Respecting democracy in design
How data prioritizes what’s important and helps suppress the loudest voice in the room.
Ah, 2020. What a year. I think we’ve learned, if nothing else, that creating a narrative by bullying and being the loudest voice in the room doesn’t allow you to control the conversation forever. Where strong personalities and politics operate to control the focus and agenda over the independent perspectives and experience of the experts in a certain field, the welfare of the group is at risk.
The smartest guy in the room.
Sometimes we’re in a situation when everyone has different opinions on what we should collectively be focusing on. How do we get everyone in line with the appropriate perspective and reach an understanding of what priorities to focus on to resolve a particular problem?
In design, we conduct workshops to develop key insights from the data we gain during the Research/Discovery phase of the design process. And while over time, designers generally operate on their own hybrid versions, all of these methods help us work towards a common purpose, empathy. The baseline of human-centered design is user research. It’s how we truly understand the problem we’re solving and the users we’re designing for.
Design Council’s Double Diamond clearly conveys a design process to designers and non-designers alike. The two diamonds represent a process of exploring an issue more widely or deeply (divergent thinking) and then taking focused action (convergent thinking).
We dive deep into our prioritized research methods to gather and collect qualitative and quantitative data to better inform us of our design objectives. (I’m a contextual inquiry fanboy).
More often than not, the data is overwhelming and unorganized, as these issues and problems tend to be complex.
So, how do we assign meaning to all that data? We define and synthesize…
Information to insight
Affinity Diagramming is probably the most ubiquitous design synthesis method for complex issues that are relatively hard to understand. Most commonly, it involves populating sticky notes with summaries of your data points. You then group them and start to identify patterns and extract insights. Finally, you consider any relationships between groups that allow you to understand the bigger picture.
While the ideal way to conduct this exercise is in person, in one room with a stack of different colored sticky notes and a large blank wall, it’s still 2020. Mural is a great digital collaboration workspace for virtual affinity mapping.
While Affinity Diagramming is accurate to organize output, I find that it’s easy for teams that don’t have a strong facilitator running the session often take shortcuts. They make up their own loose version, which can be fine if the end result is the same and the group is relatively small. If there’s a larger group, and a complex problem or question, no doubt there’s going to be noise. There’s a need for rules and constraints to effectively sort vague and abstract characteristics that come from short had synthesis. (I also think there’s a fair amount of confirmation bias when designers synthesize their own data points)
This is why I recommend going pure OG and use the KJ Method.
What is the KJ method?
The K-J Method was developed by Jiro Kawakita in the 1960s. He was an ethnographer who solved real human/civic problems. In the penultimate contextual inquiry, he aided remote Nepalese villagers in researching their problems, resulting in the practical benefits of portable water supplies and rapid rope-way transport across mountain gorges. Let’s learn about what kind of mind he had…
An homage to Jiro Kawakita
From the International Understanding Awardees foundation;
“More than 30 years ago JIRO KAWAKITA began studying the disintegrating environmental equilibrium of Nepal’s Sikha Valley, located west of Pokhara below the snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas. Population pressure upon scarce land was compounded by modernizing demands of retired veterans of Gurkha regiments and seasonal laborers who worked abroad…Focusing upon the high-elevation terraced culture of barley, wheat, maize, and African millet, KAWAKITA complemented his ethnographic research with mountain climbing. Crossing over mountain crests and through gorges gave him a vivid appreciation of villagers’ hardships.
He also designed an information analysis system which he used to help villagers identify their most urgent problems. This system he patented and it is used today by Japanese corporations for business planning. (KJ Method)
…wow he’s brilliant, what else?
Jiro’s response to receiving the 1984 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding;
“It is my great honor to be given this noted Award which commemorates such an esteemed man as the late President Ramon Magsaysay. I am told he loved the common people and served them with the full strength of his energetic personality. My challenge in the Himalayas was also directed to the welfare of the common people, those who live in a remote area of those mountains; naturally I sympathize with his way of thinking. The honor of this Award, however, extends not only to me, but also to every participant who joined my project. Without their efforts, surely I would have accomplished nothing.
