The co-design of organizational artifacts and their role in articulating the aesthetics of organizational culture

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the field of organisational aesthetics from a design management perspective. To do this, this paper will provide rich insights into the role design plays in understanding, shaping, and reinforcing organisational culture, in a way that helps organisations build and sustain their innovative capacity. By describing a range of case studies, which form part of a 3-year research project entitled “Creating Cultures of Innovation”, this paper will i) outline “formally designed” organisational artefacts, which could be viewed as an expression of the formal culture of an organisation; ii) describe how co-designed organisational artefacts developed during this innovation research project can be seen to uncover and shape a changing organisational culture that encourages an innovative mindset pertaining to the company’s organisational development; and iii) how recognizing this activity as design could help organisations capitalize on design’s role in innovation. For example, from this study, the formally-designed artefacts that currently exist in the organisation (e.g. organisational charts, business cards, job descriptions), and the co-designed artefacts which were formed as a result of collaborative design interventions (e.g. the Yarn Journey , collage, learning spaces) give management and staff the ability to better understand current culture, develop strategies for innovation, and embed an innovative culture in their organisation, moving forward. In addition, if designers and managers are able to better articulate design’s value, this could help designers better bring this benefit to businesses, and help businesses “ripple out” this behavior so that it permeates the organisation and gains support

Creative Ideas

This book describes some of the processes, activities and approaches we have developed over the last 18 months as part of the Creative IDEAS knowledge exchange project undertaken by ImaginationLancaster, a creative research lab at Lancaster University. It also articulates the philosophy we are developing around design and its engagement with knowledge exchange. Our approach has a few defining characteristics: - We design knowledge exchange, using both new and well proven design processes and methods. We facilitate knowledge exchange activity that responds to a specific context and so is different every time, rather than adopting standard approaches and mechanisms. - We research human to human interaction (knowledge exchange). Our activities are informed and inform academic research in design, management and knowledge exchange. - We have no interest in multiple delivery of an approach beyond one or two iterations to hone and establish the effectiveness of an approach. We do not occupy the same position in the knowledge exchange ecology as consultants, rather we write the papers and books that consultants draw from. - We use visualisation as one of our core strategic activities in the development and also the delivery of activities with communities, academics, and most of all, business. This places us at an important crossroads where academic research and business interact to create impact. We aim to remove the tensions between excellent research and highly effective business engagement, developing both in a mutually supporting virtuous circle of reflection and application.

A collaborative approach to exploring the future of Cancer treatment and care in relation to Precision Medicine: A design perspective.

The Precision Medicine and the Future of Cancer project was jointly conceived by the Innovation School at Glasgow School of Art and the Institute of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Graduating year Product Design students from the Innovation School were presented with a challenge-based project to produce a vision of the future based on current trends that relate to Precision Medicine(PM) and Cancer treatment. This project involved working closely with scientists, clinicians, patients, industry and academic professionals from Glasgow University, staff at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Clinical Innovation Zone, staff at Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Patient Representatives and external design experts from Studio AndThen and GOODD design consultancy. The objective of this project was to investigate, in both analytical and speculative ways, future forms and functions of cancer treatment and care in relation to Precision Medicine, to develop future scenarios and design artefacts, services, and the experiences associated with them. One of the most significant societal shifts currently taking place within the field of PM is the transformation around what it means to be a patient and a professional working within this context. The public’s role is developing beyond once-passive patients into stakeholders valued within the medical industry and healthcare sector for their participation in clinical trials, and contribution towards policy-making and decision-making committees. This new dynamic is changing the traditional patient-doctor relationship and challenging the hegemony of medical practice at an institutional level. The impetus for this shift is relentless technological acceleration and increased scientific research, in particular driven by advances in PM. This project asked students to consider what will happen in a cancer landscape ten years from now, where PM has evolved to the extent that new forms of medical practice, cancer treatment and care transform how we interact with each other, with professionals and the world around us. The brief gave students the opportunity to reflect on the underlying complexities regarding the future of health, technological acceleration, post-capitalism and human agency, to envision a future world context, develop it as an experiential exhibit, and produce the designed products, services and experiences for the people who might live and work within it. The project was divided into two sections: The first was a collaborative stage where groups of students were assigned a specific area of focus from Social, Technological, Economic, Ethical, Educational, Political, Legal, Ecological [STEEEPLE]. These groups focused on researching and exploring their specific lenses and gathering as much information and understanding while working with external experts to further their knowledge. This group stage culminated in an exhibition of the collaborative understanding of what the future could look like in 10 years from now, after exploring the possible consequences of current actions. The second stage saw students explore their individual response to the world that had been defined in the first stage. Each student had their own response to the research by iteratively creating a design outcome that was appropriate to the subject matter. This culminated in each student having created a design product/service/experience relating to the future scenario. A full report (Project Process Journal [PPJ]) is included within the repository of each student which breaks down their process of designing and the outcome they have designed. The project aims to tackle the emerging possibilities where medical professionals and design can collaborate, to create a future where forms of medical practice are more preventative and are more appropriate for an aging population now and into the future. The deposited materials are arranged as follows: Readme files - two readme files relate to stage one and stage two of the project as outlined above. Overview poster - gives a visual overview of the structure and timeline of the project. Data folders - the data folders for stage one of the project are named for the lens through which each group viewed possible futures. The data folders for stage two of the project are named for the individual students who conducted the work

