The value of Futures thinking in designing for societal challenges

Abstract

A new context where designers and other professionals from different fields are becoming increasingly more involved in tackling the daily challenges that we are facing as societies has emerged. Oak & Morrow, a strategic design studio based in Rotterdam, wants to position themselves among this context, by acquiring new knowledge on how their expertise on strategic design could be used to tackle projects on societal challenges. Driven by the curiosity of the studio on projects that aim at solving social problems, this graduation project was set up as a collaboration of Oak & Morrow with TU Delft. The research of the project provides insights on the value that the discipline of Futures thinking can add to Strategic design when designing for projects related to societal challenges. Moreover, it argues that the combination of both disciplines can be used as a knowledge base to develop solutions for societal challenges that have a positive effect on the systemic level.

The project has dealt with both a research and a design part. The research part has explored three different areas, being 1. Futures thinking and Strategic design, 2. internal analysis of Oak & Morrow and 3. societal challenges and social innovation. Different types of qualitative methodology has been employed to tackle these three areas, with research methods including literature and generative research, among others. As part of the research activities, different sessions such as a Contextmapping session with Oak & Morrow, or a testing session with design students have been conducted.

Based on all the findings of the research of the project, a toolkit has been designed for Oak & Morrow to use Futures thinking and Strategic design to design for societal challenges. As part of the information reviewed to collect insights for the design of the tool, existing tools and methodologies of the disciplines of Strategic design and Futures thinking were analysed during the research phase. These served as inspiration for the ideation of the toolkit for Oak & Morrow. Moreover, the main conclusions of the research that inspired the design of the toolkit have been compressed in different sets of criteria. These criteria defined the characteristics and purposes of the toolkit.

The toolkit designed for Oak & Morrow includes activities of Futures thinking and business innovation and contemplates guidelines of social innovation. The toolkit has been structured in three phases: 1. Preparations phase, 2. Uncovering value opportunities and 3. Towards systemic change. Each of the three phases includes different tools focused on a different step of the Futures thinking, business innovation or social innovation process.

Overall, the project’s outcomes uncover the value of combining Futures thinking and Strategic design for designing for projects related to societal challenges with a systemic impact. Moreover, the toolkit gives Oak & Morrow the opportunity of exploring a new line of expertise and making stronger their current strategic toolkit. However, to fully measure the value of the toolkit, this should be evaluated in actual design projects with a real case, client demands and the common time constraints of a professional project.