the transition of idea to physical reality |
| This is one of the most important of all the Taylor Models and one of the least understood and used. It makes a distinction which is almost always overlooked in the understanding of how ideas transform through multiple iterations of work and how they are expressed in different forms as they travel from metaphysical to physical reality. |
| The distinction is that an idea does not smoothly evolve through the creative process it transforms through re-creation at each of the major transition points along the path. This recreation is forced by many factors. Primary ones are iteration: the feedback to an individual or group of their own work (as an output) - from self or from others - and how this effects their concept, intension and subsequent work; recursion: the passage of time and (as an input) the ongoing influences from new, self induced thoughts, from colleagues, society and stimulus from the world at large; and, in most projects, the form a work takes as a natural consequence of development, modeling, communication and testing. |
| The Solution Box Model is a map of this journey and the Zone of Emergence Model shows how iteration, recursion, and feedback combine to induce a system break and change - a synergy - resulting in a outcome both purposeful and yet not predictable nor predetermined in the specific. |
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The Solution Box is composed of three models: The Creative Process, Vantage Points and Design Formation.
These form a matrix of 343 discreet steps each requiring their own unique language, criteria of veracity, work methods and tools.
click on the graphic for more |
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The Zone of emergence Model frames the conditions and essential dynamics of iteration, recursion and feedback necessary for systematic yet open-ended emergence in agent interaction, collaboration and design.
click on the graphic for more
and go to: valueweb mechanics |
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| The 4 Step Model is relevant on both the large scale of an effort and at the may discrete steps which may be involved with the effort. Generally, an idea goes from mind-space to physical representation to group effort, then to evaluation and feedback. Then, of course, back to mind-space. This same process happens at many of the intersections of the Solution Box. Generally, it is Design Formation - the form an idea takes in any iteration of work - which drives each iteration of the 4 Step process at the sub-system level. |
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...Walking Through the Model |
This Model is a map of the physical transformations an idea takes as it is manifested in different media - thus, forms - as it moves from concept to a broadly shared social artifact. |
| The Model addresses a commonly over looked fact: that the form an idea can take is both augmented and attenuated by the media by which - and in which - it is rendered. This gives rise to the requisite variety issue and requires understanding of the symbolic nature of different media systems and realizing that they themselves constitute a language when used within a refined field of knowledge and craft. For example, a set of architectural drawings has to be understood in this way if they are to be employed properly. These drawings are a construct employing words, symbols, literal representation and graphic conventions that convey information and nuance. The convention is general to the field and different regions of the world make their own adaptations as do most individual architects and draftsmen. Over time, the connection between the drawings and the finished building become codified and thus a visual-verbal language is established that can “hold” a great deal of information in a brief package. It is important to understand that the majority of this information is actually in the mind of the drawing makers and users - not on the paper. What is on the paper triggers memory [link: the 22 aspects of memory]. |
| The insight of the Design Formation Model is that when the rendering - the form it takes - of an idea moves from one of the four meta-forms (Vision, Template, Act-Work, Evaluate-Feedback) it cannot be copied - it must be recreated in the language and within the boundaries of a specific convention and media. If there is an attempt to copy the idea, and merely stuff it into the new form, it will lose integrity. Few would argue that an idea can be copied into the new media expression or that it should be - however, the default practice is to “try” and do so. If the idea, instead, is recreated this forces a cognitive shift and a whole new cycle of the creative process and therefore this act can significantly advance the idea. A copy loses resolution. A recreation adds new value. The implications of this insight, in the practical world of organized invention, are enormous. |
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Vision in this model references the mind of a living being holding a concept, design or intent. In this paper, I will focus on the recursion level [link: system recursion levels] of a single human rL3. It is legitimate and useful to thinks of teams, groups, societies, humanity - even Gaia - having a vision although the kind that it is and the form of it is, naturally, different depending on the recursion level and thus the composition of the “mind.” |
| Mind, in a human is timeless, multidimensional, extraordinary high variety and multi-media (emotions, senses, intellectual constructs, images and so on). it is also fluid as the mind can morph an idea endlessly with ease. This is why frank Lloyd Wright practiced and taught his apprentices the disciple of “imagine the building fully in the mind before committing it to paper” [link: fllw autobiography- rbtf book]. |
| As such, the amount of information that can be held in mind is enormous. Layers of connections radiate outward from a single idea be it held in words, in visual form or both. Feelings, kinesthetic and other senses - and ways of remembering - are also involved and sometimes dominate depending on the subject or mental propensity of any particular creative mind. This complexity cannot be captured in a drawing or written document. If one tries to copy this cornucopia in the far more limited form of paper or even multimedia, the result will be a watered down parody of the rich fantasy of the original idea. |
| This in-mind work is usually associated with the programmatic and schematic cycles as mapped by the Design Formation Model. Not always; Tesla, for example, was reported as having the ability not only to draw straight from mind detailed working drawings (Design Development - Contract Documents)but also to run a test of a new piece of equipment in his mind and accurately predict its moment of failure (Use - Feedback). How rae this talent actually is or how rare it seems because of the way the design process it taught and practiced, I do not know. While there is no harm and often good in “sketching” and keeping notebooks on a project, it is worth while to practice of keeping an idea in mind-space, during the incubation period, until there is considerable clarity before undertaking the task of its recreation. In a DesignShop® event, this is the SCAN. |
| Mind-space is fluid. Multiple versions and variations of an idea can be held at once. Ultimately, the idea-concept has to be put into an external, objective form that both concretizes the design and communicates it, in a formal language, to other minds. |
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The Template is the first transition from metaphysical into a physical expression. I call it a template because, whatever media used and the form form taken, this form is a specific rendering of the idea constrained by technology, conventions, rules, economy and intended use. It is not the full idea. It cannot be - it is one expression of it in a time and place. |
| The Template is governed by the Design Formation Model in terms that are appropriate for the specific kind of work and the intention of the use of the design (or work) as rendered. A book concept going to a possible publisher might be rendered in Program or Schematic level of formation in the form of an outline of chapters with some sample chapters written out. The idea and style of a work is thus expresses yet it is understood that there is much to be developed before a book will be possible. Publishers have a form (with some variation from house to house) they like to see the work rendered in. The form is a convention and language that facilitates fast comprehension of the proposed work. Publishers (and this again varies some amount) do not like to see a work too unformed nor too complete at the selection stage. |
| Compared to mind, any template (writing, drawing, picture, model, etc.) is a low variety experience limited by its specific physical characteristics and the economy of time, place and a “manufacturing” process. This along means the idea cannot be copied into this far more limited medium but must be recreated in a variant of its specific form. |
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The Act - the doing of Work - is always a social process even when apparently being done by a single person. This is the transition, from a idea expressed in some form intended to show or demonstrate an idea and support the ACT process, to the manifestation of the idea in the environment of its intended use.
