Conference Agenda

This paper explores the connections between undergraduate and postgraduate education in two courses that hold the title of Design Management, both at the same university, and how this relationship responds to industry demands and institutional rigours. Here the authors do three things: compare pedagogies at undergraduate and postgraduate level, compare these pedagogic approaches with industry practices and then consider how student expectation and experience can be enhanced.

Teaching contemporary Design Management at undergraduate and postgraduate level is a wonderfully wicked problem. The discipline is in constant flux, the definition ever evolving and embracing, the inputs and outputs are many and non-linear. For the last six months we have been working through a revalidation process for undergraduate and post graduate Design Management courses, we have used this as a research opportunity to consider practice and theory.

This paper argues that by evaluating the nuanced similarities and differences between undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Design Management, triangulated with industry expectation, we may begin to understand a new entry point into Design Management pedagogy that factors in the complex interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of real-world challenges more effectively.

Based on the international consensus that mankind is facing an existential crisis of its own making, at the meta level of the United Nations seventeen sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been issued. At the meso and micro levels of organisations and people there is a similar agreement on design for sustainability (DfS) to care for people and the planet. The tools and methodologies which have been proposed in the design thinking (DT) and design management (DM) field have neither satisfactorily addressed the challenges of DfS in academia nor in business. For instance DT has been increasingly criticised since the 2010s and its death has been pronounced many times. This zombie concept from a design perspective has nonetheless remained indispensable for business leaders and entrepreneurs trained in non-design disciplines such as management or engineering. They have clung to DT for an easy-to-understand framework, practical tools and methodologies in order to climb the DM staircase towards innovative products, services and organisations.

DM and DT approaches of DfS have strived to, but by and large have failed to, address the current ecological and social challenges. It has been increasingly documented since the beginning of the 21st century. Two emerging approaches of DfS are discussed. First we present the emerging framework of systems design as an application of systems thinking to DfS. Second we introduce three instances of the reappropriation of the Heideggerian concept of “thinging” as contributions to infrastructuring DfS. They have not yet coalesced and are represented by a limited but expanding set of recently published material.

Based on weak signals and emerging trends, systems design and design thinging are more transformative, radical and speculative than mainstream DM and DT articles have been so far. The two authors acknowledge that the systemic and cultural scope of design management for sustainability (DMfS) goes beyond mere improvements of DM and DT and could cause paradigmatic shifts and turmoil. The authors have applied problematization to critically look at existing theories and literature streams and to formulate insights. This paper aims to be a milestone on the way towards DMfS and revolves around two main principles. First it considers two levels and their circular interconnection. It starts at the micro level of the embodied ways of thinking and doing of people. Then it proceeds to the meso level of organisations as strategic and dynamic infrastructuring of participatory design. It eventually closes the loop across the two levels with an interpretation of design as an intelligent orchestration at each level and between them. The goal of the complex DMfS process is thus set to generate resilient translational systems. Second it recognizes the in-discipline of design. Thus it calls for DMfS to open up beyond its two sub-component disciplines and to let interdisciplinary paradigms emerge from cross-pollination with human and non-human sciences.

In design practice, ethical considerations are often confined to the margins of the process, causing faulty and biased design outcomes, perpetuating outdated ideas, and contributing to inequalities that foster unjust power dynamics. Therefore, it is important to understand personal and team biases and their connection to ethics to ensure that designs go beyond normative solutions. While the importance of ethics is acknowledged in theory, it remains unclear for many practitioners how to act ethically in the design process. Yet, it is important that practitioners can consciously drive their design processes through an ethical lens, adopting a critical posthuman approach to develop sustainable solutions.

This paper details the findings of a service design master’s thesis project. Through a literature review, it identifies possible gaps between design ethics in theory and practice. Followingly, by analysing a pool of ethical tools, the paper assesses a variety of ways in which ethics are approached in design. Empirical findings are complemented by five semi-structured interviews conducted with experts with extensive ethical working records. Their insights support the synthesis of the collected qualitative data and the proposal of the ‘Intention-Setting Workshop.’ The workshop aims to provide an example of how to include ethics into the design process, utilising tools and reflexive and debiasing practices while being aware of the constraints of the working environment, often limiting the holistic incorporation of ethics. The workshop builds on the finding that active debiasing and reflexivity are essential for ethical and critical posthuman practice and that a holistic approach to the tools and methods used from the start of the design process benefits ethical work. Service design practitioners and students have validated the workshop proposal.

The project contributes to service design and design practice by envisioning a more holistic approach to implementing ethical tools to support more sustainable design solutions. In addition, it advocates for practitioners’ reflexive and debiasing work, which the paper argues contributes to ethical practice.