Reliability will give you predictable outcomes. Validity will give you outcomes that meet a desired objective. While reliability may provide a sense of safety in 'knowing', it only always gives you what you already have. It does not entertain the possibility of anything out of the bounds of what exists. Validity, however, entertains the possibility of future options; it opens the doors to knowledge that is new.
It is common for enterprises to bias toward reliability. They will build up structures and processes that support working within reliability as a fundamental value:
"When you consider the amount of resources that individuals and businesses invest to develop those analytical skills, compared to the relatively paltry resources invested in the intuitive skills that produce valid answers, it is easy to see why most corporations tilt so strongly in favor of reliability." (The Design of Business)
This begs the question: What resources can be invested in intuitive skills? I came across this unlikely but deeply insightful and relevant article about cultivating intuitive decision making in the Marine Corps (1999). It's well worth a read. In it they outline the essence of decision making and talk through some qualities that can be cultivated for better intuitive decision making:
These qualities are all directly related to successful design thinking. In his writing about "Designing for Thrownness", Karl E. Weick talks about being able to make intuitive decisions in the midst of complexity is a concept called "thrownness." He talks about how rare it is to design something from the very beginning. Instead, it's much more typical that we design something from the middle... in the midst of a lot of things already going on:
"Designers thrown into the middle of a contentious meeting, or a nation’s nightmare, or a business school’s aspirations, or a Spanish city seeking renewal will cope more or less adequately in a preinterpreted world depending on how skillful they are at bricolage, making-do, updating transient explanations, staying in motion in order to uncover new options, improvisation, and tolerating ambiguity."
He goes on to say:
"The concept of thrownness seems useful within a vocabulary of design because it articulates the context within which designs will be more or less effective."
Notice again, we're talking about evaluating something based on validity instead of reliability. Both articles focus their attention on thinking <---> acting in an informed way based on desired outcome (as opposed to 'right' outcome).
And finally, again from Weick (emphasis added by me):
"In the case of a contentious meeting, for example, good design takes the edge off thrownness by providing affordances that make it easier to generate wise action, reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987), action that can be fine tuned and reversed so that prediction is unnecessary, increased situational awareness with decreased dependence on stable representation, richer interpretations,and more differentiated and nuanced language."
Although I'm talking about reliability and validity as opposing ways of looking at something, I don't advocate that we need to choose one or the other. I think a combination of them will be the balancing force that wins the day. We just need some more awareness and acknowledgement of the force of intuitive and inquiry skills to reach that balance.
It is common for enterprises to bias toward reliability. They will build up structures and processes that support working within reliability as a fundamental value:
- planning and budgeting
- executive skill development (i.e. 6 sigma)
- use of analytical technology
- anything answering directly to 'budget' as the measurement of success
"When you consider the amount of resources that individuals and businesses invest to develop those analytical skills, compared to the relatively paltry resources invested in the intuitive skills that produce valid answers, it is easy to see why most corporations tilt so strongly in favor of reliability." (The Design of Business)
This begs the question: What resources can be invested in intuitive skills? I came across this unlikely but deeply insightful and relevant article about cultivating intuitive decision making in the Marine Corps (1999). It's well worth a read. In it they outline the essence of decision making and talk through some qualities that can be cultivated for better intuitive decision making:
- sound character
- repetitive skills training
- self-study
- command climate - fostering willingness
These qualities are all directly related to successful design thinking. In his writing about "Designing for Thrownness", Karl E. Weick talks about being able to make intuitive decisions in the midst of complexity is a concept called "thrownness." He talks about how rare it is to design something from the very beginning. Instead, it's much more typical that we design something from the middle... in the midst of a lot of things already going on:
"Designers thrown into the middle of a contentious meeting, or a nation’s nightmare, or a business school’s aspirations, or a Spanish city seeking renewal will cope more or less adequately in a preinterpreted world depending on how skillful they are at bricolage, making-do, updating transient explanations, staying in motion in order to uncover new options, improvisation, and tolerating ambiguity."
He goes on to say:
"The concept of thrownness seems useful within a vocabulary of design because it articulates the context within which designs will be more or less effective."
Notice again, we're talking about evaluating something based on validity instead of reliability. Both articles focus their attention on thinking <---> acting in an informed way based on desired outcome (as opposed to 'right' outcome).
And finally, again from Weick (emphasis added by me):
"In the case of a contentious meeting, for example, good design takes the edge off thrownness by providing affordances that make it easier to generate wise action, reflection-in-action (Schon, 1987), action that can be fine tuned and reversed so that prediction is unnecessary, increased situational awareness with decreased dependence on stable representation, richer interpretations,and more differentiated and nuanced language."
Although I'm talking about reliability and validity as opposing ways of looking at something, I don't advocate that we need to choose one or the other. I think a combination of them will be the balancing force that wins the day. We just need some more awareness and acknowledgement of the force of intuitive and inquiry skills to reach that balance.