I should have done my research on IDEO

Last week I wrote about my experiences with some IDEO design thinking courses and highly recommended them. However, one of our readers, Malla Haridat, very generously reached out to note that IDEO has had some serious conversations pop up around DEI that I should know about.

Yikes.

And sigh.

I have to admit I was not aware, and absolutely should have done my research, especially before making a recommendation. I regret that Malla had to reach out and let me know.

And at the same time I have to say that I am unfortunately not in the slightest bit surprised, although had I known earlier, I would not have signed up for their courses or recommended them.

Here are some of the articles that I'm working through reading. Be aware that if you have any kind of workplace trauma yourself, you should consider reading when you are resourced with time, space and energy for processing.

• Surviving IDEO by former IDEO employee and person of color George Aye

• Breaking the trance: how I escaped IDEO’s biased career labyrinth and IDEO equal pay commitments are very little, very late by former IDEO employee and white woman Elizabeth Johansen (she also acknowledges racial and intersectional disparities)

This lead me to some articles that critique Design Thinking for perpetuating oppression.

• A Design Thinker Reckons with Design Thinking by Tania Anaissie

• Design has an empathy problem: white men can’t design for everyone by Jesse Weaver

Malla asked if there were any other organizations I would recommend instead, and when I replied to her earlier this week, I said unfortunately no, most comparable organizations likely have similar issues, and any major academic institution is going to be problematic (some of the articles above reference d.school's involvement in some problematic applications of design thinking too).

However, following some links from the Tania Anaissie article and recalling some past unrelated references to Equity Design, I do have some resources to offer although I should say I have not fully vetted or reviewed these:

• Liberatory Design offers a free PDF deck

• Creative Reaction Lab also offers a free/pay what you can PDF field guide

• The Equity Design Collaborative lists these and other member organizations that I haven't had a chance to explore yet

Creative Reaction Lab's article Redesigners for Justice: the leaders we need for an equitable future addresses one of the key critiques of "design empathy" by noting that "equity designers" are embedded within a community. It's not enough to have empathy for a community yet still be designing for them rather than with them.

Which leaves me pretty much in the same place with regards to design thinking concepts themselves, which is that I believe they offer some helpful tools and approaches that can be added to a strong foundation in anti-racism and anti-oppression work. Any tool or methodology can be weaponized for good or evil, including anti-racism itself, so deeply rooted are systems of oppression and our socialization into them. I'm excited to dig into some of the resources listed above that seek to combine design thinking with equity work, as well as to do so in our own methodology at Co-Creating Inclusion. And although the background info on IDEO doesn't change my experience of the courses themselves, I'm rescinding my recommendation.

Thank you again Malla for your feedback that has lead to such a fruitful avenue of exploration.

Banner photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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