Design and the Prospects for Critical Dialogue
Design and the Prospects for Critical Dialogue
by Christopher R. Paparone
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This is the fourth in a series of short Small Wars Journal articles on design. The previous discussions are about the prospects of a military professional renaissance, deviant leadership, and mission analysis. The renaissance article speaks to the paradoxical worldviews associated with a design culture. The second involves finding the appropriate model of leadership that complements the philosophy of design. The third article demonstrates that military design science is concerned primarily with the exploring the mysteries of craftwork and emergence — where military routinized- and engineering-type tasks and associated analytic decision processes are insufficient to cope with the unpredictability of wicked situations. The thesis of the present essay (#4) is that, especially in a military context, dialogue is central to the method of design. In the midst of operating in highly volatile, uncertain, complex and uncertain (high "VUCA") environmental niches we have to continuously design meaning and find clever ways to communicate about that unique, novel, and highly contextual, wicked situation. We have to continuously and collectively MAKE SENSE when commonsense (the presumed esoteric "science" found in professional groups) does not seem to help. Dialogue is the condition that enables such collective sensemaking.
Download the Full Article: Design and the Prospects for Critical Dialogue
Christopher R. Paparone, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is an associate professor in the Army Command and General Staff College's Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations at Fort Lee, Virginia. He holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida; master's degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval War College, and the Army War College; and a Ph.D. in public administration from Pennsylvania State University. On active duty he served in various command and staff positions in the continental United States, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Bosnia.
