Massimo Curatella

Tag: what

Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence
As a Strategic Designer, I have the duty of facilitating collective intelligence. Leaders need to make decisions. Organizations want to innovate their production process. Social impact movements organize to address social innovation. Strategic Design for Collective Intelligence helps us to be more than the sum of our parts.
Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster
What is Collective Intelligence?
Collective Intelligence is the emergent phenomenon created by people collaborating. They co-design possible solutions to the complex problem they discover through cooperation. Co-creation leads to more inclusive and systemic solutions that are more robust.
What is a Strategic Designer?
A Strategic Designer is a Systems Thinker and a Facilitator. A Designer and a Communicator. A Strategic Designer is a problem-setter and a problem-solver. They define the context of a problem before ideating possible solution scenarios.
Facilitators build upon the knowledge of a group of people. They organize collective thoughts through structured activities. Collective Intelligence Facilitators make collaboration tools out of constraints. Time, resources, requirements, needs and wants become part of the context to work with.
Strategic Designers need to know well the tools of the Design Researchers. They map Stakeholders and their Experience Journey through the realms of the context.
A Strategic Designer makes the systems visible to the eye of participants. Strategic Designers embody the principles of inclusive, compassionate and respectful dialogue.
The strategic aspect of design
Strategic Designers explore knowledge to make things clearer towards reaching refined goals.
Among the many activities, Strategic Designers work to
- Knowing the context
- Knowing needs, wants and desires
- Extracting knowledge from stakeholders: internal and external.
- Knowing how to provide value
- Mitigate unintended consequences
VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) is the natural environment where a Strategic Designer thrives. They have to trust the Design Process more than their intuition. They need the persistence to sustain the discomfort of the unknown. Their strength is in trusting the processes of research, envisioning, prototyping, testing, and iteration.
Strategic Design leads to more rational decisions made
A designer should not impose their opinions nor their decisions. A designer should help collaboration among leaders, including all stakeholders. A collaborative decision is more rational and more accepted by the participant in the co-design process.
Strategic Design makes you see for the first time
A Strategic Designer maps processes and flows, components and their interactions. A System Map shows the actual purpose of a system: that is what the system does, not what you intend it to do.
When a leader of a large organization sees for the first time the entire production process, including every branch, from every department, and every possible action for all possible scenarios, they see their organization for the first time.
Trying to imagine what they would think at that time: “Where was I all this time?” “How all of this could happen?”, “What is my real role in my organization?”.
A Strategic Designer facilitates success
A designer facilitates success through context-setting, inclusive and structured acquisition of knowledge, by leading a collaborative process where decision-makers create the best solution for their problems.
How did I become a Strategic Designer?
I grew into the role of a Strategic Designer through many professional and educational opportunities. I moved to the “why” part of the job without anybody to ask for it. Then, people started to ask me less about the “how” part and more of the “why”. This is how I moved from “How to do things” to “Why should we do this?” and “What should we do to get what we want and need?”
It is a demanding role but exciting. It is a leading role but humbling. The more I work as a Strategic Designer, the more I think that every leader should embrace Strategic Design to build better products, better services, better solutions, and a better world.
1 March 2020
Design is Planning
Design is planning the purpose of something before it is made. Build more rational and useful products and services by carefully planning their making.
We must build useful solutions
I started to design digital products when I got sick of developing software nobody would use or would feel painful to use. I cannot stand to have my time wasted with tools and services not well designed so I decided to contribute to usefulness and rationality by facilitating toolmakers in creating more rational tools.
What is Design?
From a theoretical and academic point of view if you look for the definition of design you could study forever. There are so many different definitions of design that you could make a conference to disagree upon it, together, with designers.
And that is what usually happens! But that is fine with me. As a fellow, Systems Thinker, I like to have a multi-angled perspective and to integrate it in a more round and whole definition which is fuzzier and more fluid.
Design is a Plan!
When I took a Design Leadership masterclass in Rome, Italy, with Duane Smith and Stefane Barbeau of Smith,Barbeau the first thing which struck me was their definition of design.
Design is a plan.
Boom!
This has always been in my mind, forever, but never so explicit.
To design means to plan. Oh goodness, I love this.
Try to replace the term “design” with “plan” in any of the infinite list of combinations you can find now in the world.
- User Experience Design → User Experience Planning
- User Interface Design → User Interface Planning
- Graphic Design → Graphic Planning
- Instructional Design → Instructional Planning
- Learning Experience Design → Learning Experience Planning
- Workshop Design → Workshop Planning
- Service Design → Service Planning
This is the most ingenious verbal and conceptual invention since the man planned the wheel! (fun intended)
Design Leadership at PI-Campus. I am designing an anti-fake news app.
