Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

16 Chapter*—A note from the authors:Mentioning Alexander here is prescient, as hewas one of the guests at Helsinki Design LabGlobal 1968**, a conference that marked thebeginning of Sitra's relationship with forwardthinkingdesign practice. Also in attendancewere Finnish design leaders such as Kaj Frankas well as international luminaries includingVictor Papanek and Buckminster Fuller.**Originally called "Teollisuus YmpäristöTuotesuunnittelu"The next set of tools is prototyping. This practice hasspread far beyond its origins in preparing products for manufacture.Today we have not only rapid prototyping of things,using new tools such as 3D printers, but also a new generationof prototyping approaches that allow fast, collaborativecreation of systems and services. With all of them comes theidea that the best way to learn is to do, and that rather thanspending years perfecting a new service model or strategy thefastest way to improve it is to do it on a small scale, and forreal. This has always been the way in some design practices,and architects such as Christopher Alexander* have longadvocated this approach for buildings too—using mock-upsof structures to see whether they really do feel right. But thesemethods are fresh and radical in other settings, such as publicservices.The third set of tools which are being creatively adaptedcome from systems mapping and thinking, which focusesattention to connections and causes. Systems thinkingprompts us to ask the right question rather than taking questionsat face value. What, for example, is the real problem ofnon-attendance at school? Is it a failure on the part of schoolsthemselves, of families or of young people? Do the real causeslie in the fact that lessons are boring, or that popular culturedevalues hard work?Getting the questions sharply focused is the necessarycondition for getting the answers right, and, in general, themore we can think systemically rather than in institutionaland disciplinary silos the more likely it is that we will achieveresults.Sitra has applied design thinking in many fields, andhelped make Finland one of the world's leaders in designthinking and practice. The Helsinki Design Lab Studio Modelis a fascinating experiment that points the way forward. Ituses a range of tools from design to achieve breakthroughs,first in thinking and then in action.I like very much the principles it uses: one is a commitmentto time. Many conferences feel dull and overlong butare actually too short to seriously think and consider complexproblems. Too often they finish just when we’re beginning tosee things in a new way.I like the idea of locking participants in, metaphoricallyif not literally. Many conferences like using ‘open space’techniques in which it is always acceptable to leave. This canlead to creativity. But too often the result is superficiality,recycling opinions and ideas but without much progress.Helsinki Design Lab tries to counter this.