Recipes for Systemic Change - Helsinki Design Lab

36 Chapter*—See also:Bibliography > P330prototyping provide more practical guidance. We’ve includedsome pointers in the bibliography * .It can be helpful to work throughconscious phases of expansion andcontraction, leaning on intuitionand analysis at different moments.ExpansionIntuitionContractionAnalysisHoning IntuitionIntuition can be seen as pattern recognition: the ability toinstinctively recognize and understand a set of relationshipswithout conscious analysis. This is a critical capacity thathumans possess, enabling them to make sense of an otherwiseendlessly complex world.Having a broad variety of inputs is an important preconditionfor robust synthesis, but widely collecting insights,facts and data can be overwhelming if you constantlytry to make sense of them. Instead, it canbe helpful to work through conscious phases ofexpansion and contraction, leaning on intuitionand analysis at different moments.Starting with a hunch about what mightbe relevant, expansive phases of informationgathering involve the rapid acquisition of newinputs. Resisting the urge to rigidly structure your findingsenables you to endure a seemingly overwhelming pile ofinputs, knowing that you will have the time to organize andstructure the results. Upon reaching the point of diminishingreturns within a particular line of inquiry, the strategicdesigner steps back to take stock and begin building a morestructured mental model of how everything fits together.Doing so enables one to balance induction, where facts arediscovered before articulating a position, and deductionwhich starts with a hypothesis and then searches for factsthat validate it. Each are different ways of developing propositionsand codifying meaning, and each have their ownstrengths. Iterating through both provides a way to hone yourintuition about a given challenge.Phases of expansion and input gathering tend to happenquickly and are driven by intuition and hunches, whereasphases of categorization and contraction are led by analysisand will tend to require more deliberation. By workingthrough multiple phases of expansion and contraction abalance may be struck between the speed of an intuitiveapproach and the rigour of an analytical one, with each techniquereducing the risk of the other. This cyclical approachallows the iterations to happen quickly. Early cycles can beused to explore issues in a cursory way, enabling a more intel-