The aim of our project was to develop a concept of international technological cooperation, in particular directed to the revitalization of rural areas and based on self-reliance. Our motivation was not one of charity, but more that of a cheerful venture based on the spirit of mutual participation between the villagers concerned and my colleagues. The villagers gave their best willingly; consequently I learned many things through this experience. From this platform here tonight I want to say to them: “Thank you very much.” Their efforts moved us close to tears.
The mutual participation came from a common understanding of the total ecological and cultural environment. In other words, the participation was based on the holistic integration of qualitative data to achieve a scientific recognition of reality. In this sense, I believe, the way of true science coincides with the way of humanism. If this were not so, this so-called true science must be fundamentally reformed in the future.”
…He’s an inspiring, kind, humble, humanist, who focused his thinking on the future welfare of the citizens of our planet, but why is this important?
Respect the process
This isn’t a person that took shortcuts to achieve the end result. AD’s have become a bastardized, watered-down shortcut to data synthesis, and at the risk of sounding like a hyperbolic princess, this has got to stop. (I know it’s a pipedream)
Here’s my take.
Diagraming is the representation of the structure of something. It’s the result. A method is the systematic planning and execution of something. It’s purposeful. METHODICAL. It’s how something is accomplished, not the result.
Participatory decision-making cannot be loose, or it won’t be effective. If you don’t practice good collaboration skills, you’ll never fully extract the knowledge contained deep within a group, in a constructive and productive way.
That’s the goal here.
Extracting insights and compiling your top findings is the destination, but to effectively get there you have to create a safe, free, inclusive, balanced journey to have all members fully participate.
“if people don’t participate in and own the solution to the problems or agree to the decision, implementation will be half-hearted at best, probably misunderstood, and, more likely than not, will fail.
Michael Doyle said this in March 1996 on page xv of the Foreward to Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner.
Micheal focuses on expanding the definitions of facilitation and efficacy that group literacy plays in high performing organizations, he also said:
“What skills and behaviors are aligned with the people’s higher selves as they naturally want to learn in order to increase their own personal effectiveness in groups and in their families as well as to increase the effectiveness of groups themselves.”
This is why I’ve always found the KJ technique particularly compelling. KJ helps quickly derive design priorities through group dynamics and democracy.
What I think is fascinating is the natural check and balances this method perpetuates by group moderation.
Scoring, nominating, imploring, and unanimous voting prevents oppression based on personal opinion and produces results based on objective perspectives and group experience.
While one person could stonewall the entire process, scoring items add a veto towards the lowest rank — accept the highest-ranking items cannot be influenced anymore, filtering down to the highest priority insights. It’s actually quite beautiful.
Jared M. Spool’s article The KJ-Technique: A Group Process for Establishing Priorities, is my personal favorite.
I’m straight-up taking/leaning on his brilliant article and I’m not going through the entire process because it would water down what he understands deeper than I ever will — just read the article (if you don’t already know…)
What actionable step can you take from this article?
Respect the process and support the welfare of our fellow humans.
Perception shapes one’s reality and in all fairness, perception can also shape someone else’s reality. I believe in the welfare of individuals. I respond to the circumstances. I support and foster growth through social good, as sometimes our individual welfare is able to be shared in support of one another. When the welfare of a group is at risk to be targeted by self-interest or self-preservation, a decision needs to be made to deal with the perceived inequity…
This week has been a firm reminder that sparing the world nothing short of the full force of your personality has its consequences. It’s a fact of life that we all will experience some level of unpleasantness, but it’s up to us as individuals to be proactive and evaluate how the situation will move forward. Finding a lesson and letting the rest go, work on changing your thinking, or possibly focus on compassion are great examples of improving your social welfare. In tribal times, getting thrown out of the tribe endangered your own survival. Our current system, unfortunately, rewards malice as a protest to democracy despite, that being the system that allows for it to exist.
Regardless of how we individually view fairness, the world is watching and judging. We’re a society plagued with deep psychological issues concerning grandiose delusion. Its a combination of issues, relative deprivation, social dominance orientation, political illiteracy, and general low EQ — this means the majority cannot objectively look at a demagogue’s behavior without having to critically look at their own behavior, and see it as a risk to the welfare of the group.
So make sure your facilitators’ skills and behaviors are aligned with the group’s higher selves to increase their own personal effectiveness in groups in their families as well as to increase the effectiveness of groups themselves.
