18 research outputs found
Adapting the process of a public sector innovation lab with the help of design thinking: The case of X-lab Rvo
No full textIn the Netherlands, one of the government bodies solving complex problems is the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (‘Rijksdienst Voor Ondernemers’; RVO). Within RVO, X-lab is developing new ways of working to be better prepared to deal with these complex problems. In short, X-lab is RVO’s internal innovation lab that creates and collects different frameworks, methods and tools to support policy writers when they solve problems. They do this by co-creation, developing frameworks, experimenting and setting up processes. In practice it has been noted by X-lab that innovative ideas are being created with the help of X-lab, but not always successfully carried out in practice. Hence, X-lab is working on improving its methods and processes. A new method they are currently developing is flow design, which is seen as a good fit to solve the present complex problems. However, X-lab encounters problems scaling up the flow design method, therefore it is not practiced by many. I was approached to further investigate this problem. While investigating the problem, I noticed there are several underlying problems within flow design that do not allow flow design to live up to its full potential to deal with complex problems. This is mainly because after a flow design session no clear actions to solve the problem are designed after analysing the problem. Based on this insight, I decided to shift the focus of this research towards these underlying problems. Resulting in the following aim of this research: The aim of this research is to deliver a tangible product that enables X-lab to better deal with complex problems, supported by recommendations that are based on a thorough analysis of X-lab and flow design. Since I am a designer experienced in design thinking, the following research question was drafted: Where and how can design thinking support the trajectory of flow design within X-lab RVO? This thesis follows the structure of the double diamond as presented by the design council (2007). The starting point of this thesis was conducting research into X-lab and flow design. These results are evaluated and then compared to design thinking theories. Based on the outcome of this analysis several experiments were performed to develop the solution. As a final step this solution is validated and iterated. Resulting in two manuals and a decision-making canvas. The discovery phase The first phase of this thesis is the discovery phase. In this phase case studies and interviews are done to develop a theory explaining flow design. Based on this analysis several problems are identified which are arbitrary division, language, time limitation, lack of process and measuring impact. Of these problems lack of process is the most relevant problem and therefore it was selected to solve in this thesis. In this analysis it was concluded that flow design doesn’t live up to its full potential. According to the theories by Tuckmann (1972) and Snowden and Boone (2007), there need to be steps added after a flow design session, so that the group can live up to its full potential and so that complex/complicated problems are solved in the best possible way. Therefore, the question arises whether design thinking is a relevant theory to support in developing these steps and if so, how can it support flow design? The define phase: This question is answered in the second phase of this thesis, the define phase. With the help design thinking models, such as frame creation (Dorst, 2015) and the double diamond (Design council, 2004), the conclusion is made that design thinking is supporting when dealing with complex and complicated problems. Also, based on the design thinking models, two design thinking principles were drafted that can support flow design, which are:•To be able to perform next steps while solving a problem, their needs to be clarity in which steps to take and why•Secondly, these steps need to be taken using iteration and experimentationThe create phase:The third phase of this process is the create phase. In this phase the solution is created and developed. To do so several experiments are performed to understand the moment of intervention, the use of frameworks, how to deliver clarity and their current way of experimentation. Based on these experiments a model is developed and tested. The result was a concept model, which had potential, but needed further iteration so that the user knows how to properly apply the model. This was done in the final phase.The deliver phase:The final phase of this thesis is the deliver phase. In this phase I have developed two manuals and a decision-making canvas which guides you through the necessary steps to take for solving a complicated or complex problem. These products were validated using a fictive case study. The evaluation pointed out that the product portfolio is succesfull, but where and how did design thinking support the trajectory of flow design? I will explain that based on the theories I have consulted in this thesis.The support of design thinking:Based on Tuckmann (1972) and Snowden (2007) and the interviews it can be said that the full potential of the current flow design process is not met. First of all, because in theory the potential is higher when all steps of the two theories are completed, and secondly, because flow design has no tangible outcome and therefore no clear actions to solve the problem are designed after analysing the problem. However, the final goal is to solve the problem, consequently the current flow design process could be improved.So, flow design doesn’t perform all the steps of Tuckmann’s model of group development and also not of Snowden’s dealing with complex/complicated problems model. The missing steps in flow design are Tuckmann’s norming and performing steps and Snowden’s probe, sense and response steps for complex problems, and Snowden’s sense, analyse and response steps for complicated problems. The product portfolio was designed in such a way that it facilitates that all of Snowden’s and Tuckmann’s steps are performed. Furthermore, the validation showed that the product portfolio indeed delivered clear actions to solve the problem. Since, the product portfolio has been created with the use of design thinking, namely the methods of the double diamond and frame creation are being applied, I conclude design thinking supports the trajectory of flow design.So, I have presented a product portfolio in this thesis which improves flow design. Furthermore, this product portfolio along with the thorough description I made on flow design itself has been written down in a tangible document that can be transferred to collegues within the organisation. Reflecting on the starting point of this project six months ago, I conclude that the side effect of this thesis is that the resulting product increases the potential scalability of flow design.Lastly, the validation pointed out that improvements can be made on clarifying what type of problem you are dealing with and on how to use the action model more time efficient.Strategic Product Desig
