Design and systems thinking
A Design Management Thesis
As a young designer when I started my career, design was about improving the real and perceived function of a given product, environment, service or experience. It was my professional and personal mantra, but after several years of work in design and design education, I figured what I had been doing was not enough. I wanted a role which would allow me to think, design and iterate strategically, and I decided to join the SCAD Design Management program.
Today 10 years after I first graduated with a degree in Bachelors of Design my idea of what design is, has changed immensely. Today I see design as a way of thinking, design thinking utilizes design processes & abductive thinking to foster innovation in products, services, businesses, organizations & policies. My ten year design journey has gone through a major shift from solving creative problems to solving wicked problems creatively. These wicked problems are often societal problems which require a systems thinking approach, they cannot be dealt with in isolation but unfortunately thats how most systems problems are dealt with, hence resulting in chaos.
Following this thought trajectory when it was time to choose a thesis topic I chose to look at terrorism and it’s root cause extremism. Being from Pakistan, I can see how extremism is counter productive to a thriving society. Post 9/11 it surfaced as one of the most pressing global threat. Since then it is predominantly looked upon as a security and defense issue dealt with the same rationale as a war is. Hence it’s viewed as a threat that can only be combated with arms and drones. Although traditional approaches to solving the problem of terrorism have not yielded positive results, while being a drain on the economic and human resources, causing social unrest on a global scale.
So how do we tackle this pressing global issue? And what role can design play in mitigating and solving this issue? Well, that’s what I’ll be working for the next several months so join me in this journey, your feedback is appreciated.
