Abstract
Design process models have a complex and changing relationship to the processes they model, and mean different things to different people in different situations. Participants in design processes need to understand each other’s perspectives and agree on what the models mean. The paper draws on philosophy of science to argue that understanding a design process model can be seen as an imagination game governed by agreed rules, to envisage what would be true about the world if the model were correct. The rules depend on the syntax and content of the model, on the task the model is used for, and on what the users see the model as being. The paper outlines twelve alternative conceptualizations of design process models—frames, pathways, positions, proclamations, projections, predictions, propositions, prophecies, requests, demands, proposals, promises—and discusses when they fit situations that stakeholders in design processes can be in. Articulating how process models are conceptualised can both help to understand how process management works and help to resolve communication problems in industrial practice.
Highlights
What is a design process model telling you to do? What is it telling you to expect? What is it telling you about how to reach agreement with your colleagues? What does it mean, in this context?
These roles correspond to different ways of conceptualising what process models are; we put forward a set of twelve alternative conceptualizations that might be appropriate in different situations
Engineering companies put considerable effort into developing processes both in terms of high-level process models, such as gateway processes, and in terms of process plans for specific projects to plan, manage, control and record processes (Browning and Ramasesh 2007). These are represented in a variety of different ways from informal hand-drawn sketches of models to formal models generated according to specific modelling conventions, often in specific modelling tools
Summary
What is a design process model telling you to do? What is it telling you to expect? What is it telling you about how to reach agreement with your colleagues? What does it mean, in this context?. Research in Engineering Design (2020) 31:83–102 think about process models (and other, less structured information about processes) in terms of the range of different roles they play in guiding activities These roles correspond to different ways of conceptualising what process models are; we put forward a set of twelve alternative conceptualizations that might be appropriate in different situations. Engineering companies put considerable effort into developing processes both in terms of high-level process models, such as gateway processes, and in terms of process plans for specific projects to plan, manage, control and record processes (Browning and Ramasesh 2007) These are represented in a variety of different ways from informal hand-drawn sketches of models to formal models generated according to specific modelling conventions, often in specific modelling tools.
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