Design Thinking regeneratively
Session with the student on the post-graduate programme of the Indian School of Development Management (Nov. 2019)
During a recent webinar with the students on the graduate programme of the Indian School of Development Management one of the questions posed was:
“What are the traits & characteristics that indivdiuals need to possess to practice Design Thinking?”
Afterwards I became aware that I answered not directly but instead offered a brief critique on the way that ‘design thinking’ has been somewhat over-sold in recent years. I also reflected on the critical importance of design in the transition towards regenerative cultures.
Design Thinking has been around since the early 1970s. Take a look at the book ‘The Universal Traveller: A Soft-Systems Guide to Creativity, Problem Solving, and the Process of Reaching Goals’ by Don Koberg and Jim Bagnall, first published in 1971. It contains most of the graphics and content that IDEO and other design consultancies simply popularized and repackaged many years later.
I believe that good design practitioners pay attention to the relationship between the worldview and belief systems we hold and how they influence our real and perceived needs as well as the way that we go about finding ways to meet these needs.
Design is all about this connection between worldview, needs and ways of meeting these needs. Design follows worldview and worldview follows design. We need to pay attention to the up-stream end of the design process: our worldview.
Design is where theory and practice meet. We need to questions whether what our designs are responding to are real or perceived needs. Do we actually need the design we are supposed to work on according to the client’s brief, or do we need to engage the client in rethinking the brief? Who else needs to be there? How does the place and its people inform the design? How does the design add value and systemic health to all involved in creating and using it?
Good regenerative design practices explores whether and why the proposed design is needed. Such practice focusses how the needs behind the design brief can be met in ways that serve the whole. Such practice is informed by the uniqueness of place and culture. It is place-sourced!
Deep listening into the story of place helps the designer to unveil the inherent potential of place and people. Such design fits into the local place and the local culture in ways that contribute to improving health and wholeness locally, regionally and globally.
More from the same webinar:
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Daniel Christian Wahl — Catalyzing transformative innovation in the face of converging crises, advising on regenerative whole systems design, regenerative leadership, and education for regenerative development and bioregional regeneration.
Author of the internationally acclaimed book Designing Regenerative Cultures
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