Can you taste the word when you say it? Look at the reaction of listeners: that is on another level.
Here is a definition of Design under this point of view:
Design is planning the purpose of something before it is made.
So I’ve found myself attending a course on “Planning Leadership”. When I subscribed expecting to attend a “Design Leadership” workshop I had a certain set of expectations, now this is another game.
Is planning still Design?
Using “planning” makes immediately clear the need of talking about time, resources, goals, objectives, and management. The exotic images about expensive white boxes in luxurious Tuscan villas, immediately, fades out.
Yes, creativity, art, craft, skills are still part of the process but “deeesaaain” is not anymore that mouth-washing ritual where you take a deep breath and remain silent waiting to evoke impalpable feelings that nobody will experience in the same way.
(Re)Discovering what I always knew
I have always been a planning designer in my whole professional life. And that is my approach when I have to design a software application, a mobile app, a website, a videogame but also: a training session, a university lecture, a facilitation workshop, a service, a pitch-deck, an event, etc.
PI-Campus: Design Leadership: I was planning lunch.
Planning the design of a solution brings things down to earth and gives designers and stakeholders a fresh bath of realism and pragmatism. You can feel that you need to ask yourself, your client, your colleagues, practical questions geared towards knowing the context of the solution you are designing. I mean… planning!
Writing is an important part of the design process (that is: the planning), since it constitutes an envisioning activity to think about the purpose of the system you want to design and to communicate it to all the stakeholders.
Planning at the O.K. Corral
- What is that you want to build? And why?
- Who is going to use your solution? And how?
- How will they accomplish what they want or need to do?
- When will it be ready?
- Who is our competition?
- Is there any demand for a product like this?
- Are we able to build it? Can it be built at all?
These straightforward questions are frequently considered superfluous or banal. It takes courage to avoid pretending to have all answers understood and staring right in the eye of the client, who is still supposed to pay you the agreed lump sum in advance, and ask them “What do you want to build? And Why?”. This is my version of the two cowboys meeting under a dusted sun while having slightly trembling hands reaching for their guns.
What are you planning (to design)?
What really makes me happy is the feedback of my creative partners, not designers by nature. At a quick reading of this concept about Design=Planning, they got it at the first shot. How do you know if they know? By asking the most straightforward and direct question:
– “So, what is design?”
– “Easy, Design is a plan!”
I am so satisfied that I am thinking of planning the next articles on this topic.
And, tell me, what are you planning?
Related
- Design is a Plan
23 February 2020
Facilitation is the process of learning together
Facilitation is the set of structured and collaborative activities organized to discover, understand and learn together. The facilitator helps a group of people and decision-makers to face complex problems, producing a collective intelligence more powerful than each individual could do, alone.
What does “facilitation” mean (to me)?
“Facilitation” comes from the Latin word “facilis” which means “it can be done”. A “facilitator” is somebody who makes things “doable”, easy for somebody else.
A facilitator is a professional who helps people to organize collective processes. They create the context and the opportunities for creativity and understanding to happen.
Corporate meeting facilitation for the design of public service.
In a facilitation workshop, many participants can be invited. Usually from 5 to 20 but you can have dozens or even hundreds of participants. Facilitation helps to remove any obstacle to collaborative thinking and creation. It also sets the pace and the rhythm to promote the participation of all attendees.
During workshops, a lot of different participatory methods can be used. They give structure to the collaborative activities of participants.
A facilitator sets the workshop objectives with the sponsors who hired them. The objectives must be clear to allow an evaluation of the facilitated activities. They also guide the facilitator to set the top priority of this learning experience. The facilitator needs to decide where to work harder and what to remove to make the workshop a success.
Facilitation is a set of structured and collaborative activities organized with an agenda.
From the workshop I’ve held in Cascais, Portugal, in 2017 for B Lab Europe.
“United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Partnership, How B Corps can collaborate“.
Workshop Facilitation
The facilitator covers several roles:
- a referee,
- a coach,
- and a presenter.
And works in helping, motivating and supporting a group of participants.
Among the goals of a workshop you can find:
- exploring a topic,
- investigating a complex problem,
- gathering different perspectives from different actors,
- earning a better understanding of the context,
- rendering explicit the causes and the relationships behind a concept,
- ideating a set of actions to take to solve the identified problems
- or clarifying and improving the way of collaborating and working together.
I like to facilitate diverse and creative thinking
I’ve been performing professional facilitation activities, for more than 20 years, in the most diverse settings with the most incredible participants:
Facilitating Systems Change for the Sustainability of Agri-food systems by convening diverse stakeholders.
Osservatorio sul Dialogo Nell’Agroalimentare (OsservAgro)
- Aspiring artists struggling with new creative technological tools.
- Professional artists in the filmmaking industries, looking for new creative methods and ways to grow as workers in the field.
