Nudging Systems + Equity-centered Design + Systems Thinking with Sheryl Cababa — DT101 E120
Release Date: 09/12/2023
Leadership & Strategy + Fighter Pilots + Design Education with Jason "TOGA" Trew — DT101 E145
Design Thinking 101
When I first connected with Jason Trew (callsign: TOGA), I knew this conversation would challenge some assumptions about where design thinking belongs. Jason is an Air Force fighter pilot and strategy leader turned professor. What emerged from our conversation wasn't just another story about design thinking adoption, but a deeper exploration of what he sees happening when we distinguish between capital-D Design Thinking and lowercase-d design thinking, and why that distinction matters for everyone trying to create meaningful change. Jason's journey from F-15 pilot to design educator reveals...
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Operational Excellence in Design + Leadership + Design Ops with Jon Fukuda — DT101 E144
Design Thinking 101
Jon said that when he first discovered the design operations community at the 2019 Design Ops Summit in Brooklyn, it felt like coming home. Here was this entire tribe of people who cared about the same things he’d been passionate about for years—creating systems that help designers do their best work. In this episode, I'm talking with Jon Fukuda, co-founder of Limina.co, about how design operations has evolved from an unnamed set of practices into a vital discipline that drives organizational excellence. As organizations continue to face economic pressures, the conversation around design...
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Building Sustainable Design Research Systems with Sam Zucker — DT101 E143
Design Thinking 101
The tension between doing good research and delivering on tight timelines is something I've experienced throughout my career in design and innovation. This conversation with Sam Zucker unpacks powerful approaches to making research more sustainable and equitable while building systems that support continuous learning and engagement. What particularly struck me was Sam's practical framework for embedding research into organizational workflows. Her approach transforms research from a periodic, resource-intensive effort into an ongoing capability that shapes decision-making and product...
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Architecture + Decision Design + Learning Spaces + Strategy with Adam Griff — DT101 E142
Design Thinking 101
In this episode, I explore how architectural thinking enhances strategic decision-making with Adam Griff. Our conversation reveals how his architectural background shapes his approach to helping higher education institutions navigate complex decisions and create flexible space solutions. We dig into the challenges of designing spaces that can adapt to unknown futures and discuss how universities can better integrate with their communities. I particularly love how Adam frames flexibility in building design as creating platforms for future adaptations rather than just multi-purpose spaces....
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Joy, Transformation, and Design as Creative Liberation with Sahibzada Mayed — DT101 E141
Design Thinking 101
Sahibzada Mayed is a creative alchemist who uses design and storytelling to cultivate joy and imagination as tools of liberation. Mayed serves as the Co-Lead for Strategy and Research at Pause and Effect, a liberation-focused imagination and design collective based on Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Beyond that, Mayed leads a small-scale startup, Naranji, that focuses on gender justice and decolonization in fashion. Today, we talk about decolonizing design and creative liberation. Listen to learn about: >> The impact of colonialism and power...
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Healthcare Design: Evidence-based, Business Fluent, and Change Prepared with Matt Van Der Tuyn — DT101 E140
Design Thinking 101
Matthew Van Der Tuyn is a designer and healthcare innovation strategist. Matt is the Senior Director of Design and Strategy at the Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation at Penn Medicine. The mission at the Center is to serve as a catalyst and accelerator for initiatives that dramatically improve health outcomes, patient and provider experiences, and decrease the cost of care. Matt has had the unique opportunity to help build the Center’s design, discipline, and elevate design thinking as a key tool in Penn Medicine's organizational toolbox. Matt's design process balances...
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Behavioral Science in Human-centered Design with Christina Hanschke — DT101 E139
Design Thinking 101
Christina Hanschke's career journey has spanned many diverse roles. She's been a music therapist, nanny, and UX researcher, and she’s currently a Design Lead at Final Mile, where she applies a multidisciplinary approach to address pressing societal changes, drawing from behavioral science, human-centered design, and systems thinking. As an adjunct faculty at DePaul University, Christina extends her passion for leveraging behavioral science in human-centered design to the next generation of innovators fostering a diverse culture of curiosity and continual learning. Christina and I talk about...
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Organizational Design + Strategy + Change with Stephanie Gioia — DT101 E138
Design Thinking 101
Stephanie Gioia is a founder at Future Work Design with a focus on strategic planning and organizational innovation. She also serves as the director of the Either/Org project and teaches human-centered design for organizational innovation at the University of Oregon's Executive MBA program. She’s taught at Stanford’s d.school, University of Michigan, and Pacific Northwest College of Art. She is the founder of deckaholic.com, the world's largest library of card decks for problem solving and creativity. We talk about organizational design and strategy, and helping organizations navigate...
