Unique Design

A Unique Design (UD) is a custom workshop assembled from Open Systems Theory components to address a particular outcome in a particular context, usually within a limited and time-bound window. UDs cover everything the Search Conference and the Participative Design Workshop do not.

A Search Conference is the right method when the strategic ends are not yet clear and need to be discovered. A PDW is the right method when an organisation’s structural design needs to change to DP2. A Unique Design is the right method when the outcome is already known, for example a problem to solve, a certification to obtain, a new policy environment to adapt to, or a community decision to make, and what needs designing is the path to that outcome.

The condition on every UD is that whatever is assembled must remain compatible with DP2. Method determines outcome, so the components must be selected, sequenced and facilitated in ways that hold the participative, self-managing character of the work.

The method, in three steps

1. Define the outcome precisely. What does success look like, in specifiable detail, at the end of the workshop. Vagueness at this step makes the rest impossible. The most common failure mode of UDs is scope creep at step one: a system defined too broadly leaves no workable design.
2. Identify the specific information or steps required to reach the outcome. Possible components include the history of the problem where it is recurrent, contextualisation of the system and its environment, and any compatible OST components such as environment scan, Six Criteria scoring, “Keep / Chuck out / Create”, Most Desirable and Most Probable Futures, workflow analysis, skills matrix, and action planning.
3. Arrange the components into a logical flow that starts at the beginning and ends at the defined outcome.

That is the whole method. The skill is in steps one and two: getting the system definition tight, and choosing the right components from the OST toolkit for this situation.

When to use a UD

Use the right method for the work.

• Search Conference when long-term strategic ends are not yet clear and need to be discovered.
• PDW when the structural design of an organisation or section needs to change to DP2.
• Unique Design when the outcome is known and the question is how to get there with a DP2-compatible process.

UDs can also be mixtures of Search Conference and PDW elements; that is one of the things that makes them flexible. A note from Merrelyn Emery worth holding: do not call something a Search Conference when it is not one. Naming a UD a Search Conference muddles both methods and obscures what is actually being done.

Design judgment, not just facilitation

A UD is genuinely designed, not selected from a template. The designer starts from the required outcome and works backwards to the essential pieces that must be in place, and to the setting in which they will work. The physical and cultural setting is part of the design. A UD for shop-floor workers will look different from a UD for executives; a UD for disengaged young people should probably not look like school at all. Once the underlying theory is understood, DP2 events for almost any purpose become designable, which is what makes Unique Designs the most adaptable method in the OST toolkit.

Working with a practitioner

Unique Designs reward experience. If you have an outcome in mind and want help designing the path to it, our practitioners directory lists people who do this work.