Plain-language definitions of the terms we use in our work. Each one links to related books, tools and other resources in our library.
A situation is complex when many interacting parts, people and perspectives mean that cause and effect cannot be fully predicted in advance. Complexity is different from something being merely complicated: a complicated problem can be solved by expertise and planning, while a complex one needs experimenting, learning and adapting as you go.
Recognising which kind of situation you are in changes how you decide, plan and organise.
See also Cynefin, Systems thinking, Strategic foresight
Critical System Heuristics (CSH) provides a framework of questions about a program including what is (and what ought to be) its purpose and its source of legitimacy and who are (and who ought to be) its intended beneficiaries. CSH, as developed by Werner Ulrich and later elaborated upon in collaboration with Martin Reynolds, is an approach used to surface, elaborate, and critically consider boundary judgments, that is, the ways in which people/groups decide what is relevant to the system of interest (any situation of concern).
See also Systems thinking
Customer discovery is the process of talking to the people you hope to serve in order to learn about their real problems, habits and needs before building a solution. It is usually done through interviews and observation, and it focuses on understanding past behaviour rather than asking for opinions about ideas.
It is a core practice in lean start-up approaches and reduces the risk of designing something nobody needs.
See also Lean start-up, Ethnography
Cybernetics is the study of how systems regulate themselves through communication and feedback. It began in engineering and biology and has since been applied to organisations, most notably through Stafford Beer's Viable System Model.
For organisational work it offers a useful question: what does this system need in order to sense what is happening, make decisions and stay viable?
See also Systems thinking, System dynamics
Cynefin (pronounced roughly 'kuh-NEV-in') is a sense-making framework developed by Dave Snowden. It describes different kinds of situation, from clear and complicated to complex and chaotic, and suggests a different way of acting in each.
It is often used to help teams recognise when a problem needs analysis, when it needs safe-to-fail experiments, and when it needs fast action.
See also Complexity, Systems thinking
A design sprint is a short, structured process, typically about five days, for answering a significant question by designing, prototyping and testing an idea with real users. It was popularised by Google Ventures.
Sprints are useful when a team needs to make progress quickly and wants evidence before committing to a direction.
See also Prototyping, Design thinking
Design thinking is an approach to solving problems that starts with understanding the people affected, then generates ideas, tests them quickly and learns from the results. It is often described as a cycle of understanding, defining, ideating, prototyping and testing.
Its value lies less in the steps than in the mindset: curiosity about people, comfort with uncertainty and a habit of making ideas tangible early.
See also Human-centred design, Prototyping, Design sprint
Ethnography is a research method that involves observing and spending time with people in their everyday settings to understand their behaviour, culture and the meaning they give to what they do. It reveals things people cannot easily describe in an interview or a survey.
In design it informs decisions with a deep, grounded understanding of real life.
See also Customer discovery, Synthesis
Facilitation is the skill of helping a group work together well to reach its own goals. A facilitator looks after the process, such as how people take part, how discussion is structured and how decisions are made, so that the group can concentrate on the content.
Good facilitation makes space for different voices, keeps conversations purposeful and helps groups move from talking to acting.
See also Participatory design
Human-centred design puts the needs, abilities and context of the people who will use something at the heart of how it is designed. It relies on involving those people throughout, through research, co-creation and testing, rather than relying on assumptions.
Service design and design thinking are both rooted in this approach.
See also Design thinking, Service design, Inclusive design, Participatory design
Inclusive design is designing so that as many people as possible can use and benefit from a product or service, including people who are often left out because of disability, age, language, income or circumstance. It treats diversity as a source of ideas, not a special case.
It involves people with different experiences in the design process, rather than adapting afterwards.
See also Human-centred design, Participatory design
Lean start-up is an approach to building products and services by running small experiments to test your assumptions, learning from the results and adjusting course. Its central idea is the build, measure, learn loop.
It favours evidence over planning and encourages teams to find out what customers value before investing heavily.
See also Customer discovery, Prototyping
Participatory design is a way of designing with, rather than for, the people affected. Users, staff and communities take an active part in shaping the outcome, not only in providing feedback on it.
It tends to produce solutions that fit real circumstances better, and it builds understanding and ownership among the people who will have to live with the result.
See also Facilitation, Human-centred design, Inclusive design
A persona is a fictional but research-based profile that represents a group of people who share similar needs, goals and behaviours. Personas help teams keep real people in mind when making design decisions.
They work best when grounded in actual research and used as a reference, rather than invented from assumptions.
See also Synthesis, Human-centred design
Prototyping means making a rough, quick version of an idea so that it can be tested and discussed before significant time and money are spent. A prototype can be a sketch, a role-play, a paper model or a clickable screen, whatever is enough to learn from.
The aim is to find out what works, and what does not, as early and as cheaply as possible.
See also Design thinking, Design sprint, Service design
A service blueprint is a diagram that maps a service from the customer's point of view and shows what happens behind the scenes to make each step possible. It lays out the people, processes, systems and handovers that support the experience, so that gaps and dependencies become visible.
Blueprints are most useful as a shared working tool: teams use them to find problems, agree priorities and design changes together.
See also Service design, Systems thinking
Service design is the practice of researching, designing and improving services so that they work well for the people who use them and for the people who deliver them. It looks at the whole experience over time, including the parts customers never see, such as staff roles, tools, policies and handovers.
It combines research, prototyping and systems thinking, and is usually carried out with the people involved rather than for them.
See also Service blueprint, Human-centred design, Systems thinking, Prototyping
Speculative design uses designed objects, stories and scenarios to imagine possible futures and provoke discussion about them. Rather than solving a present problem, it asks 'what if?' and invites people to consider the consequences of different choices.
It is used to open up conversations about technology, society and the kind of future people want.
See also Strategic foresight
Strategic design applies design methods to questions of strategy and organisational direction, such as what an organisation should offer, how it should change and what it should prioritise. It connects day-to-day design work to longer-term aims.
It often involves designing the conditions for good design, including culture, capability and ways of working, as well as particular products or services.
See also Service design, Strategic foresight
Strategic foresight is the discipline of exploring possible futures in order to make better decisions today. Rather than predicting one future, it develops several plausible scenarios, and uses them to test plans, spot emerging risks and opportunities and challenge assumptions.
It helps organisations act with more confidence in the face of uncertainty.
See also Speculative design, Complexity
Synthesis is the step in design research where you make sense of what you have gathered, finding patterns, themes and insights across notes, interviews and observations. It turns a large amount of raw material into a clear understanding that a team can act on.
Doing it together as a team helps build a shared view of the problem.
See also Ethnography, Personas
System dynamics is a method for modelling how the elements of a system influence each other over time, using stocks, flows and feedback loops. Models can be simple diagrams or computer simulations.
It is used to explore why a system behaves the way it does, and to test what might happen if something changes before committing to it.
See also Systems thinking, Complexity
Systems thinking is a way of understanding how things work by looking at the relationships between the parts, not only the parts themselves. It helps explain why well-intentioned changes can have unexpected effects, and why the same problems keep returning.
In practice it means mapping connections, feedback loops and different perspectives, and looking for the points where a small change could make a bigger difference.
See also Complexity, Cybernetics, System dynamics, Cynefin
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