religious stone carvings

Last week was a dark week in all sorts of ways. Brexit staggered into its next phase, the UK went into its third lockdown amid terrifying Coronavirus infection rates, the US showed its self-destructive tendancies to the world (again), and all the while the planet suffers our ongoing, unrelenting disrespect. For Broken circles it was also a little dark. We felt adrift from a concrete outcome, and the SWCTN business workshops only highlighted the gap. It felt like we were at the back of the class.

We have so many great ideas, but the convergence towards a single unifying, iconic theme eluded us. So I mapped our trajectory, and I remembered that this was the first phase, Discover, of the double diamond. This is where we had been expanding out, exploring our purpose, researching our subject space, finding and talking to our audience, and generating many (many, many) fresh ideas and possible solutions without judgement . It’s good design (and art) practise. But it is also the least secure phase.

So Jon and I agreed to use January for two sprints. One to distill existing and any new ideas down to a few for each of us, that could be discussed and demonstrated on paper (no digital implementation). At the end of the sprint we would then pitch to each other. The second sprint will be for us to rapidly prototype an agreed subset of these as candidates for eventual building. These can be digital, models, paper, whatever helps us test the idea and consider ways of implementing them, and attend to the data that might bring them to life for the prototype showcase.