"As I said above, a complex work environment is one where the right group of people to do the work changes dynamically with the work that needs to be done." I do think this is true of many work situations, from education to health care, social work through to product management, and design. From a design perspective, I loved how in the early days of the web, design 'roles' were very fluid, emergent to the uncertain needs of the dawning day. The 'information architect' in 2001 for example, moved to whatever needed to be looked at or done, from information organisation to user experience, production, interaction design, user research, product management, service design, work practice design, delivery, systems thinking, content design and production, or business model design - amongst other things. Did they do everything well? Perhaps not, but maybe they performed a better service overall. Now we have, on the one hand 'systemic design' as an emergent concept / role, and on the other an ossified trail of commodified design roles from the last 15 years or so. You're right, something needs to change. I suspect putting more emphasis (and expectation) on cross-functional activity and autonomy in product/service/design teams might help.
Super interesting stuff, Justin. I think you're right to push back against the desire to create performative isomorphism across multiple localities. I'm sure there's lots more you have tucked away to share, but one question that came to mind is: how do you train for posture and place? Clearly there is some kind of knowledge work going on here, and this requires various skills and capabilities, from practical know how to emotional work. I think the system you describe would work well when staffed by experts, but this makes it hard to scale. How do you introduce new people into these design roles and train them up to become ninjas of posture and place?
"As I said above, a complex work environment is one where the right group of people to do the work changes dynamically with the work that needs to be done." I do think this is true of many work situations, from education to health care, social work through to product management, and design. From a design perspective, I loved how in the early days of the web, design 'roles' were very fluid, emergent to the uncertain needs of the dawning day. The 'information architect' in 2001 for example, moved to whatever needed to be looked at or done, from information organisation to user experience, production, interaction design, user research, product management, service design, work practice design, delivery, systems thinking, content design and production, or business model design - amongst other things. Did they do everything well? Perhaps not, but maybe they performed a better service overall. Now we have, on the one hand 'systemic design' as an emergent concept / role, and on the other an ossified trail of commodified design roles from the last 15 years or so. You're right, something needs to change. I suspect putting more emphasis (and expectation) on cross-functional activity and autonomy in product/service/design teams might help.
Super interesting stuff, Justin. I think you're right to push back against the desire to create performative isomorphism across multiple localities. I'm sure there's lots more you have tucked away to share, but one question that came to mind is: how do you train for posture and place? Clearly there is some kind of knowledge work going on here, and this requires various skills and capabilities, from practical know how to emotional work. I think the system you describe would work well when staffed by experts, but this makes it hard to scale. How do you introduce new people into these design roles and train them up to become ninjas of posture and place?