Design thinking, wicked problems and institutioning change: a case study

ABSTRACT

The popular rise in interest in design thinking has generated new opportunities for codesign approaches to be applied to domains outside the traditional province of design disciplines, such as education, social justice, and healthcare services. This creates opportunities to revisit some of the original connections between design research and wicked problems, and to reflect on what is lost, and what stands to be gained, by the sustained application of design-based approaches to intractable, multi-stakeholder problems encountered in other cooperative design arenas. In this paper we discuss a case in which we sought to redesign fundamental aspects of the common law process by which workers seek damages from their employer as a result of injuries sustained at work. We use the case as a basis to critically discuss the promise and challenges of codesigning our way out of genuinely wicked problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Design thinking
• wicked problem
• codesign
• common law
• workplace injuries

Acknowledgments

The research reported here was approved by The University of Queensland human ethics committee (application HE001187); informed consent was obtained from each person prior to their participation in the project. We are grateful to the stakeholders from each side of this issue for their participation, and willingness to explore new perspectives and methods. The research project was made possible by Workcover Qld by virtue of their interest in adopting codesign approaches to the common law claims process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Johansson-Sköldberg, Woodilla, and Çetinkaya (2013) have usefully distinguished these two senses by referring to the academic as ‘designerly thinking’ (presumably after Cross 2001), and the applied as ‘design thinking’.

2. We would note that the historical academic foci in design research with respect to designerly ways of working has tended to emphasise aspects and skills that are largely unique to and partially definitive of, traditional design disciplines such as architecture, industrial or graphic design. And while this makes sense, it has also come at a cost. Relatively speaking, it has been fairly late in the piece that design research began to appreciate social and sociological dimensions of design practice (Bucciarelli 1994; Cuff 1991; Lloyd and Busby 2001; Minneman 1991), and it has only been recently that researchers have begun to systematically interrogate the micro political and social practices that constitute the mundane, ordinary, work of multi-person design projects (Lloyd and Busby 2001; Matthews and Heinemann 2012; McDonnell 2012; Oak 2011). Much, but not all, of this work occurs intersubjectively, among stakeholders: in talk, in physical action, in gesture and in shared orientation to the social, sequential and material settings of design. These (social) practices are not necessarily unique to design as a professional or disciplinary activity, and there is a substantial body of work that remains to be done to unpack these more common or ordinary aspects of design practice. Much design work is conducted through talk, and through reasonably universal structures and competencies of social interaction that are enacted in politically charged environments. Insofar as design is understood as a social practice, then, there have been significant gains made by packaging ‘design thinking’ as a collection of socio-material activities that can (and must) be done together – with fellow designers, other colleagues, users, customers, stakeholders, etc. So, design thinking’s admittedly narrow distillation of historical design research to structured social activities (perhaps most visibly encapsulated in IDEO’s methods cards) – in the most prescriptive instances involving tasks, time limits, structures and clear conceptual/material outputs – has benefits. For instance, it brings people together around design concerns. Being social in nature and topically about designed futures, the process confronts participants with alternative stakeholders’ understandings and possibilities. It introduces conflicting perspectives that make those viewpoints more difficult to sidestep, marginalise or ignore, and materialises them as design issues.

3. Dorst has more recently acknowledged some similar limitations in his reflections on the Kings Cross case, noting that the music festival frame excludes residents, for instance; and pointing out that to create lasting change designers need to think beyond the local project and account for broader social and power structures (Dorst and Watson 2020). The revised model they present still foregrounds reframing as key to strategic transformation, however, rather than more agonistic participatory processes as we will shortly suggest are essential in actually addressing the wickedness of such situations.

4. Rittel’s legacy includes identifying these design challenges and articulating principles that a new generation of design methods would need to follow, rather than specifying new methods.

5. While we teach a course in design thinking at our own institution, our approach to design is more heavily informed by our experience in the Scandinavian tradition of participatory design. It was our connection to design thinking, however, that invited this particular opportunity to collaborate with WorkCover.

6. Some of our participant lawyers had previously been colleagues at the same firm, though were now on ‘opposite sides’.

7. An explanation of the legal change is currently available here: https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/laws-and-compliance/workers-compensation-laws/guidance-materials/protection-for-apologies-and-expressions-of-regret

8. Although as we write this, WorkCover’s design project is ongoing.