Design Thinking CHAT

Business901 Podcast Transcription
Implementing Lean Marketing Systems
CHAT in Activity Theory Thinking
Copyright Business901
Design Thinking CHAT
Guest was Lisa Yamagata-Lynch
Sponsored by
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Dr. Yamagata-Lynch authored the book Activity Systems Analysis
Methods: Understanding Complex Learning Environments where
she outlines Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). CHAT is
one of several theoretical
frameworks that are popular
among educational
researchers because it
conceptualizes individuals and
their environment as a holistic
unit of analysis. Activity
systems analysis is one of the
popular methods among CHAT
researchers for mapping
complex human interactions
from qualitative data.
What Dr. Lisa Yamagata-Lynch says about herself: I identify
myself as a Cultural Historical Activity Theorist (CHAT), and I
believe that knowledge is not an isolated set of rules accessed
only when necessary, but is a shared entity that is distributed
among individuals, context, activity, artifacts, and in the
interactions that take place among the above. I also believe that
individuals belong in a community that enables them to share and
negotiate their knowledge with other members. For the last
several years I have focused my research in using activity theory,
or more specifically activity systems analysis, for understanding
the complex nature of human interactions within a community.

Transcription of Podcast
Joe: Welcome, everyone. This is Joe Dager, the host of the
Business901 podcast. With me, today is Dr. Lisa
Yamagata-Lynch. She is currently a professor and
program coordinator at the University of Tennessee,
with previous stops at the University of Utah and
Northern Illinois, a frequent speaker and author of the
book "Activity Systems Analysis Method". I would like
to welcome you, Dr. Yamagata-Lynch and can I just
call you "Lisa".
Lisa: That's fine.
Joe: Can you tell me how you became interested in design?
Lisa: I was interested in how people learn. That's where I
started. Then I wanted to understand what goes on in
the real world. Initially, I got interested in psychology,
and that's where I started my bachelor's degree,
thinking about, okay, how are people cognitively
processing information. Then I realized that it didn’t
make a connection to what was happening in
classrooms or in training situations. There were a lot of
things that you could explain from the cognitive
perspective. Or, I guess it's more in the framework of
predicting. You could predict a lot, but it didn't always
explain to me what was going on.
Then from my perspective, in order to understand what
was going on in the real world when people were
interacting with each other or even interacting with
artifacts or texts or their prior experiences, helping
them think, it was more of a design-oriented activity
that they were taking initiative in it. They were doing

something with the environment and in order for me to
explain that design with something, I became
interested in and I moved into a field called
"instructional technology" where another word for it or,
I guess another branch of it, is "instructional design".
That's how I became interested initially in designing
instruction. Now, I see design as something that
actually, everybody does and everybody doesn't
necessarily give credit to doing or we don't even keep
training people to continuing to design in their
everyday life.
Joe: Your interest in design is based on understanding and
designing an environment for yourself to understand
better.
Lisa: Yes, and then I think some people would have issue
with that understanding is a little too passive an issue
in the sense that would be in the educational research
world where I'm at and that understanding's not
enough. But, for me, it seems like predicting how
people might behave or think or do things at a later
time without understanding what they're doing now, it
takes a lot of leap of faith to do that and I really
wanted to understand people before making
predictions, and I don't think I'll ever be in the business
of making predictions myself.
Joe: I think that's an interesting concept. So much of it is
spending time downloading information from others
before we ever start our own actions. That's what
you're saying is kind of the essence of how you start
and think about design.

Lisa: Yes, another component that I became interested is
this, and I think it'll come up later to, but this
framework called "cultural historical activity theory".
Initially it wasn't necessarily like an obvious connection
to design, but now I see a big connection. So once I
removed myself from the cognitive framework or
predicting how people would react to information, how
they would digest information in the most efficient and
probably what people believe to be a reliable way, I
then so got into the business of trying to understand
people, describe what's going on, and there wasn't a
good framework to do that.
I moved into cultural historical activity theory, which is
one framework embracing that people live in an
environment that you can't remove from, and they are
constantly molding, shaping the environment while
they are being molded and shaped at the same time
and in order to engage in any type of activity, it could
be learning. It could be anything while some people
would say every activity is a learning event for human
beings. But to engage in an activity, people are
basically carving their own way and, to me, that's
where the design is happening on a daily basis. There
are purposeful design activities as well, but on a daily
basis we are designing our own environment, designing
who we are, understanding who we are, I guess,
achieve goals that we are aiming to achieve in that
moment in time.
Joe: Well, when you use the cultural historical activity
theorist, you abbreviate that as a CHAT person.
Lisa: Yes, well, it initially was a response from the Vygotsky,
who was a Russian scholar in the 1920's. He was

