Design thinking, wicked problems and institutioning change: a case study
Ben Matthews, Skye Doherty, Peter Worthy, Janine Reid
Abstract
The popular rise in interest in design thinking has generated new opportunities for codesign approaches to be applied to domains outside the traditional province of design disciplines, such as education, social justice, and healthcare services. This creates opportunities to revisit some of the original connections between design research and wicked problems, and to reflect on what is lost, and what stands to be gained, by the sustained application of design-based approaches to intractable, multi-stakeholder problems encountered in other cooperative design arenas. In this paper we discuss a case in which we sought to redesign fundamental aspects of the common law process by which workers seek damages from their employer as a result of injuries sustained at work. We use the case as a basis to critically discuss the promise and challenges of codesigning our way out of genuinely wicked problems.