Last week D&E welcomed Birger Sevaldson and Adrian Paulsen who gave an intense workshop on Systems Oriented Design. Birger and Adrian taught mapping technique called GIGA-mapping. GIGA-maps are process tools, aimed at helping the designers to reach a more inclusive and holistic conception of the task.

Last week D&E welcomed Birger Sevaldson and Adrian Paulsen who gave an intense workshop on Systems Oriented Design. Birger and Adrian taught mapping technique called GIGA-mapping. GIGA-maps are process tools, aimed at helping the designers to reach a more inclusive and holistic conception of the task. D&E students, who are currently working on a sports equipment project found that it is useful in the fuzzy front-end development and helps to better communicate their research and collectively find innovation opportunities.

Here is a short interview with our guests, held on the last day of the workshop.

In short, what is System Oriented Design and how product development profits from the mapping techniques?

Birger: You can design very simple stuff (and use system oriented design process), it doesn't have to be a system. But the aim of System Oriented Design is to design for super-complexity. As designers, we are more and more confronted with it, we are looking into new fields, that are not traditionally design fields. Like what can design do in politics and with decision making? Even when it comes to traditional design topics like designing the machinery, there has to be a concern about sustainability, which is a super complex topic in itself .We very often find ourselves in situations, that have changed because of globalization. Maybe the production is somewhere else in a different culture and there is transport involved. So the whole operation has become much more challenging and more complex. So, as designers, we need to train to be able to cope with this type of complexity.

Adrian: That is which we basically are trying to showcase in this workshop by presenting tools to do it, practical approaches and methods. Also, we used this week to introduce you as the student group to these tools and show, how GIGA-mapping can enhance your project. We make you try it out in this stressful context of one week and we try to make you want to use the tools, too.

So there are actually many tools in your toolbox for super-complexity

Birger: Yes, the GIGA-mapping is only one tool, there are many. We have other things like special ways of using scenarios etc. So a lot of other people do similar things, also mapping. But I think we are doing it with a special flare and our aim is a little a different, we are especially focusing to work with very large amounts of information and high complexity.

Adrian: And also interdisciplinary contexts and the meetings with companies. We are highly focussed on communicating with wide variety of audiences. Also some of the tools gear towards meetings and researching in the context of a dialogue.

Birger: Our attempt in mapping is really to understand different types of relations. Goal is to become better and more discriminating in relations. Relations are universal problem in all mappings.

Actually, for me, the biggest magic of the mapping was the collaboration process...

Birger: Yes. We have done a lot of mapping in collaboration with companies and organizations. I worked for example with Norwegian Research Council, which did mapping with Norwegian Design Council, and also with a consultancy group PDG, which is actually a management consultancy, not a typical design client but they are very cool and interested in design.

Also in our master studios we work with a lot of partners like Ulstein shipyard that produces advanced offshore operation ship, with Salto that makes quick charging stations for electric cars and with UDI, the Norwegian immigration office and with Policy Lab on disarmament questions.

But back to the collaborative aspect. We used it also as a management tool not as a design tool. We did a timeline mapping with TPG company ( http://www.tpg.no) to help them to better understand their own processes. People who have worked together for long time still have little different perspectives. Timeline mapping helps people get their perspectives synchronized and helps them also find innovations in 2 hours workshop. In TPG two hour workshop they found two innovations that they wanted to do differently. There are very professional people who participate in lot of these type of workshops. So we are very encouraged by this little steps forward.

Adrian: Also the collaboration dialogue thing is very interesting. I think this will be very clear to you after you have printed your maps and bring them to meetings. I also suggest going back to the professionals you have met while collecting insights and present them the map and then see... They tend to start very interesting dialogues once you have the landscape to talk within.

Birger: Yes it's a good dialogue tool with clients. It's like a study where you can put a lot of question marks and it helps to open up a discussion with experts or informed people you want to talk to.

Thank you, Birger and Adrian!