Methods and mindsets that help build a design practice to address complexity
Since July 2018 Center for Complexity has delivered over 30 programs to 500+ participants across USA, Europe and India.
At RISDs Centre for Complexity, we understand the importance of discovery and insights in the creative process. Our programs are specifically designed to help agencies improve their problem-framing skills, a crucial aspect of the creative process that is often overlooked.
Some clients may perceive this work as slow and expensive, but with the right approach, insights can emerge without the need for long lead times or large budgets. Throughout our program, we emphasize the value of discovery and how it can lead to innovative outcomes in an era of complex and interconnected systems. We equip designers with the necessary skills and knowledge to advocate for problem-framing, educate clients on its importance, and the skills to develop effective solutions that meet their needs. By prioritizing the problem finding process, our programs enable agencies to deliver innovative and effective solutions that truly meet and sometimes k their clients' strategic goals.
"Design research deserves a budget."
The Centre for Complexity (CfC) along with Infosys / WONGDOODY (WD) has been invested in creating designers fit to embrace complexity in order to drive innovation and insight. From this shared vision stemmed an ongoing relationship to reinvigorate the Infosys designer base across the globe.
Our programs reflect the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) model of design education by beginning with a series of foundational exercises to establish new techniques for observation, description, and communication, and are followed by a series of customized design briefs that challenge participants to bring those techniques to life.
Wheres other design programs lean on linear process models from business or technology sectors, our program leverages the built environment to capture surprising insight from the familiar or mundane. This makes it accessible, but also challenging for all learners no matter their experience with design or adjacent fields.
Since 2018, our partners have engaged in a variety of innovation endeavours, including design workshops for experience design professionals, engineers, sales relationship experts, and technologists.
These programs were built to leverage the field of design to increase your ability to seek out new opportunity spaces, sharpen value propositions, and establish strategic vision and direction on complex topics.
RISD Strategic Programs for Infosys/WONGDOODY
What we do + Why we do it
Reframing what is 'known'
How does one create new value? We use the material world as a source for new ideas and even thinking from scratch. We create methods to help discover novel patterns that drives innovation and insight and reframes the world as we know it.
Breaking out of fixed mindsets
We often use the same tools, methods, and mindsets that created a problem to try and solve it. As Albert Einstein famous said:"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Developing new ways of thinking and making helps unlearn problematic past practices to redesign new opportunities.
Nurturing curiosity
Curiosity and wonder about the world drives discovery. We aim to nurture a sensibility around curiosity in order that designers may use it to fuel their research, question the status quo, reflect on biases, and hone their design processes by knowing when and how to be curious.
Asking better questions
The questions we ask guide our research and inquiry. Providing methods to develop a more conscious practice of framing our curiosities and questions is an important element in helping designers become more reflexive practitioners.
Using communication as a probe
We often use communication to convince, and spend little to no time using it as a tool to push the boundaries of our current understanding of the world. Developing communication skills specifically in the context of creative inquiry and qualitative research is a key skill needed to probe our current realities and reimagine novel futures.
Mapping new possibilities
Imagining new systems that flourish in novel ways is often hard to comprehend. We help shape narratives from research-based insights and pattern recognition that not only communicate, and inspire pathways into the future, but that strengthen shared partnerships and objectives.
Navigating complexity and uncertainty
We are neck deep in a VUCA world that designers helped create. If we want to design a better future, we need different methods and mindsets that embrace complexity while being honest about the limits of our ability to shape complex and emergent futures.
Leveraging others experiences
Embracing diverse perspectives is key to understanding the richness of any context because the world a spectrum of colours all at once. We guide a design practice that considers multiple perspectives, while refraining from merging different views to reach a single consensus. This helps designers embrace the complexities of our experiences instead of striping it down to a simplified, incomplete, and problematic understanding.
Making choices with humility
When we attempt to 'solve' systemic problems we are often blindsided by unintended consequences. In order to avoid a false sense of success, we accept the boundaries of our knowledge in our design process. Yet we practice the confidence to move forward and intervene in complex systems with the information we have.