My thesis research claims that a visual tool can enable collaborative working teams within an organization to identify patterns in complex social system.

Research Questions

The complexity of a social system-multilayered interactions be- tween people and systems- often results in surprising interac- tions and unintended consequences. Research shows that this complexity can be better understood if we look for patterns, connections and causal relationships in a social system and that can lead us to planning for a knowable future. Since the corpo- rate sector is accountable for two-thirds of global trade they are more capable of handling the complex issues that our plan- et faces today- declining economy, melting icebergs, etc., they play a critical role in solving these challenges while building their businesses. Since our mental resources for visual inven- tion, as embodied in visual mental imagery, were originally bet- ter adapted for perceiving and acting on the immediate present, than for imagining the future, the purpose here is the develop- ing of a visual tool to understand complexity in a social system.

Adding Context

I identified PRIIO, a product innovation firm based in Indianapolis since it is an innovation firm in which they work as a collaborative team. Also, they have their own innova- tion process that they follow in order to execute their projects. I divided my research in a basic timeline dividing them by i. observation and analysis, ii. Link insights into a framework and identify opportunity space, iii. Ideation, prototyping and feedback. First, a research methodology was developed to understand the collaboration styles of a working team within PRIIO, their ways of interaction, their ways of following their process during the initial stages, their usage of tools and/or visual tools and if at all they iden- tify patterns during any stage of their process.

How might a visual tool enable collaborative working teams within an organization to identify patterns in a complex social system?

Based on this analysis, the focus of my thesis shifted from identifing patterns in a complex social system of the consumers to the complex social system within PRIIO's team.

Data Collection

Survey: A few members of the team, the engineer and the industrial designer participated in filling out a questionnaire and in making and ar- tifact that will help the researcher to understand their experience during the initial stages of their design process. It was important to take note of their interactions during their initial phases of the process that would help to define the possible opportunities. The questionnaire given to both the participants consisted of brief questions concerning their disciplines, their area of specialization, and with open ended questions, such as reflections on working together in a team and how they learnt about a problem.

Participatory research method: They were asked to explain their flow of interaction in the initial phases of the design process until the time when they were ready with the perceived solutions or recommendations. Also, they were given the choice to visually map out the flow of their interaction within the team through participatory research meth- ods; a generative tool was used in this case in order to elicit visual responses. Using such stimulants, participants were asked to vi- sually make a map of their experiences; they were given materi- als like post-its, white paper sheets, pens, markers, stickers. They could also simply write and not draw or make if they felt like. They were given the freedom to add their own drawing or sketches or anything else that they felt relevant. The visual responses of the participants were aimed to reflect their engagement and inspira- tion for their experience. This informed the memories of the process that they claimed to follow. These visual responses also reflected the participants own use of visual communication methods. At the completion of this activity, there was a discussion on what they just did and what they thought about it. The data collected included 2 filled up questionnaires and the two artifacts that the participants had created on their own.

Data Analysis

The flow of interaction of the two experiences was abstracted using their in- formation that they shared. Again, the data collected was abstract- ed into diagrams to provide a visual perspective that allowed for the emergence of an opportunity. The flow of interaction between the team members was highly interactive and that gave way to relationships and interactions across all the team members and the process. The participants only offered the individual perspective of each of them but their description of the interactions through visuals included the interactions between all the team members as well as the corresponding process that they all went through.

It was found out that the team needed a way to define their problem clearly by using fact finding as a methodology. A frame- work was developed in order to help the team clearly define a problem. Also, since the products they deal with are usually complex technical products the challenges that they face are usually complex. And in order to understand the underlying complexity of a problem, they need to identify patterns by us- ing an appropriate method. Hence, a process was developed which could take them through the problem defining process.

