Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

110The HDL Studio ModelThursday:Pulling Things TogetherFriday:SharingBy Wednesday, the backoffice will be buzzing withactivity, attempting to arrangemeetings and researching theStudio’s questions from theprevious days. The Studio isprobably requesting meetingswith additional stakeholdersor wishing to spend additionaltime with people they met onMonday or Tuesday. This is agood time to take an inventoryand set to work arranging thesevisits or meetings for the followingafternoon.Continuing the intense synthesisdevelopment that beganthe day before, Thursday isprobably hectic in the morning,reaching the point of maximumchaos just before lunch. By thatpoint the looming deadline isabout 24 hours away and thereis likely to be palpable apprehensionin the room. This is amoment that the Design Leadshould be prepared for, as theymight have to do some heavylifting to translate betweenvarious points of view and helpthe team organise their ideasinto one thesis.Thursday afternoon is agood time for the group todivide and conquer. Once thebig picture is starting to gel, theteams often split into smallergroups of two and focus onspecific hunches or conceptswhich later feed back into thesingle group presentation. Forthis reason, the end of Thursdaycan be the quietest point in theStudio as the team members aredeep in flow.Your role as host is toremind the Studio that they arehuman. Ask if people want coffee,remind them that there isan outside and it can be lovelyto go for a short walk, andignore any claims by the Studiothat they are not hungry. Orderin lunch, set it in the corner ofthe Studio space, and watch thesandwiches disappear.If at all possible it is best tohave the final review sessionnear the end of Friday. Thisgives the team an extra bit oftime to tune and represent theirideas—which they will be verythankful for. Friday morningis a good time to re-assess thework from Thursday and makeany last-minute changes. Asthe host of the Studio, you cangently provoke this by askingthe Studio to present anabbreviated ‘dry run’ of theirpresentation first thing in themorning.As quickly as possible, theteam needs to transition to producingthe documentation oftheir ideas and doing whateverpreparations they need to beable to present them articulately.This is a time for theDesign Lead to help the groupdivvy up presentation responsibilitiesand orchestrate thepresentation in a way that doesnot lose the richness of the syntheticframework. In a practicalsense this includes decidingwho will present the differentaspects of the synthesis, puttingtogether a narrative arc, individualsproducing diagramsor data visualisations with thehelp of the Studio assistants,and each person spending sometime to collect their thoughts.