responding to more of a behaviorist stimulus, a
response association framework so that would be the
opposite. I wouldn't say opposite makes sense
Vygotsky's point was adding in because if you are a
behaviorist, your belief is basically that we don't need
to know anything other than how to associate stimulus
and response.
We do this, or we try to do it, in child-rearing, in dog
training a lot where you give a lot of reward. I know
that sometimes behaviorism has, or a lot of people will
talk about being full of punishment, but I think a lot of
it has to do with positive reinforcement, rewarding
people for good behavior. Behavior management
systems in schools are based on that. My children come
home, "Oh, I was on blue today the whole day." It
works in certain situations, but it doesn't explain
everything.
Joe: Well, at the present time, you're teaching a course in
design thinking and theory. Could you tell me just
briefly about that?
Lisa: The course itself is very theoretical, and that's a
struggle I have but there's a prerequisite course where
students do design instruction. In that moment, they're
not even given much reason, but it's something to
engage in and our students at the doctoral program
here in Tennessee, we have a unique program where it
draws on educational foundations that includes social
justice and cultural studies, educational psychology and
instructional technology.
So first of all, a course like mine isn't something you'll
see everywhere. We talk about design in the sense of

not just designing objects, physical objects like a
phone, a hammer or it could anything, every day or
high-tech object, but we also talk more about designing
experiences because our program is about designing
learning environments. From that framework and from
the backgrounds that we draw from students to come
in and other expertise and faculty in our program, we
talk about designers as people who bring voice to their
audience.
We've looked at, and briefly, some of the IDEO projects
both in the consumer goods sector, but they also have
more of a human activism sector, as well. So we looked
and compared and contrasted about what are the core
values in what IDEO people call as design. We've also
looked into how design is completely removed from
education and even adult training, that usually the
dichotomy is between the sciences and humanities, and
while design is something or many authors believe it's
a naturally occurring phenomena that we engage in, we
don't necessarily have to be taught to design.
Although, you could be taught certain design
specialties. We don't even talk about it in school, we
don't even encourage it. Then it ties into more of
creativity issues.
So basically, we're looking at, from many different
angles, many of my students who started the class,
some of them are unhappy that it was a required class
in the doctoral program but after two weeks or so, it
was interesting, so out of about the 10 students I have,
about half of them came in saying, "Okay, I'm a
designer. I know I'm a designer." Then the other half
were very ambivalent and all of the sudden, week
three, they came to a realization that, "Wow. I am a

designer. I do design on a daily basis."
It could be that they designed space at their own
home, they design events in the classroom, and they
design instructions. So we're taking a broad view at
what is design, what are the commonalities, what
values people, what are the core principles and what
responsibilities we have as designers once we
acknowledge that we are engaging in design.
Joe: It sounds like a great course for a marketing guy and
for the user experience.
Lisa: Yes, and then there are methods that we do look into
for how to engage in quick assessments of user
experiences. It's not necessarily targeted for
businesses. One of my students was talking with a
business professor. She found out that in the business
school; they were trying to create a class that's very
similar to this. Probably with much more of a business
focus I would assume. We do see a lot of connection.
One of the texts we're using is more of an architecture
text but talking about design. Another book is a little
more cognitive text, but it draws from a lot of different
areas.
Joe: How does design differ for learning environments
versus designing for space, let's say?
Lisa: I think it first starts with because most of my students
are designers of learning space, but they never saw
themselves as designers. Once you take the designer
role, you develop this new perspective on what are
your responsibilities as a designer. We talk a lot about
consequences of your design, whether you intended to

or not, when something you design, the user finds a
completely different use for it than you ever imagined
then what your responsibilities there are.
In many instructional design programs, we are taught
to analyze, design, develop, implement. Then, it's
almost like you wash your hands clean from what you
design. You move on to the next thing, and you have
no involvement of the sustainability or what happens to
your product. If you're in a company and if you're
working in a global company, if a training module's
developed at the headquarters, if you launch that
module into a completely different country, how would
that be customized, localized?
Those are issues that many instructional designers
don't deal with at all. So I think that it is widening the
scope of where, it's not necessarily about selling a
product or marketing a product, but it's widening the
scope of what your responsibilities are as designers and
how you need to go about working with clients.
Joe: You bring up something in your conversation there that
I find kind of humorous because when someone uses
something in the way it wasn't supposed to be used, I
mean, from my engineering background, you say, well,
you're not using it right. But from the designer's
standpoint, it's an opportunity, right?
Lisa: Right and that is, again, where the CHAT framer comes
in. In a way, what you intended for the right specs or
right design for the item, at that point it doesn't
matter. It becomes a tool that's inserted into your
client's space or your audience space. Then the
audience can do anything they want to with it. I mean,