- Organizational leaders coming from any part of the world looking to become better facilitators themselves.
- University students from very different disciplines: architecture, industrial design, humanities, fashion design, science, math and physics, photography and writing, looking for new insights from the world of Design and Technology.
- Corporate leaders on the look for new sensemaking tools and methods to understand how to live with VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).
- Teachers facing the complex challenge of transferring knowledge in a jolting world towards progress and complexity.
- Scientists, researchers, journalists, politicians, activists, and decision-makers facing the global challenges of a society in the sector of technology, agrifood, and finance.
- Entrepreneurs working hard to create new products and services while organizing their teams and resources in an adaptive and resilient manner.
- Thought-leaders searching for new trends to explore and to build new knowledge on.
When I conclude a co-design workshop or a series of corporate events, I feel complete.
I am happy when I help people establishing a productive creative network. When they face their problems with powerful intellectual tools I am contributing to raising their collective intelligence.
Reaching the end of a well designed and organized workshop gives me immense satisfaction as a designer. Most of all, as a human being, I realized I have contributed to the progress of the community.
Learning while facilitating
I like to design facilitated workshops because it is one of the best occasions I have to learn. A workshop designer must learn about the needs of the organizations involved and the participants invited. At each learning experience, I am immersed in new knowledge domains that enrich me and make me more aware of the diversity and complexity of life.
Facilitation is a crucial activity of Design Leadership.
Design Leadership course, PI-Campus
Successful facilitation is invisible and easy
One of the best definitions of facilitation emerged while brainstorming the writing of this article: “You made facilitation looks like something so easy to create!” my creative partner told me. And that’s exactly the final goal of facilitation: to make things easy.
As Bruno Munari said “To make things hard is easy, To make things easy is hard.” it is not easy for a facilitator to create a successful facilitation event. And successful facilitation must be easy for participants.
Let’s make understanding easier, together
I love facilitation. I organized and delivered workshops on the most diverse topics. I dream about writing more about my experience in facilitation and I am looking forward to the next co-creation workshop.
A professional facilitator makes collective learning easier, and fun.
From the workshop I’ve held in Cascais, Portugal, in 2017 for B Lab Europe.
“United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for Partnership, How B Corps can collaborate“.
Workshop Facilitation
Do you need a professional facilitator for your co-design, co-creation and collaboration workshops?
Let’s talk.
9 February 2020
What to write about
What should you write about? How can you find the inspiration for a new article or a new diary post? What is capturing your attention and is worth of further thought? What does deserve to be put in words for somebody else to be read?
If you know already why you should write, read along to go on a journey to find what to write about.
What keeps you awake at night?
The negative things. Your financial sustainability. Your health concerns. Your anxieties, your worries. Your greatest fears. Your regrets, your remorse, your sorrows, your pains.
The positive things. Your wildest dreams, your ambitions, your aspirations and your inspirations. How to become an artist, a writer, a painter, a filmmaker. How to grow a child, a partner, a relationship.
Write about what keeps you awake at night.
How to save the world
Does the world need to be saved? Be more specific: what can you do to improve even one little component of that huge system called “the world”? How can you be a better human being having a positive impact on society and the environment? Are you rich? How can you do effective philanthropy? What’s the best way to use money, wealth, and abundant resources to improve the lives of as many living beings as possible?
Write about it.
You’re not rich? How can you have a positive impact on the world and the ecosystem without having infinite resources? Or, just a little? Or, nothing?
That’s even better: write about it.
Write about how you are going to save the world.
Checking your knowledge: what do you know?
Writing clarifies thought. And the clarification passes through the assessment of your knowledge. Try this exercise: what do you know? Pick a topic, the one you cherish the most, your passion, your professional field. What is, actually, that you know about it? Would you be able to open a blank document and to, without reference, write everything about it in a clear and systematic way? What are the foundations? The key concepts? Principles and values? Tools and techniques? Methods, tricks, attitudes, behaviors, traps?
Write about it. Write about what you know. And then, check what your wrote against the most authoritative sources you can find: how much of it is comparable? What did you get right? And wrong? What did you miss?
Write about it. Write about what you discovered by doing an improvised and unprepared writing session about a topic.
Understanding and Learning: what don’t you know?
What is that you need or you want to understand? What skills do you need to acquire to perform better in your job, in your athletic discipline, in your spiritual endeavours? How do you know that you know?
And, maybe, the most important question is: how can you discover those things that you don’t know you are ignoring?
Write about it.
Write about the things you don’t know and you want to learn about.
Create your Knowledge Matrix
Keep track of the topics falling in the category of “The Things You Want To Write About”. The list will be embarrassingly small, at the beginning. And by curating it, it will become amazingly long.