Solution Framework

A tool was designed and developed and tested with the team at PRIIO using the process. The first step of uncovering as many facts was accompanied by a set of flip cards that contained stimulants to their thinking by asking questions, example, why is this a problem for you,or what would you have if this problem were solved, and also, who, what, when , where and why. These helped in getting them started. The participants were able to uncover the facts and identify pat- terns out of them. Another point to be noted was that the group consensus brought about fruitful discussions which helped the team in understanding their problem and hence defining it clearly.

Primary and Secondary Research

We identified 3 essential capabilities for designers: collaboration skills, pattern-finding and managing complexity (sense making through understanding relationships and building frameworks).

In order to solve the complex problem, we used Simplex, an 8-Step process of three-phase process of creative problem solving and innovative thinking to help us solve the complex problem, uncover fresh opportunities and take them to action.

Problem Finding

We held brainstorming sessions to find out of what we knew, what we wanted to know, what we thought we didn't know about environment and picked Disposability/Sustainable energy/Sustainable Agriculture as our 3 problem spaces.

Fact Finding

We decided on Sustainable energy as our problem space depending on our personal interest. Following that we found gaps, made connections and found patterns using the infirmation we gathered through secondary research. And also used lenses and perspectives to translate the information and make a new understanding.

We now created a survey to help us understand what people know about sustainable energy. And that was when we decided to focus our problem space in Indiana.

Problem Definition

Using the key facts, we diverged on defining an appropriate problem statement. We did this by creating a narrative and a hierarchy of the relationships and themes we pointed out after the brainstorming sessions, and created a sort of strategy and tactical ideas that helped us in further defining our problem and framing it to find the most appropriate challenge statement.

"How might we help Indianapolis homeowners understand the cost- benefit of home power generation?"

Idea Finding

Understanding that our audience was Indianapolis homeowners, we actively engaged a diverse range of Indianapolis homeowners and energy experts through ideation sessions, surveys and various activities to insight on their relationship with home power-generation. Through these engagements we identified key areas of interest that enabled us to generate solution ideas. These areas of importance included: demonstration, community involvement, feasibility, tangible results, and centralized reliable information.

Evaluation and Selection

Evaluation and Selection consists of open-mindedly generating a wide variety of criteria potentially useful for making an unbiased and accurate evaluation of the potential solutions, and then selecting and applying the most significant criteria to decide which possible solutions are the best to take forward towards implementation.
The final criteria were:

After using criteria we narrowed to our final solution through an integrative process of coupling the main idea of: The How to lose your Electric Company Campaign, with key ideas of others addressing homeowners at different levels of information.
This solution seemed transformational because of its careful approach to homeowners' belief that home power generation practices are inaccessible to everyday people and that it is too expensive and difficult to try.

Planning

We created an action plan under headings like "what will be done" and "how it will be done".

Discomfort came naturally to us as we diverged on barriers to action. There was fear our solution isn't perfect. One thing that was putting us off was translating our solution into simple, specific action plans, and once we did that and developed a clear, creative implementation plan and a corresponding timeline we all felt committed to it.

Sell and Accept

We diverged on campaign owners and then converged them into groups/organizations interested in environment. We prototyped on a proposal for the Campaign that could be sent to people who were previously involved with us, such as the IUPUI Energy Club and Lugar Center for Renewable Energy office amongst others.

Then we started to prototype, both the campaign and the proposal. We prototyped the proposal based on the feedback that we got from people who received our proposals and sent them back to us. Then we designed the final proposal based on their feedback. We also started to make prototypes of the campaign itself, which includes the website, activity book and the pinwheels.

Action

Our solution was a proposal containing the artifacts of our solution. This was one of the steps where we did the most doing rather than thinking. We were faster in getting work done by dividing and conquering. We divided up the work, came back and compiled it together. Time was again a major factor in driving us forward.

We needed to plan the solution more than once as all our actions involved people, things and events in unpredictable ways. It was essential for us to get feedback, prototyping and then do it again. We kept in mind the challenge statement at all times and made sure the solution was directly related to it. Working on smaller parts and then getting them all together helped us collaborate better and achieve a sense of appropriateness.