Master Interweaving

There is a debate raging whether design thinking is the same as design. A quick overview of the field reveals quite a few popular design and service thinking approaches that to a degree are similar. They all present a graphical overview of a simple method with 5-8 steps including problem finding and solution creation.

But is that all there is? Is the design so streamlined or is it more behind the surface?

Experienced designers, design researchers and proponents of related approaches such as creative problem solving, innovation, and change making point to many more features of the design missing from the popular brands of design thinking. There is also Designerly Thinking.

How can we address this topic without ending in a squabble and corporate warfare?

"In-front of the Curtain vs. Behind the curtain"

Well, the answer typically depends on who is asked since there are many views and positioning of others. Amongst the opinionated, we find the following roles or professions.     •    Business executives, managers, and specialists
    •    Designers
    •    Business Designers
    •    Service Designers
    •    Business Architects (BA
    •    Enterprise Architects (EA)
    ⁃    System Architect, Solution Architect, IT architect. Data Architect, ...
    •    Building Architects
    ⁃    Architectural Designers
    •    Engineering Designers

Regarding Building Architects most agree on what they do, which is not surprising since the profession has thousands of years of practice to rely on. Also, building architects are primarily focused on creating artifacts and not so much on dynamic and VUCA socio-technical-economical organizations.

There are newcomers to the field, Business and Enterprise architects that work hard to position themselves in relation to others and also between themselves.
EA and BA often seem to position themselves as part of the business or strategic leadership teams although it seems as if business executives, in general, don't agree.
Business designers and agile practitioners often position BA and EA as a matter of technology as systems, which is what most EA seems to be concerned with.

One common view held by BA and EA is that they arrive before designers on the scene and designers do their work within the architecture. This is common in (IT) engineering processes.
However, when it comes to the design of the business, organizations, and products business executives seem to prefer business and (service) designers to be the primary responsible.
Maybe this is partially explained by the differences in toolboxes where BA and EA use assumptions closed and fixed frameworks in their job while designers use open-ended toolboxes suited to the challenges at hand.

Another area of dissonance is the common view held by BA and EA that architects work with 'abstractions', the 'what' and 'high level', and that designers work with the 'concrete', the 'how' and 'low level'.

There is an interesting relation between design and dance.

In dance beginners start out by learning basic patterns. Just as in the case with design thinking and service design where the simple and appealing 5, 6 or 7-step processes from books, universities and famous companies lure participants into enjoying design. Both beginner dancers and designers have fun and enjoy the experiences, believing they are doing great. When they progress further they become intermediary dancers and designers. But here the teachers and mentors suddenly change attitudes and want the participants to break free of the learned patterns and to mix-n-match what they learn with a bit of enthusiasm and creativity. But why? Because dance and design are not achieved by repeating basic patterns. It's about moving and using all that is in the participants to create the best results. What about you? Do you follow the steps in process given to you? ... or do you move and create your best results?

The Interweaving practices and the books of knowledge are being improved by better documentation and graphics.

Books of Knowledge

We believe so.

We are now actively practicing and researching a fusion and synthesis with several (better) practices, to gain experiences and data points. The result is - “interweaved Design Thinking”, which aims to boost organisational performance of design thinking in transformation and innovation efforts. Through an Interweaving process we are incorporating successful parts from management, performance management, agile, reflection, learning and unlearning, design science research, impact making and Interweaving itself. We intend to share the results of the research efforts as soon as they become available.

What if we ... shift ... the perspective from a traditional architects centric world view to human and work centric world views?

What if we empower people to participate with their perspectives based on what is most important to them in the work they do with other people?

See the Article Here

The Capability Ignorance Challenge is a tough challenge for makers of capability maps.

It is a test of ignorance. It is a test of the knowledge of what capabilities are included and excluded in a capability map.

The Capability Ignorance Challenge
What capabilities are excluded and why?

Article: The Capability Ignorance Challenge

Talking about someones capabilities can be quite useful. In many cases it is clear that it is "the possibility and capacity to .." that is talked about, but in many cases its is the twin of the capability that is referred to.
The question becomes - What are you talking about, the capability or its twin? So, what is a capability and what is the twin?

See Capability Twins

Power up your designs using the Affordance Canvas to make the most the possibilities in the age of crisis and Corona. The Affordance Canvas is a result of the effort to enrich design thinking using Interweaving. How:
- After the team has formulated a problem point-of-view and found a solution, the team turns around and explores the affordance of the solution. Here the affordance is all the possibilities that a solution enables or facilitates. - This is a creative exercise that encourages out-of-the-box thinking. What can be done in excess of the intended functionality of the solution? - Once the new possibilities have been uncovered the problem point-of-view should be revisited. Is the chosen problem the right problem framing or are there more profitable problems to address that makes the most of the solution? Maybe there are reasons to reframe the problem to arrive at an even better position for the future. An example of an affordance are the many possibilities made available by AI or deep learning algorithms. Here, new ways of working can be found that looks for a solution. Maybe even old solutions from the historical garbage can be revitalised for the problems of today?

