Summary: Defining discovery as a structured process to increase confidence can help you decide how to direct discovery projects. And adopting a double-loop learning process during these projects is more likely to lead to genuine discoveries. Last month I shared a critique of some ways people describe and structure design…

Summary: you need to put conscious thought into the ways you describe design in your organisation and shape your language to meet your needs and context. When we use ambiguous language to describe design, we make designing even harder. Design projects can be full of ambiguity, particularly when they’re focused…

Summary: If we always automatically reach for the Double Diamond for every conversation about design we might miss opportunities to say something more useful. There are alternatives to the Double Diamond, including creating your own message and model. I recently wrote about the Double Diamond, a popular method for describing…

I’ve been writing about the design process, suggesting that different models can give different perspectives on what designers do when we design. I’ve suggested that design is a process of translation and balance — transforming ideas from abstract ideas to concrete instantiations. In my last post I used the metaphor…

In a post last week I shared a definition for design. I said: “Design is the translation of intent into experiments designed to generate value.” That post is about how information architecture is the stable set of rules which govern the relationships within a design to bring internal coherence. Information…

Let’s get two things straight — namely what I think “information architecture” and “design” are. I think both names suffer from a problem. They describe both an output and a process. The thing you create: We can create a design and we can create an information architecture within and around…

Which ideas from adaptive leadership can we adopt to help us connect and adapt to become a better boss? — As I’ve written about becoming a better boss I’ve developed a simple model to describe the factors that might affect the relationships between a leader or manager and their colleagues. The model describes how factors of competence, confidence and compatibility can affect our relationship to a boss, or if we’re…

Most interactions require a level of trust — and social capital is one way of understanding the “earned trust” that can exist between people. — This is part of my “better bossing” blog series — new posts will appear on my website, so please sign up for updates for new content in this series. I think of social capital as the currency of influence and co-operation that is shared between people. It’s a motivating force that enables or impedes social interactions — so it affects how people think and feel about duty, interconnectedness, reciprocity, discretionary effort, motivation, co-operation and competition (as well as lots…

Why is trust so important and how do you build and maintain it? — I’m going to let you into a secret. Trust at work isn’t about people falling backwards and the boss catching them — unless we’re talking in metaphors. Trust is about an assumption of transparency and reciprocity. It’s a relationship of interdependence. Too many bosses are tempted to think that their…