A World Free of Poverty?
Posted on October 26, 2012 | posted by:
If you have spent any time following this blog, you have most certainly run across Herbert Simon’s quote on the nature of design and the designer, where he posits “everyone designs who devises courses and actions aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones… design so construed, is the core of all professional training.”
But what if the practitioner does not acknowledge that s/he is designing? Or, that s/he is even a designer? Perhaps, one of the most perplexing instances of this phenomenon is at the World Bank, an international lending organization whose policy-makers, economists and scientists tackle some of the world’s most wicked problems. However, if you were to ask any one of these professionals, whether their programs, plans or solutions for alleviating poverty, reducing climate change or abating the effects of the financial crises, are indeed design, they would in all likelihood be offended. In their minds, design is embellishment; the thing that happens once the “real” work has been completed.
In the lobby of The World Bank headquarters there is a quote on the entrance wall that reads “We dream of a world free of poverty.” Those who work for the organization are committed to improving the lives of millions of people throughout the world. However, the structure of The World Bank precludes collaboration across departments. Where an issue such as climate change might be addressed through project partnerships between say the Social Development Department and the Environment Department, in reality there is little cross-pollination. Though we know the complexities of the world’s wicked problems cannot be solved through inter-departmental partnership, there is little understanding within the World Bank of how design thinking might contribute toward reaching the goal of a poverty free world.
What, then, is the purpose of defining design in Simon’s expansive manner? We have spent a great deal of time exploring and defining the nature of design in class and within design circles as a whole, but perhaps not enough time sharing this conversation with other professionals. If design is in essence a collaborative process, and wicked problems cannot, by their very nature, be solved in a linear fashion, then one cannot overstate the importance of gaining the acknowledgment, by all professions, of design and design thinking.