The use of design thinking to enable human-centred innovation within the organisation

Scholars and researchers are currently looking into the ways in which design thinking and design methods serve the organisation in reorienting and changing itself around the needs of the people they serve [1,2,3,4]. However, there are still few examples that allow us to gain insights of how this works in practice. This paper explores how design thinking can enable and contribute to the process of change implementation throughout the organisation building on insights and lessons learned from a recent project, in which design in the organisation was a core focus

Organisations As Artefacts – Identifying Design Characteristics in Temporary Organizations

This paper presents findings from an ongoing research project that is based in an understanding of organizations as artefacts. The overall research aim of the project is to provide insights into the hidden design activities and behaviours through which members of an organization contribute to its shape. Looking at an organisation as an artefact on the one hand acknowledges the human-made process that brings organisations into existence (Rollinson 2008) and the possibility that an organisation is a product of human action (Junginger 2008). On the other hand it raises questions with regard to the core properties of this artefact, as it is rather different from other artefacts of physical or digital nature. One of the paradoxes is that an organisation is made by but at the same time ‘consists’ of humans. This paper then communicates specific observations and findings gained during the analytical phase of this research and responds to one specific objective: to identify characteristics of organizations when considered designed artefacts. At the core of this research is not the organization of design processes but the hidden activities that shape an organization and the question whether and how we can better understand these as design. By eliciting core aspects of design from literature and taking these as indicators to be applied to the case study, I will evaluate the organizational side of a building project as designed artefact. This should enable the identification of shared characteristics and nuances that this perspective can provide. As this developmental paper draft is restricted in its extend, I will place an emphasis on the observations and findings, less on the theoretical background and the concept of organizations as socially designed artefact (Herfurth 2013). Research that looked into emergent and hidden forms of design has been conducted by Gorb and Dumas (1987) in which they conclude that design activities in organizations happen without being called ‘design’ and are not necessarily carried out by people called ‘designers’. Little research has moved further into this direction. Discussions around aspects of organizations that form part of the artificial and designed world, that I refer to, derive from concepts articulated by human-centred design scholars (Krippendorff 2005; Junginger 2008) and were taken up by the management and organizational studies community (Jelinek et al. 2008; Michlewski 2008; Pandza and Thorpe 2010)

Organizations as Artefact – a Design Inquiry into the Social Activities that Shape Organizations

This paper summarises my PhD research project and was presented at the Doctoral Workshop during the British Academiy of Management Conference 2014. Abstract: This research’s purpose is to further the knowledge about organisations understood as artefacts and how this can help the academic community to better understand the properties of that artefact in contrast to other perceptions of organisations (as living systems, closed systems, mechanical, created by founder and influenced by environment). This is not so much a contrasting perspective, as it is a complementary perspective, adding to the many understandings of organizations that scholars have articulated

Shaping the socially defined artefact:a design perspective

This conceptual working paper communicates findings from a research project which is designed to further the understanding of consequences for design when organisations themselves are understood as artefacts. I set out to learn from real-world practice what it means to shape a social artefact – an organisation. Based in notions of organizations as human made artefacts and the extended application of design to social contexts, this research inquires into ways in which stakeholders participate in processes of organising. Firstly I will give a brief overview of the dilemma we face when defining an organisation as artefact with specific, design relevant attributes. Secondly, this artefact is changing towards less clearly defined structures (Balogun & Johnson 2004; Taylor 2011). As I will refer to below, these changes are relevant when considering the relationship between design and the organisation. Scholars have proven that design and design thinking can help inform and shape core functions of an organisation, like a.o. management (Boland & Collopy 2004), strategy (Liedtka 2004) or change (Junginger 2008). Still, it seems that these debates assume a rather monolithic understanding of organisations. The research I am presenting is qualitative and makes use of a mix of methods within this paradigm. Two case studies provided a real-world context of distributed and emergent organisational structures. Based on assumptions derived from an initial phase of grounded data analysis, I am using two specific themes to find out why and how people design the social activity of shaping an organisation. Motivation and intentionality are used as design-relevant concepts to identify dimensions of design in the social process of shaping organisations. This thematic approach to data analysis is based on notions within Human-Centred Design theory (Krippendorff, 2008)