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This step is Feedback. Feedback requires evaluation and is necessary to evaluation. In this model feedback is employed as a term-of-art not the loose open-ended comment, “let me give you feedback,” that has become the social convention. “Feedback” - as defined and used in the Taylor Method - is “the message to the controller of a system, from a sensor of the system, of the difference between performance and expectation (measured by a defined standard). |
| Feedback loops - negative and positive - have to be carefully designed and built into a system if stability is to be accomplished. When making an electronic circuit, engineers understand this. When managing an a corporation, few business people think of this as a structural design issue which will have a huge impact on the behavior of the entire system. |
| In the case of this Model, the feedback is both forward and backward. There is some merit in backward feedback mostly in terms of learning how to improve the process. To actually correct or change the prior work it of minimal value and perhaps great expenses. The main focus of the feedback it to the Vision, itself, and how this vision, informed and improved by the experience of bringing the idea into form and social reality, can be better understood and brought forth in the next cycle of expression and work. |
| The cycles time through the 4 Step Process should be high frequency and low magnitude. This promotes learning. Many small error, quickly found and easily fixed are better than a low frequency high magnitude process that tends to produce - at the end of a long cycle - large errors that are traumatic and expensive to fix if the can be fixed at all. |
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Recreation is the heart of this model-process. It is a design discipline as important as an engineer knowing the equations necessary for the task of designing a beam. The habit, when moving from one stage to another in the creation process, is to try to render the idea as it stands in terms of the requirements of the next stage of work. In other words fundamentally copy it. The copy - like any copy loses fidelity and the requirements of the new phase then tend to get added on thus be compromised themselves as well as diminishing the original concept. The paradox is that in order to make the original vision live it has to be let go.
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...the Model as a System and Process |
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In this System and Method, the models have to be understood and employed on multiple levels of recursion or too much meaning is lost. A model is not the reality. It cannot contain all the complexity of the thing it is representing. If it had that fidelity, it would be the thing. A model is an abstraction and brings focus to certain features to the exclusion of others. It is, thus, a “distortion” of the real thing - a useful tool, however, if used properly and treated with caution. We have several models which focus on different aspects of the creative process. It is not possible to show all of these aspects in one model. We use several. They are, in relation to one another, both iterative and recursive. Each Model can be treated as a system and each can be a sub-system of another and also to many other Models of the Method. |
| It is with this interplay that the Models and their component become a language [link: modeling language]. |
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...Iteration and Recursion and the Model |
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The Model can stand on its own, it can have other models with in it, and/or it can be placed within many of the other Taylor Models. The choice to do so is dependent on what you which to explore, see, understand and/or illustrate. |
| Recursion refers to, in this system and method, the levels of the system in focus. |
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At the same scale the Recreation Model fits over the Creative Process Model - and visa versa.
Notice that Vision and Feedback/Using overlap; that Design Template straddles Intent and Insight; Act, Engineering and Building. |
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| There are other examples of how the Models fit in one another and augment each other. |
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| There is another aspect of the Recreation Model which is implied in what I have written yet is worth making very clear. It goes to the heart of collaboration.. |
| How do skilled designers work together, collaboratively, on a complex project without sub-optimizing the whole and yet not compromising the parts and inappropriately subordinating individual contribution? It is actually this question which lead me to the discovery of the 4 Step Model. I found that the answer to the question was buried deep in what is good individual work practices.The answer is found in knowing appropriate hand-off places and in the discipline of recreating the concept and work at each cycle of the work In other words, collaborating designers merely have to treat each other in the same way they should treat themselves: finish a complete iteration of work (the entire creative process) and ship a product (for use) at some known level of Design Formation with good adherence to the “rules of evidence” and “definition of completion” common to, a community-of-work, at this level of expression. |
| This makes a finished product, useful in itself and ready for recreation at the next stage of manifestation. This removes barriers - no matter who takes the task on - the original designer, a new one - or team. |
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Matt Taylor
Triesen
October 28, 2006
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
ENGINEER • STRATEGY • CONSTRUCTION DOCUMENT
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posted:
October 28, 2006
revised:
November 5, 2006
• 20061028.802519.mt • 20061105.454502.mt •
(note:
this document is about 60% finished)
Copyright© Matt
Taylor 1982, 2006 |
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