Pleasures, Participation or Practices? Unpacking the black box of designing in and with organizations

As a contribution to the field of design management, this paper responds to the uptake of design in organizations by developing and fleshing out a relational approach. The dominating approaches are methodological and cognitive, putting the human designer and her capabilities front and center. In contrast, the relational approach pays close, empirical attention to how designerly contributions come into being as the designer relates to her organization. Thereby, the relational approach enables a more critical understanding of what organizations and designers can achieve together. We unfold our arguments through ethnographic accounts of crucial moments in a project concerning workplace design. These moments were crucial, as they questioned what we could achieve together. We suggest evaluating such achievements through three distinct modes of designing: 1) Designing for human pleasures, 2) Designing for human participation, and 3) Designing for socio-material practices.