Simha's Design Tools

My Life and Career Review OP1a was created during my Orientation in early 2013 before I had much understanding of documenting and presenting my design cycle. Below is the description I give of my process from page 1.5 of the OP. I have created an image (below description) which attempts to encapsulate my cycle of design through deconstruct - reconstruct. It was far from a linear cycle as the image depicts, as I would jump between the various modes at different points. Review Docs doubles as the beginning of the cycle where I looked through my photos, art, writing etc, and the end of cycle when I reviewed my OP. I feel this design cycle was natural and successful. OPs being a new medium for me, I feel I could have used more help in understanding structure and documenting process. I was also asked to update this OP which I have done. A collection which is closer to the original OP can be seen here.

OP Extract: I started by reviewing all the documents, photographs and video on my computer. I then made a time line to recall all the ins and outs of my movements and experiences. I reflected on the experiences of my life that have provided me with my world-view and that have shaped my method of learning and unlearning. I then started writing these experiences and collecting artifacts, resizing and cataloging them. I reached out to my four parents and received many old artifacts from ancient pasts. It reminded me of the days of old, in the library looking through card catalogues and reeling through microfiche. I had a good laugh and revisited some challenging times as well. I have told my story many times throughout my life, yet never in such away

My OP1b LIPD was created nearing the end of the six month orientation in the summer of 2013. This early on I still had not understood the need of illustrating my Design Cycles in a flow chart. I describe my process in the extract of My Strategy below. I have recreated this design cycle into a flow chart image for the knowledge commons, seen below. This design cycle was a drawn out process in reality. Before entering Gaia U I knew I would need to be pushing my skills through projects so I had already started the process to sign up for and locate workshops I wanted to take. I created a Skill-flex chart to track my progress in various area which can be seen here.  I put a lot more energy into designing a progress tracking system and an OP checklist in my Capstone OP1b (right column). This big improvement was do to getting a lot of feedback and integrating it. I feel more time in the orientation could be spent on pathway tracking rubrics and self assessment.

My Strategy 

• Narrow down my priority learning-goals
• Outline next steps to achieve those goals
• Assess long term objectives
• Envision my learning-pathway connecting to my long term objectives

This was my first OP that I defined my OP design process with a flow chart. I am a detailed oriented person so I liked the extra description of modes in GaSADIMET (see image below by Gaia U.) that have been added on from the more simple GADIE design flow. I feel my self description of this flow chart got a little over detailed and could have been left in the supporting evidence. This was my first time looking at flow chart shapes and their meaning so I wanted to explore them. I see how they can be useful for programing and other technical process but for OP design I feel it just makes complexity with no real benefit.

OP extract: I like the thoroughness of the design framework GaSADIMET (image right). I wanted to self-articulate my OP2 process, so I interpolated it using flowchart shapes to further describe the dynamics of each individual process - See OP2 Flow Chart in the left column.

My first year OP2 was made up of many micro-projects, thus the name Skill-flexing on the Transformative Path. Many of these Micro-projects were unplanned and were a product of improving the systems of my living situation. I did not make a frame or flow chart for what my design cycle was, it was organic. As I was creating this OP I realized I needed to define it and decided to try and articulate the process I went through in the designs. I called this design process Emergent-Design Flow and created the image below for the OP. This OP I feel I went deep into exploring my own processes and it was beneficial to attempt to articulate it. I like the way the flow chart came out I feel it describes my natural process pretty well. In the outcome of these projects I realized I could use more reference to best practices in my process. 

Excerpt from OP: Looking a little deeper into the emergent-design flow, I realized it is a Sense-making model (3) and it fits into the Complex category of the Cynefin model, left column. I made two attempts to map my emergent-design flow, see my second draft, left column. To see more on the emergent design flow see 2.2 Thinking in use and 3.1 Supporting evidence.

The cynefin model was a design tool introduced in the orientation and I used it in my OP2 to describe my experience of Emergent Design Flow.

OP extract: Looking a little deeper into the emergent-design flow, I realized it is a Sense-making model (3) and it fits into the Complex category of the Cynefin model, left column. I made two attempts to map my emergent-design flow, see my second draft, left column. To see more on the emergent design flow see 2.2 Thinking in use and 3.1 Supporting evidence. 

(3) Dervin, Brenda  Ph.D.,"An Overview of Sense-making Research",

My OP3 on Leaderful Leadership I completed in October of 2013. I used GADIE as my design framework, I really liked the simplicity and adaptability of it application. I used it for the four micro-projects of this OP. I found it to be an articulate way to see the most important steps of the design cycle. I feel this is one of the best frameworks I have used to date. Now I naturally refer to this cycle even when I am using other frameworks, as the modalities of any framework fit into its principal modalities. This can help simplify more complex frameworks. I highly recommend using this framework when you are first starting to get into flow charts - frameworks and later to branch out from it. 

I created this flowchart for my Introduction to Permaculture. It was a great help as a checklist. It helped by illustrating the steps I needed to take to prepare for the course. I don't use the different flow chart shapes seen in this chart any more. It is a nice concept but I find it is too abstract, I simply use different colors to differentiate the various steps.

To design the report for my OP4 I used the framework of SADIM (seen below)  I really liked using this framework for OP design. It is straight forward and simple. I put this along side GADIE as one of my favorites. I see this as a very wide spectrum design framework, as it is adaptable to any project and context. Again I wanted to make a graphic that more fully described my process and so created the more detailed version of SADIM below the first simple flow chart. I have found it useful to create my own graphics of these frameworks to help me assimilate each modality more fully.

SADIM helped:

1. slowing me down
2. articulating each step and their components
3. being a visual cue to the process

I really like Bloom's taxonomy as a design tool/cycle. For me it is a great description of the creative process involved in design!

OP Extract:

This section outlines the different modalities of thinking I experienced during this cycle.

I experienced the use of all six levels of thought described in Bloom's taxonomy (revised) 

1. Remembering - Having seen PSPs before, its what allowed it to become a solution. Also essential modality for all steps of researching, designing and building
2. Understanding - Assimilating the knowledge to make it my own. When I explained the PSP functioning to Prem Prakash 
3. Applying - Implementing what I understood to create the design and project.
4. Analyzing - This is the process of gathering the objective characteristics of the site/circumstance, observation (solar azimuth)
5. Evaluating - There are many design consideration for a PSP. I had to sift through all the possibilities to create a site specific design.
6. Creating - I did not follow a plan. I used systems thinking to create the design, by observing relationships of components.

Below is a mind map I made from a template that Ava Klinger created (which now appears to be locked). I saw many important points and decided to deconstruct-reconstruct it. I used this mind map to create my OP5 outline.

The animation below was created for my end of cycle presentation. This was a generalized cycle I made to illustrate the basic steps of a design process.