You need the equivalent of the Anti-Library proposed by Umberto Eco: the books you still have to read. You need a Knowledge Matrix, a systematic and structured list of topics you want to write about crossed with canonical questions.
What are the writing prompts to start researching and writing about a topic?
Begin with the most famous and immediate ones:
1. Why
2. What
3. How
4. When
5. Where
6. Who
Just as a starter. But, be aware. Researching a topic by intersecting the knowledge about it with philosophical questions doesn’t necessarily lead you to a well-written essay. That’s another story. But in order to write you need first inspiration and raw material to build up your exposition. The Knowledge Matrix is a starting point, a creative tool to put you in the position of having always something to write about. Moreover, following the Canonical Questions you can aim at being exhaustive and critical.
Write for your future self.
What is that bothers your about your life? What do you want to change about it? What knowledge and intellectual resources do you think you’ll need more? What is the inspiration that you are missing? What catches your attention because of an unexplained intuition?
Write about it.
Write for your future self. Don’t think too much, write organized units of knowledge to be addressed at your future self. You are, at least, two persons, and they can be very different: your current being and your future version of you. Take the person in the future as somebody else and, with loving care and dedication, write to them as the dearest friend you can have. What do you want them to know?
Write about what your future self needs to know.
Write for your “past”
What is that you would have wanted to know when you were younger? What is that you wanted to know when you were 8? Or 80? What did you want to know last year?
Write about it. Pick a real person, that you love or care about, that you know and at least can relate to. They should be younger than you. They could be much younger than you: think about children, for instance. What is that you know and is in your experience that you want to pass to them as your legacy?
Write about it. Write about what you would have wanted to know at the age which, currently, is somebody who you care about.
Write, unconsciously
If you make an effort to develop a habit of writing daily, you could equip yourself with one of the most powerful skills a creative could have: free-flowing creation.
Read also:
how to create the habit of daily writing.
When you stop being aware of your surroundings and focus only on your fingers tapping. On the words, slowly, appearing on your screen. And when you start to finally listen to your inner voice, but not the symbolic one: the voice of your mind. The real “you”, talking in your head. When you are in the creative flow, in a focused, undistracted, intense session of writing, non-stop. When you are “in the flow”, you have established a direct connection with your brain.
You can recognize this heavenly state when you see words appearing on the screen which almost surprise you. When you reach the capability of writing almost as fast as the speed of your inner voice talking, then you are “in the flow”. Nothing can interrupt you. There is no pressure, no guilt, no fear. And words just appear out of nothing.
That moment, there, is when you can be purely creative. Listen to that voice, the most inner expression of your being. Listen with dedication and love. Just let it flow without interruption. Your goal is not to say meaningful things or to explain what you are writing.
Just write. Write your mind. Write your thoughts.
Only after rest, reflection and editing you will be able to dive into the sea of your written thoughts to fish for precious pearls. Only after having collected, cleaned-up and curated your thoughts as precious gems you will be able to create intellectual jewels out of them.
Write about it. What have you discovered while you were in the free-flowing creative mode?
You don’t know what to write about? Read
Read. Whatever is in your reach and in your interests. Read books about known or unknown topics. Read newsletter, blogs, online articles. Read newspapers. Read whatever could bring you new concepts and inspiration with the voice of somebody else.
But, here is the point, write about what you read. You should not just keep your eyes entertained by serifs and sans-serifs. By glyphs of beautiful fonts printed on the most precious paper. You have to engage the author with critical questions. And you have to stop, at the end of each meaningful section, and rewrite the concepts in your own words.
Write about what you read. Do not be a passive reader ingurgitating millions of words about which, for the majority, you will forget about. Stop, question and reflect about what you read. Summarize it and enrich it with your knowledge, make connections with related concepts. And write about it.
Be always capturing inspiration
Keeps a notebook near your bed and write down any thought or dream as soon as it happens. It will become the source of your writings. If you write fiction it can be the inspiration for a story or a character. Otherwise it can be a hint about your unconscious mind and you can study it to learn more about the intimate you.
Write about any inspiration you come up with and keep it safe and organized.
Curate your archive of writings
Create a central archive of anything that you write. Enrich each document with a proper title, a description and maybe some tags to categorize it. Capture the essence of the context around it: when did you write? Where were you? Take the occasion to probe your mood, your feelings and your thoughts about it. How did you feel? What was the emotional context in which you wrote that? It will become a multi-purpose archive of your life: a diary, a sketchbook, an emotional journal, a performance tracker.
Create your list of writing prompts
You should have your list of writing prompts, extend mine, add your personal ones, make experiments and refine it.
Did you find my list of creative source of inspiration useful? Will you use it? Are you already using some of those prompts? What writing prompts would you add?
1 January 2020