Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

Appendix327Some Important Abilities of the Strategic DesignerWe are often asked for advice in identifying strategicdesigners, for instance as Studio leads. We look for individualswho work at the intersections: individuals who arewell skilled in their particular trade but have experience,fascinations, and interests in other fields—and apply thismindset to their work. Whether industrial design, graphicdesign, architecture, or any another field, we are looking for ademonstrated ability to integrate various forms of knowledge,to steward a project from conception through high qualityimplementation, and to use visualisation to help see new possibilities.Included below is an incomplete list of additionalabilities and habits that help us identify a strategic designer.Embrace ConstraintsUnderstanding what constraintsexist within a givenarea can be very helpful asa strategic designer seeksopportunities for redesign. Itis a way to help you chooseyour battles. By being flexibleenough to accept givenconstraints on less importantissues you reserve energyand effort for those areas thathave the potential to deliverreal value.Be PersistentOnce the issues have beenunpacked, root causesdiscovered, and propositionsiterated to refinement, thestrategic designer will have astrong understanding of whataspects of their propositionare critical and which are lessimportant. Reap the rewardsof this investment in having astrong understanding of theproblem space by defendingpropositions that have a highpotential for return on investment.In other words, do notgive up when you know youare onto something.IterateStrategic designers do nottreat ideas as precious. Rather,they develop propositionsthrough continual cycles ofexploration and refinement,allowing for the testing ofvariants. Often times workingunder an artificial timeconstraint and holding oneselfto an arbitrary number ofiterations can generate amomentum that leads to newand better ideas.TranslateTranslating between differentperspectives and assumptionsenables the strategic designerto act as the intermediarybetween disparate ideas,viewpoints and even goals.Being able to translate inthis manner is an essentialprecondition for being able tointegrate many things.Make PropositionsModel and PrototypeDesign has the highest return Hand in hand with iteration ison investment when used to the notion of using it to testmake sense of new conditions assumptions and propositions.or take action in a new context.In these situations there ways to de-risk propositions byA strategic designer exploresis seldom much precedent to testing them through partialrely on and the ability to make prototyping or by modellingpropositions is a key way in and simulation. This includeswhich to drive the conversationforward. In abstract and role playing, as well asthe use of scenarios, games,conversations, asking ‘what limited roll-outs of systemsif?’ can become a powerful in the familiar style of alpha,mechanism for consensus as beta, or 1.0, 2.0 etc. Theseit enables intangible ideas to mechanisms create virtuousbe evaluated through concrete cycles of self learning. Theexpressions.sooner one begins makingmodels or prototypes, theLeverage Intuitionbetter.To benefit from iterative work,the cycles have to happen witha certain degree of urgency.Working in this way oftenmeans using your intuition tomake decisions that are notable to be fully vetted out.Remember that subsequentiterations act as a check andbalance to reduce the risk ofintuitive decisions that mayprove to be wrong.