there are hazardous information’s, like child car seats.
You want to use it the way that it was intended to
ensure safety, but there are issues in that area.
As a designer, you have to think about when they say
that, okay; it was a person, the user's problem, the
user's fault. When something's designed so that so
many users would install something incorrectly, then
you have to think about whose responsibility is it?
Where is the scope of, as a designer, how much do you
need to know about your client? How much
participation do you need from your audience? Those
are issues that widen the scope of our role and
responsibilities and how to go about design.
In my class, what's interesting is so many of them
either used to be or are classroom teachers. As a
group, we're concluding that classroom teachers are
designers. They ought to be designers of instructions,
but that voice is being taken away. Lately there are so
many prepared modules that their school districts just
say, "In order to meet standards, this is what you have
to do." I don't know. It's almost like we've talked about
how their wings are being clipped. They're no longer
treated as a designer, and they just have to follow a
script. That was something interesting for my students
themselves to realize.
Joe: I think that context is carried over into business. We're
seeing where the customer facing type of service and
sales and support, the customer is the disruptor in it,
so they have to be able to have complete clarity on
what they're trying to accomplish behind them to
enable them to design right there, very similar to how
you're going to be as a teacher.

Lisa: Well, yes, you're talking about customer service. When
you call somebody it's clearly scripted. What's
interesting to me, we were talking about it last night in
class to is that when you look at a lot of the messages
that are coming from businesses to higher education,
the messages that are four-year colleges worth it
employers are not getting employees who think on
their feet, who can design experiences, or I interpret it
that way. They're not creative. They can't problem
solve. They can't think on their feet. Which, to me, are
all related to designing, more than anything.
Joe: We've talked about that. We've seen it in complex
environments where we have to be able to design on
our feet and as I was alluding to as far as the customer
facing type of support and be able to react that way. So
from design, is that becoming a more traditional type
of instruction that we need to make part of college and
high school levels?
Lisa: I would think so. I mean, there are skills. First of all,
you need to be able to analyze a situation, then
synthesize it and then make meaning from it. Even if
it's meaning that just makes sense in that moment,
you need to try out various solutions, you've got to be
able to think by yourself or in groups or in collaboration
with your audience.
I would really think so, and I think in a way, there was
a wave in the '90's of problem-based learning,
especially in medical schools, and it was popular in my
own instructional technology and instructional design
area to. Even in K-12 schools there were a lot of
movement towards portfolio assessment, project-

based, but, once again, it got stripped away once all
the standards came in and the wave kind of changed
that there's a concept of, "We don't have time for that."
Joe: Well, design seems to be a hot topic now.
Lisa: Right now? Definitely.
Joe: Is it just a nomenclature for the times? Is it something
that we need to grab and take hold of?
Lisa: I do think that it's something that needs to grab and
take hold of. I do also see, especially in just looking at
how it just floats around everywhere lately. Again, in
the '90's there was a whole movement towards change
and especially in the business books texts, even
popular press. There was a lot of talk about change, a
lot of talk about Quality Six Sigma, TQM. I think it's
one of those right now. It's just one of those real
popular concepts, but I do firmly believe that there's
more to it and how to keep at it after this popularity
goes away, I think it's a big question.
Joe: Well, one of the things you talk about is complex
environments. What constitutes a complex
environment? Is there any definition to that?
Lisa: That's a good question. The whole idea of complex
environment, that is more my personal reaction to
more of the what's believed to be scientific method. In
that environment, so I'm going to first talk about what
it's not. So in a much more, what's believed to be a
traditional scientific environment, especially in taking a
quantitative analysis type of approach, you want to
simplify everything to the simplest form.

