Business, Featured - Written Tuesday, June 29, 2010 by Naumi Haque - 3 Comments

Design charrettes for platform projects

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who introduced me to the concept of design charrettes (no, it’s not a classy version of Chat Roulette). A design charrette is a way to super-charge the planning phase of the project by collecting a group of cross-functional stakeholders together in a series of workshops to vet different design options. My friend works for a company that helps implement sustainable development projects, in many cases, building projects. In these types of projects, planning is tremendously important because design choices become locked-in and are costly to change. Also, when designing to simultaneously optimize for natural ecosystems, the usability of public spaces, and aesthetics, there is a great deal of complexity, both from a sustainable planning perspective and from a stakeholder perspective. Complex systems result in more long-term unintended consequences (see Complexity and Wikinomics), so a project plan that maximizes feedback and expands options and scenarios earlier in the process is desirable.

Interestingly, the same could be said for many of the platform design projects currently underway in the Enterprise 2.0 space. In many cases, IT teams are designing and implementing collaborative software without the benefit of collaboration. Yet, collaborative business platforms suffer from many of the same challenges as sustainable building projects. They try to optimize for interactions across complex business ecosystems, usability of digital tools, and aesthetics. They also involve multiple stakeholders and risk costly lock-in if poor architectural or design choices are made early in development. I’m convinced design charrettes can enhance the performance of platform projects as well.

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