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Designing Your Career + UX for Small Business with Sarah Doody — DT101 E137
Design Thinking 101
Sarah Doody is a user research experience designer and researcher. She's also the founder of Career Strategy Lab, a UX career coaching program. In 2011, she co-created the curriculum and taught for General Assembly's first 11-week UX intensive program in New York City. She has extensive experience doing experience design, product strategy, and user research for companies including Fatherly, Sling, Citi Bike, We Work, Domino Magazine, Tictail, the Muse, Dow Jones and more. She speaks at conferences and teaches workshops worldwide. Today, we talk about designing your career and user experience...
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Design Ethics with George Aye — DT101 E136
Design Thinking 101
This is the inaugural DT101 Live!, with guest George Aye. George co-founded Greater Good Studio with the belief that design can help advance equity. Previously, he spent seven years at global innovation firm IDEO before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Today, we are talking live about ethics in design in the design industry. Listen to learn about: >> What is ethical design?...
info_outlineSheryl Cababa drives a human-centered design practice focusing on systems thinking and evidence-based design, working on everything from robotic surgery experience design to reimagining K-12 education through service design. In her work with consultancies such as Substantial, Frog, and Adaptive Path, she has worked with a diverse base of clients including the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, IHME, and IKEA. Sheryl is an international speaker and workshop facilitator. When not in the office, she can be found at the University of Washington, helping educate the next generation of human centered design and engineering students.
Listen to learn about:
>> Equity-centered design
>> Systems thinking and designing in complex systems
>> Co-creation and working with lived experts
>> Sheryl’s book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers
Our Guest
Sheryl Cababa is the Chief Design Officer at the Insights Design + Development Studio, Substantial, and a multi-disciplinary design strategist with more than two decades of experience. She is focused on reinventing the approaches of learning and collaboration in today’s educational environment to help equity-centered research affirm and advance relationships between institutions, educators, and students.
Sheryl has worked extensively in human-centered design within the social impact space. She specializes in developing tools and methods for designers to expand their mindsets beyond user-centered design, anticipate unintended consequences, and engage in systems thinking.
Her recent work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation includes leading student voice research to inform the K-12 Balance The Equation Grand Challenge. Sheryl works with their teams to provide equity-centered technical assistance to their grantees, designing the Use Case Guide for demand-side thinking programs, and conducting extensive design research with both U.S. Programs and Global Health teams. Her book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, was released in early 2023.
Show Highlights
[02:36] Sheryl’s degrees are in political science and journalism, not design.
[02:46] Getting into design by creating infographics and websites.
[03:20] Turning an intern job at the Seattle Times into a job at Microsoft.
[03:54] Sheryl’s official entry into design was as a product designer.
[04:56] Becoming a design consultant while living in the Netherlands.
[05:33] Shifting more into design strategy over design execution.
[06:03] Why Sheryl started integrating systems thinking methods into her work.
[07:19] Sheryl’s current work in equity-centered design.
[08:52] What is equity-centered design?
[09:58] Design is an act of power.
[10:51] Equity-centered design is about designing with, not for.
[12:03] The problem with personas.
[14:28] Going beyond personas.
[17:50] “When I was in college…” and the biases we tend to start from.
[18:54] Co-creation, and letting people speak for themselves during the design process.
[20:43] Thinking about legacy systems and designing in complex systems.
[23:12] There aren’t really any “broken” systems.
[24:10] You can’t sit down and just design a system.
[24:38] When we “design” for a system, we are intervening in order to shift outcomes in a different direction.
[26:25] Thinking about potential harm and harm reduction during the design process.
[27:18] There is no silver bullet solution.
[30:34] Re-examining solutions to see if they are still working as time goes on.
[31:23] Looking at generative AI from a systems perspective.
[34:24] A Miro Moment.
[36:39] Sheryl’s book, Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers gives designers tools and frameworks to better understand systems.
[37:49] Encouraging designers to think intentionally about how things interconnect.
[38:15] Viewing the system as a whole ecosystem that surrounds your design.
[41:28] Sheryl talks about one of her favorite frameworks from the book.
[45:28] Sheryl introduces the concept of “lived experts.”
[46:25] Shifting mindsets leads to different outcomes.
[49:35] Dawan’s post-interview thoughts about systems.
Links
Sheryl on LinkedIn
Sheryl on Twitter
Sheryl on Medium
Sheryl on UW Human Centered Design & Engineering
Sheryl on Women Talk Design
This is Design School: Ep 33 – Sheryl Cababa on Unintended Consequences
The Product Design Podcast: Sheryl Cababa – Systems Thinking for Designers
Content Strategy Insights: Closing the Loop - Systems Thinking for Designers | Episode 141
UX Podcast: #308 Systems thinking with Sheryl Cababa
Substantial
Substantial on Instagram
National Equity Project: Liberatory Design
The Donella Meadows Project
Book Recommendations
Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, by Sheryl Cababa
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, by Peter Senge
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Adding System Awareness to System Design to Your Innovation Stack with Julie Guinn — DT101 E43
Design Council UK + Systemic Design + Design in Government with Cat Drew — DT101 E78
5.5 Things Every Designer Should Know About Hacking Bureaucracy with Marina Nitze — DT101 E106