So when you come up with variables that you decide, "I
care about this particular student test score," let's say
we're just going to say, "I just care about this student
test score." We're not going to think about anything
else, whether the student had breakfast before she or
he came to school, what kind of family structure, what
kind of tutoring opportunities this child has at home or
through siblings or maybe even the parents’ hire
tutors.
You say, "We're just not going to think about all that.
We're going to put everybody on an even keel and say
we're just going to look at this particular variable.
We're going to give them the exact same test and
make sure that they have all the same allotted times so
that it's all unbiased, it's fair and look at the results."
To me, that raised a lot of question that, in reality,
things are not that simple that you can put blinders and
say, "That's all we're going to look at." But like you
said, reality is always complex. So to me, the complex
learning environments, another way of putting it is just
like what's happening in real life. Then one problem
with this approach is that no matter what we do when
we're talking about it, it's going to be in simplified
form.
The particular approach I talk about in my book
"Activity Systems Analysis", it's an extension of a
model that Vygotsky came up with in the 1920's. That,
on its own, while it tries to embrace the idea that a real
world situation is complex, it's still a simplified version
so that's something I struggle with, that no matter
what you do, as a qualitative researcher who embraced

the fact that the world is complex, you can't, as a
human being, in the storytelling, in the reporting of
your own work, there is no way to capture the entire
complexity. So that's something that I struggle with
myself if that makes sense.
Joe: It is difficult. In the Lean world, you think about the
five Whys, you find root cause, and that is very linear
and step by step. On the other hand, Lean is an
iterative process and tries to take the complex world in
a learn by doing environment. You could take either
side of lean and argue whether it can deal with a
complex environment or it's just a quantitative
analysis.
Lisa: And taking a lean approach is a powerful, attractive
thing because it can seemingly explain a lot of things.
At times, perhaps, you do need that kind of
explanation, making it the end all and be all. I do worry
about that.
Joe: I don't think it is. I think in Lean you look at things as
not having definitive answers. They're just
countermeasures because you know that they only
exist solving the problem for a while.
Lisa: And they acknowledge that there is still a chance of
error. There might be an underlying variable that it's
just not possible to see at this time that is affecting
everything that you're seeing, and that is something to,
that somehow in this taking of lean understanding of
the world seems to have made many units,
organizations, groups of people unable to be flexible
about, "Oh, it's time to change our thinking on this."
It's almost like it's not a problem of taking a Lean

approach. It's using that information, how to adapt as
things change.
Joe: I think that's very true. You have to realize that it is a
temporary measure, that you are just improving the
process as you see it today.
Lisa: Right. I think when you look at designers, again, part
of design thinking is that you are able to adapt real
quickly and whether you take a lean approach or
looking at the world in a complex way that you are able
to move again on your feet and realize that when an
explanation you had before doesn't work, it's not time
to fight for that explanation because you're trying to
create an experience or a product that not only will sell
but is meeting the needs of your clients.
Joe: How do you see design developing in the future? If you
had a crystal ball and five years from now when people
are talking about design, do you see it differently than
how it is perceived now?
Lisa: I would hope that with the current trend and movement
that, design is looked at more of a common language
across boundaries. I think part of the problem, and it's
something we discussed, design itself doesn't have a
content. I have the same experience in education
where technology itself doesn't have necessarily, or at
least no education, it's looked at as technology doesn't
have a content. It's a tool for delivering your content
message and something like that, typically, at least in
an educational system, gets put on the wayside or put
aside.
I would hope that this trend would make it more

acceptable for design as a field to be on its own or see
more interdisciplinary collaborations and people
realizing themselves, like my students' case that
they're actually engaging in design form more often
than they give themselves credit for and once they
realize that they are engaging in design, and they have
to be responsible designers.
Joe: What does the future hold for you?
Lisa: I don't know. I'm thinking that through myself. In
terms of my job, I have to engage in research.
Eventually, I think I want to be involved in more of the
design of the university programs, environments.
Program coordination right now is exciting and
interesting to me. I need to look into more
opportunities within the organization for more design
opportunities I could engage in.
Joe: What's the best way of, if anyone had some question
that they could reach out and contact you?
Lisa: E-mail would be the best way. It's
lisayamagatalynch@gmail.com. My name is fairly
unique so if you Google "Lisa Yamagata-Lynch", I'm the
only one that shows up. I have a website:
www.lisayamagatalynch.net. That'll be another easy
way to track me down.
Joe: Well, I would like to thank you very much for your
time. I appreciate it. This podcast will be available in
the Business901 blog site and the Business901 iTunes
store.
Lisa: Thank you so much.

About: Joe Dager is president of Business901, a firm specializing
in bringing the continuous improvement process to the sales and
marketing arena. He takes his process thinking of over thirty
years in marketing within a wide variety of industries and applies
it through Lean Marketing and Lean Service Design.
Visit the Lean Marketing Lab: Being part of this community will
allow you to interact with like-minded individuals and
organizations, purchase related tools, use some free ones and
receive feedback from your peers.
Joseph T. Dager
Business901
Phone: 260-918-0438
Skype: Biz901
Fax: 260-818-2022
Email: jtdager@business901.com
Website: http://www.business901.com
Twitter: @business901

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