you would probably agree that it looks much more like
- But design thinking has generally defaulted into improve our world through products and experiences
- Implementation design –
- We all live in systems. Our family is a system. And everyday we move from different systems to other systems, and we are both influenced by and influence systems. Our current mode of planning and analysis won’t work to solve our deepest problems. Actually, the root of the word “analysis” means “to break into constituent parts”.
- Greek verb – what is that thing that holds a system together? What motivates a system to create the unintentioned outcomes that no one expected?
- And for a visual representation of this -
- DT is really good at mapping out the users and the institutions and more importantly, deeply understanding the motivations and desires of these individual users and institutions
- And when you add on ST, you begin to really understand the relationships between these different actors -
- And particularly - How strong are those connections? How do they influence eachother?
- And perhaps we drew those connections based on the assumptions in our head, and in reality, those are just loose ties. And these are really important information to know, because as human beings, as much as we’d like to believe, we don’t make completely rational choices. We are constantly influenced by our peers, our family, and the trend-of-the-day – and we make decisions that impacts the overall system. Think about quinoa – how our obsession over quinoa has impacted the overall food scene in Canada and the countries that actually produce the crop.
- Design Thinking: deeply understanding the user. Ie – have you talked to your friend and your friend is mad
- Design Thinking: deeply understanding the user. Ie – have you talked to your friend and your friend is mad
- …and our society generally invests a lot of time and energy in responding to these single events
- This is our final challenge question of the lab. We designed this lab in partnership with the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience – with the team there under the leadership of Frances Westley, a world-renowned researcher on social innovation labs. Much of
- And from 2013-2014 we implemented three stages as part of the lab process.
- During the 3-month research phase, we talked to over 70+ users and stakeholders in the tender fruit and meat value network. And the reason why we talked to individuals in the meat industry is because the initial problem brief we received is to focus on the meat industry -
- This is why design research is so important – it uncovers insights to why we’re solving a problem and whether it is the right time. After 1.5 months, we realized that it was neither the leverage point or the right timing and we chose tender fruit because it was for both.
- The Workshop phase is our most public-phasing work. It brings together a diverse group of stakeholders in the room to explore the problem space, co-design solutions, and find meaningful pathways to bring about change in the real world.
- During the workshop phase, we generally have 3 workshops over the span of ~4 months. The 1st workshop’s goal is to create a collective understanding and empathy for each of the users and stakeholders in the room of the system they all inhibit. This was especially true for the OTFLab because during our research phase, we found a lot of finger pointing and shifting blame on why the system works the way it does today. So in order for us to even begin co-designing solutions, we need to break those mental models and create pathways for understanding and empathy
- This part of the lab is probably most familiar to everyone. It’s when the sticky notes are out and you’re writing and dreaming and thinking and collaborating – and you are creating interventions to solve the greater problem.
- Prototyping is when you take those intervention ideas and go through a process of prototyping where you often create a tangible model to help you think through the idea and use it to show others to get feedback on. During this session, we also lead participants through training like business model deveopment and pitching to prepare them to bring this idea to the real world.
- Unlike many design thinking processes, implementation looks a little different for labs. Design thinking processes generally come up with one final solution whereas labs come up with multiple promising solutions and see not only what traction they get but also how these interventions will interplay with one another.
- Because when we go back to how we see our system, there’s never a magic bullet to affect change and no one solution can create the seismic shift needed to change a system.
- And we think that perhaps when we put out multiple solutions in the system, they may influence the entire system.
- Creating Better – a proposal surrounding cold-chain management was accepted by Agri-Food Canada Skin – the lab helped validate one of the participants’ ideas and he’s now starting a new initiative called Rhizome Marketing – the next time you see this basket, it was influeced by the Tender Fruit lab. Now basket is now being used in all major retailers like Loblaw’s Costco, Sobeys, Wal-Mart and Metro. New Varieties – OTF marketing board + university of guelph
- So, in conclusion, what I really think we need as designers is to continuously update and increase the tools in our toolbox. Because the problems we’re facing are getting more and more complex and we need to think smarter on how to tackle our society’s most important problems.