This week I ran a workshop with undergraduate students at Imperial College working in design teams at imperial. the aim was to show that it is much easier to give feedback when you a working from a common set of expectations. But this feedback approach can go much further than supporting good team dynamics – itself very important – it can be used as a tool for creative thinking and exploring new ground. Here is a summary of the ten most common points that came up during my conversations with students.
Continue reading “Working notes on feedback as a design tool”Building creative culture in engineering companies
I am starting to shift my attention away from creative tools for engineers. Tools are still important. But I’ve realised that unless you need a creative culture for individual creativity to thrive.
Recently, I rediscovered in Laloux’s ‘Reinventing Organisations‘ the Wilbur four-quadrant model. The model descrives how culture, systems and worldviews interact. We can use this model to understand a phenomena in an organisations from four different perspectives:
- How the phenomenon can be measured from the outside
- How the phenomenon feels from the inside – intuiting how it feels
- How the phenomenon appears to the individual
- How the phenomenon appears to a group of people.
Like all engineer-friendly models, Wilbur’s is a two-by-two grid. The columns divide the grid into interior perspecitve and exterior perspective. The rows divide the grid into individual and collective perspective. According to Laloux
Wilbur’s insight, applied to organisations, means we should look at: 1) people’s mindsets and beliefs [individual interior perspective]; 2) people’s behaviour [indvidiual exterior perspective]; 3) organisational culture [collective interior perspective]; and, 4) organisational systems (structures, processes and practices) [collective exterior perspective]”
From Reinventing Organisations, Laloux (2016)
Applying the four quadrant model to organisational creativity
I’ve assembled some quick thoughts on how the four quadrant model might apply to understanding creativity in an organisation. I have written the statements for a fictional ideal case. This difference between this ideal case and reality can give us some suggestions for what we might need to do to build a more creative organisation.
Notes from ISEE 2018, UCL London
A very interesting couple of days at the 7th International Symposium of Engineering Education down at UCL. Here’s something I found interesting which I am sharing with colleagues and collaborators.
Continue reading “Notes from ISEE 2018, UCL London”