Organizations as Artefacts: Design Characteristics

This poster presents findings from an ongoing research project into an understanding of organizations as artefacts. The overall research aim of the project is to provide insights into the hidden design activities and behaviours through which members of an organization contribute to its shape. Small sample qualitative multi case study research (Stake 2005) was chosen as research strategy. This poster focuses on a retrospective study of a building project that took place at a higher education institution in the UK. Analysis was partially grounded, sympathising with facets of Grounded Theory represented by authors such as Glaser (1978) and Charmaz (2006). An approach was chosen that prioritises an understanding emergent from the data itself rather than applying a specific concept to identify themes accordingly. However, fundamental indicators of design found in literature were used to elicit and discuss findings. The table on the right hand side shows definitions of design indicators (aspects of design change) deducted from literature and variations elicited from data analysis. These form parts of the three characteristics of design change in temporary organisation visualised in the section below: 1. transformiing existing into preferred configurations, 2. emergence of vision and preferred state, 3. temporary organization as continuously evolving design

Challenging Traditional KT: Co-designing Innovative Approaches to Knowledge Exchange

This presentation was given at the IKT Conference 2011 in Sheffield. I presented findings from an ongoing research project called 'IDEAS at Daresbury'. 'The IDEAS programme aimed at improving and maintaining economic performance of participating businesses by delivering new and specifically tailored knowledge to 40 high-tech SMEs situated at Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus and its wider network of companies in the region and incite the exchange of knowledge between companies

From User-Centred to Stakeholder-Oriented Service Design: Implications for the Role of Service Designers and Their Education Based on an Example from the Public Sector

This working paper reflects on an inquiry into a current service design practice, by describing resulting insights into the changing role of service designers and outlines implications for service design education. It is a working paper that results from an ethnographic research engagement in which a researcher from the Glasgow School of Art inquired into the practice of a public-sector service design agency – FutureGov. During a three-week ethnographic immersion, a researcher observed and shadowed FutureGov practice, its engagement with clients and stakeholders and conducted one-to-one interviews. Resulting observations suggest an extension and partial replacement of the user- and human-centred design focus with an emphasis on the organizational and wider stakeholders involved in a service, its design, its strategic and policy underpinnings and its implementation and delivery. The specific characteristic of this development towards a stakeholder-centric design focus, which is not exclusive of user-centred and co-design attitudes, are further described in the paper and are discussed in relation to scholarly debates that promote varying relationships between design and organisations. Further, requirements for designers when practicing in these stakeholder-centric design contexts are articulated here as part of work in progress, as a suggestion for further discussion and articulation. Observations suggest that as service design has matured, user-centred design has become an established approach to service redesign and innovation that a growing number of organisations now understand and adopt. Although there is still convincing and explaining required to communicate the value of user-centred design to some organisations, others have become increasingly interested in how their organization has to change in order to enable and support the delivery of service innovations effectively. With this comes an interest in questions of deep organizational implementation and transformation, and parameters for successful and effective delivery of services, requiring designers to organize around and for service delivery together with service providers. This development is reflected in the briefs that service design projects are based on and the dynamics that designers face in their daily work environment. As mentioned in the call for this track, agencies from the digital sector and from the management consulting sector have turned to and adopted service design methodologies as well as design thinking and FutureGov can be considered one of them. By observing a digital agency that has profoundly incorporated service design into its business, this research outlines challenges for service designers when operating in a context of organisational transformation around digital service innovation, but also the opportunities that the involved relationships and conversations provide. As service designers become increasingly concerned with and integrated into the organizational context that they try to change, the conversations they have and the relationships they form, as well as the decision-making paradigms they are exposed to, change. Anticipated implications for education respond to the resulting modified understanding of the role of service designers and the relationships they create, are exposed to and might feel ill-prepared to manage. This paper then firstly gives a real-world example of the deep integration of service designers in a client organization, a council, it continues by describing the interactions and relationships that service designers have with this organization and then identifies potential for research and education by discussing these findings in relation to service design education using the example of product and service design courses at the Glasgow School of Art and discourses from literature