Minimizing feedback loops in design
The Project Production Systems Laboratory (P2SL) out of the University of California at Berkeley recently hosted a talk on Design Management.
The speaker was Jamie Hammond, one of the founders of Adept Management. Jamie has studied the process of Design for fifteen years, from a very disciplined and academic point of view. From that research, he and some colleagues developed a system and software to help the process become less chaotic.
The basic problem: In architectural design, there are lots of iterative loops that make it hard to manage the process logically.
“I can’t lay out the spaces until you set the structural grid.” “Well, I can’t set the structural grid until you give me the layout.”
The most optimal sequence in which to do all the millions of tasks that make up architectural design would be a sequence in which there are as few of these iterative back-and-forth loops as possible, and loops in which as few parties are involved as possible.
In the example above, that would be considered a very large iterative loop. But if they broke down “space planning” and “structural layout” into more granular steps, they’d find that actually only a few decisions need to be made in an iterative loop between the architect and structural engineer.
The solution: The folks at Adept sit down with the entire design team and go through these steps.
1. Everyone tells what they do and what information they need in order to do it. Each task is broken down into very granular levels. As they are doing this, each task is entered into their patented computer program and linked to whatever other task must be completed first.
When you say what information you need in order to complete your task, you specify whether it is VITAL, IMPORTANT, or just NICE TO HAVE.
2. The computer then re-arranges the tasks into the optimal sequence. Before re-arranging them, you’ll likely have lots of very large iterative boxes. After optimization, you’ll have fewer or small boxes of iteration.
3. Then you look at those areas where you can’t get away from having to go through the back-and-forth conversations, and figure out how the group will deal with them.
Can you make some educated guesses about information to move forward?
Is it possible that some things you said were “vital” are actually just “nice to have?”
4. Now that you have agreed on the sequence of tasks, you can create a project schedule by adding estimated durations to the tasks.
5. Now the hard part: As the project progresses, you look at a small chunk at a time (like one week or two weeks), and create a workplan that you hold people accountable for.
Whenever a task isn’t completed within the focus period that it was supposed to be done, the person responsible must report to the whole team why not. Every week this happens, to reinforce the schedule that everyone agreed to in the beginning.
Besides creating the optimal sequence for tasks, there is one other valuable outcome from this process. The entire design team learns more about what the other people do, and that fosters empathy and understanding. That means the team will work better together.
There you have it. That’s Adept Management’s approach to Design Management.