The Pageant of Mutabilitie: Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts and The Faerie Queene
Get PDFThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Oxford University Press via the DOI in this record.By drawing a parallel between Miss La Trobe’s pageant in Woolf’s Between the Acts, and Mutabilitie’s pageant in the Mutabilitie Cantos of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, this article elucidates the role played by the aevum—an order of duration that lies between time and eternity—in Woolf’s last novel. While the fantasy of an aeviternally permanent nature is a comforting one for Lucy Swithin, this inherently conservative temporal fiction carries a troubling politics, and is deeply problematic from various perspectives. It threatens to petrify exploitative gender, colonial and class relations in a changeless nature, with no prospect of emancipatory historical change. Recognizing Woolf’s use of the aevum serves to challenge Brechtian readings of the pageant, and to qualify recent interpretations of Woolf that depict her as holding a revolutionary materialist conception of history, similar to that of Walter Benjamin
Taking heed of the ‘danger space’: acute descending necrotising mediastinitis secondary to primary odontogenic infection
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DETC2011-47493 AN APPROACH TOWARD MAKING A DESIGN DECISION BASED ON FUTURE DEMAND PREDICTION
No full textABSTRACT This paper presents an approach for modeling uncertainty of future demand according to a forecast of an influential exogenous variable, which serves as the first step toward making a product design decisions based on future demand prediction. Optimum product design that maximizes expected profit or expected utility of profit depends on future demand influenced by future exogenous variables (i.e., economic, societal, and political variables beyond designers' control). For example, an optimum design among gasoline, hybrid, electric, and fuel cell vehicles may depend on economic variables such as future gasoline prices, societal variables such as future climate change, and political variables such as future government standards for fuel-efficient vehicles. However, in particular for large-scaled and complex products, designers quite often make design decisions many years before the product is introduced to the marketplace without knowing future exogenous variables. To enable designers to make design decisions according to predicted demands, this study proposes to link demand distributions with exogenous variables and update demand distributions based on exogenous variable forecasts and their degrees of accuracies. An illustrative example is used to demonstrate impacts of exogenous variable forecasts and their accuracies on future demand prediction and expected profit calculation of a fuel cell vehicle
A question of belonging : imagining the Chinese in the British West Indies
Get PDFThis study examines what effect the presence of the Chinese in the West
Indies had on understandings of belonging in terms of nation. It examines the
construction of the category "Chinese" across different modes, particularly literary
texts, from the nineteenth century to the present, and from the positions of colonial,
creole and Chinese spaces. The results of this research challenge the common view
that the Chinese have had a marginal impact on the perception of nationhood in the
West Indies. Instead, images of the Chinese were, and continue to be, a key means of
exploring the ambiguities, potentialities and limitations of nation as it developed in
the West Indies. In particular, they reveal that neither "nation" nor "belonging" are
static positions; rather, they signify continuing renegotiations of power relationships
and cultural identities.
Several factors impact on representations of the Chinese. In the nineteenth
century, such images were molded by the specific aims of colonial enterprises,
entangled at the intersection of the discursive constructs of "East" and "West" during
a period of mass migrations and the peculiar tensions of post-emancipation West
Indian societies. In the twentieth century, "the Chinese" have been created in response
to a need to assert ownership of what was once colonised space and to perform nation
before a global audience. Of late, Chinese West Indians have taken a more visibly
active role in the construction and dissemination of images of themselves and their
communities. In the process they have sometimes radically redefined the imaginative
nation space of the West Indies and, in the process, challenge established boundaries
of belonging, and contest "belonging" itself
The 3-dimensional anatomy of the North-Western Marsupial Mole (Notoryctes caurinus Thomas 1920) using computed tomography, X-ray and magnetic resonance imaging
Get PDFThe 3-D skeletal images obtained from reconstruction of CT scans and X-rays, and soft-tissue images produced by MRI, provide invaluable information of the internal and gross anatomy of the north-western marsupial mole (Notoryetes caurinus).
The conical skull, which is quite thin-walled dorsally and anteriorly but strong in the basicranial region, has little evidence of the orbit or zygomatic arch, and the smoothly-curved posterior region has no sagittal or occipital crests. The vertebral column is remarkably strengthened, and in lateral view has an unusual flat-shape. The cervical vertebrae appear to be greatly compressed; 4 or 5 are completely fused (which is unique among marsupials). The thoracic vertebrae are fairly robust with large neural spines. The lumbar vertebrae are distinct, becoming large posteriorly towards the pelvis. The sacral vertebrae are greatly expanded in size and are fused with the pelvis. Particularly in the middle of the tail, the caudal vertebrae are greatly developed, with large transverse processes and chevron bones. The pectoral girdle is very anterior, with the shoulder articulation level with the anterior cervical vertebrae just behind the skull, and low on the side of the body. The humerus is robust, and the radius and ulna are very short. The bones of the pelvis are highly derived, and fused to sacral vertebrae. The epipubic bones are small and not ossified. An ossified patella is present and it has an unusual large triangular keel.
The most apparent soft-tissue structure by MRI is a large amount of subcutaneous fat, particularly around the ventral surface of the pelvis but also dorsal to the pelvis and anteriorly around the shoulders. The major muscle groups are visible, but distinction between individual muscles is not possible except for the very large muscles of the thigh, upper arm and base of the tail. The muscles of the tail are strongly developed, more so ventrally than dorsally
