Problems & Solutions by DESIGN THINKING! Another of their comics that has me smiling, nodding, eye-rolling, reflecting and then questioning the deeper truths and implications.

Firstly, I think they’re right about the conflict that can exist between different parties looking for solutions vs problems, but it goes beyond CEO vs Designer. It’s Client vs Designer, Delivery Manager vs Designer, Bid Team vs Designer, Politician / Policy writer vs Designer.

But then there’s the suggestion that one party here is ‘right’. I’d wager that DESIGN THINKING! sees the designer as having the singularly correct attitude, but in reality we need to acknowledge both desires. To better express to each other what we’re after, what our motives are, and what we’re working with, and toward.

The ‘them and us’ attitude held by many designers is a cause I think of designers not getting their ‘seat at the table’. An arrogance that we have the right method and that you just need to follow our processes, attend our workshops and let us identify what we believe the real problems are, and everything will be better.

These are all massively broad observations, but I’ve witnessed these kinds of attitudes a lot. An almost isolationist perspective that the designer knows what’s best.

It makes me think of a conversation I had with a Design Manager (unnamed to protect privacy of their team), in which they bowled me over with an opinion from one of their designers. The belief was that they ‘don’t do sales’ and instead ‘just do the design’. They were reluctant to prepare for show and tells, or spend time forming articulate arguments for their design work, because they saw those behaviours as a sales job.

The DM and I were baffled, and spent some time checking ourselves to see if we had missed something, or if we were expecting too much. But, no! Design is totally about selling. It’s the act of coming up with new ideas, that are almost always going to be challenging for some stakeholders to accept, and so we have to consider how it’s sold in.

I’ve likely misread this comic, and DESIGN THINKING! is thinking that it’s about both problems AND solutions, not one of the other, but like I say, it had me questioning the deeper implications of the joke. Any form of strict ‘them and us’ thinking is fumble. That was the whole theory behind naming my old agency ‘With Associates’. Finding ways of understanding each other and working together are critical if design – a disruptive and uncomfortable act for many involved – is to succeed.