The Long Now: Strategic Design Workshops for Non-Designers

Abstract

Vanderlande Industries B.V. is the global market leader for future-proof logistics process automation at airports and in the parcel market and the leading supplier of process automation solutions for warehouses. Vanderlande gained its number one market position from constant innovation and making great quality products, meeting the question of the customer and coming from a technology-driven perspective. However, to stimulate their innovation, bridge existing knowledge silos, and be ready for VUCA Worlds, Vanderlande wants to have the right creative response. Through a series of collaborative workshops, a group of Vanderlande employees from different departments is guided through the process of Design Roadmapping called The Long Now. The scope of this project is Traveling in Europe process will focus on centralizing the passenger, instead of the airport as a driver for innovation and value. Furthermore, there is a plan to use the workshops also for other domains, e.g. parcels and warehousing. This led to the initial research question: “How to create a digital process of Design Roadmapping in which the passenger is central for Vanderlande and that could be transmitted to different domains?”

Through a theoretical background, the design of The Long Now can be separated into three different levels: Firstly, The Long Now Process design, on this level all design choices regarding the process and outline of the workshops are defined, including the involvement of senior management. Secondly, the strategic workshop design, on this level is the design of the strategic workshops necessary to build the design roadmap. And lastly, the knowledge design. The workshops are for non-designers, so the needed design research was done beforehand and served as input for the different strategic workshops. On all three levels, guidelines were created as a foundation to design for these layers.
Secondly, because of the existing knowledge silos within Vanderlande and the externally created design knowledge that needs to be adopted by the participants, knowledge barriers within the group can occur. Knowledge boundaries happen when ideas are so novel that a new language, interpretation, or interest is needed. Therefore, the right design frames and tools for knowledge crossing are necessary. All these different insights are transformed in a design goal:
“Design the process, strategic workshops, and content for “The Long Now” that is transmittable to different domains following the created guidelines and that helps in crossing any existing knowledge boundaries by designing the tools/ frames/ methods for this.”

Through continuous iteration loops, the workshops and the necessary design frames were first tested and redesigned, to make sure that the flow of the workshop and the knowledge crossing elements were optimal. The final design of the Long Now is a set of Design Roadmapping workshops that is ready to be transmitted to the next domain of airports. Based on this first version of the workshop, a set of recommendations is written for the next Long Now, which will take place in other domains.

In addition to this research, the strategic workshops also produced outcomes regarding the scope of Traveling in Europe, which resulted in a future vision statement for Vanderlande: In 2050, Vanderlande orchestrates seamless, sustainable connections for every journey.