#interweaving # designthinking #businessdesign

Diving deep into a subject is important for anyone that aspire to give first class advice.  We are currently engaged in research and innovation activities in a select number of themes. - Design, together with agility, has become important for many companies, state agencies and NGO's.
We are engaged in research that aim to enrich the use design thinking as an agile approach or method for projects and programs. The focus is on the parts that are often missing in design efforts: the fit within the organisation and with the society, clear definitions of change and impact for all relevant interested parties, as well as how proposed solutions are sustainable and interweaved with the society, environment and economy. - Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an idea that originates from the business information system domain. EA is known to have significant problems making a lasting impact outside the IS/IT department.
We are engaged in research that aim to reimagine the idea of architecture so that it can become a natural, complementary and valued part of business and strategy development, operational concept and organisational development, etcetera, without the historical baggage from its origin.

Now you will find us at Impact Hub.

Focusing on making Change and Impact with Design and Interweaving. "The world is changing. We are on the transitioning team. Create impact with us."

This is the second theme with the fusion of Design Thinking and Interweaving.

What would happen if we use Design Thinking to Reimagine the traditions of Enterprise Architecture (EA)? 

Where would we end up? What are the problems to solve? Are they the same as the EA tradition prescribes? Are there other problems that need solving? Is the solution the same?

In a series of “What if we …” design steps I intend to illustrate the power of interweaved Design Thinking  (iDT) on the initial challenge - Why does the tradition of EA have so much problems outside the application on IS/IT? 

The focus of the series is Ideation.

Enjoy!

I have just come back from presenting two novel techniques from the Interweaving and Concept Development practices at the VMBO 2019 research conference.

These techniques enrich the value of information products, canvases, diagrams, and models.

In a later post Ill share the techniques and why they are important. But here is a teaser.

 ...that is lean and mean as opposed to rigid and comprehensive, open as opposed to closed and predefined …

and meet the modern needs and insights of agility, experimentation, fail forward, build-learn-measure, growth hacking, design, open questions and learning, critical thinking, …

for

• modern knowledge workers,
• digital transformations,
• investors and aspiring startups,
• large companies,
• strategy execution,
• organisational and technical integration,
• Industry 4.0,
• innovation journeys,
• and much more.

The Concept Development practice plays an important role by grounding and anchoring people, knowledge, and discussions.

The grounding and anchoring are critical for describing, thinking and working with strategies, business and operational models and other kinds of knowledge.

Take the example of describing a Need, something when  dysfunctional would cause a negative outcome. 

Before one can describe a 'Need’ then one must first be clear on what is needed.  It is rather meaningless to talk about a ‘need for a football’ if one does not know what a football is. 

The same applies in many cases, one must know what “Marketing Management” is before one can discuss a “Marketing Management Capability”.

The Concept Development practice delivers knowledge that can ground and anchor many kinds of entities.

Key deliverables of the Concept Development practice are situated knowledge and learning.

This knowledge comes in many forms, not only as as powerpoints, models, or documents. The knowledge is anchored and situated in peoples daily work, their interests, questions, decisions, actions and other information needs, to be relevant and useful.

All forms of knowledge are important to create and harvest.

The Concept Development and Interweaving practices can be used in varied circumstances.

These circumstances  are characterised by many people, many ideas and intentions, many work practices, many perspectives, complications, VUCA, variations, interconnections, etc. That is, where there is a need to weave people and things together over time, place and boundaries.

The aim of both the Concept Development and Interweaving practices is to use art, craft, and science to unlock, realise and optimise the value of Togetherness. This makes them a good choice for empowering journey’s and efforts. Here are a few examples.

Introducing the Concept Development practice, featuring Interweaving - a missing ingredient in digital transformation efforts.

Digital transformation, agile projects, and strategy execution are all complicated and risky. 

The Concept Development and Interweaving practices provide a much needed help that interconnects people, work and things, in order to boost asset utilization, and release business results and values.

The practices …

Maestro Henry Mintzberg provides an example of Boxology in the “Manageable and Unmanageable Managing” article.

Boxology is ideas, ways and principles that frame the idea of the Box. A  Box represent an important Mockafjong, which is a beautiful thingymajig. It is something wondrous, fascinating and important to talk about.

Boxology was created as a result from ironical and empirical research. It is often used and considered as important in practices such as, management, business analysis, business architecture, and enterprise architecture. There, colorful boxes appear in powerpoint presentations, analysis, and diagrams to capture the audiences interests.

BOXOLOGY