Orientation map for planning and design methods D A N I E L G A T and A N A T GONEN

Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

This paper constructs a contextual space for plot t ing the positions of P and D (planning and design) methods, thus offering a framework for analysing, comparing and con- trasting P and D approaches. Three dimensions make up this space: strategy, people involvement and attitude toward change. The strategy continuum varies between the extreme ends: pure inquiry and pure will. The people involve- ment dimension describes the passage of design control from designer to client. The scale for change attitude spans the distance between aversion to change and exploitation of change. Several well.known P and D methods and approa- ches are discussed and plotted, to test the validity of the suggested framework.

This paper is concerned with P and D (planning and design) methods and how they can be characterized, compared and contrasted. In recent years there has been an explosion of design methods, approaches and philosophies. They are being invented and applied, discussed, praised and criticized in professional literature, l There is no doubt that this stream of emerging methods is in large measure a response to a felt need: the need to provide society with new and better hard- ware and software solutions for coping with life, on an intradependent planet.

To aid in the design of new planning and design methods and in understanding and evaluating existing ones, it would be useful to map these methods onto a common comparison space - one which is simple and yet retains the essential features of each of the mapped items, and which separates the essential from the trivial. It is the purpose of this paper to suggest such a space.

DIMENSIONS OF PLANNING AND DESIGN METHODS SPACE

Nadler concerned himself with the universe of planning and design methods and proposed the following set of dimen- sions for a complete description of any conceivable planning and design method or approach. 2

• Strategy: what is being done, in what sequence and to what end?

• People: who is involved and who has control? • Change: what is the attitude towards change? • Knowledge: what data is collected, which theories and

prior knowledge guide its processing?

Based on a paper presented at the Planning theory in the 1980s conference, Oxford, UK, 2-4 April 1981

(In fact, Nadler proposed five dimensions, including solution format, but as little information on this is given by other authors, the discussion is limited to the remaining four).

This paper suggests a three dimensional planning and design space relying on the first three headings, arguing that the fourth label, knowledge~ is highly dependent on each of the other three. The following four sections isolate, in turn, each of the four dimensions, exploring their range.

Strategy

While conceptually there may be an infinity of planning and design strategies, they seem to be spaced along a conti- nuum that stretches from 'pure inquiry' to 'pure will ' . This continuum is divided into three intervals, reflecting, in turn a system, problem and purpose orientation. (See Figure 1).

Underlying the systemic orientation is the idea that the planner/designer will be acting upon an existing system, and that therefore this system must be studied, analysed and understood. In other words, an inquiry is in place before pencil is put to paper for suggesting changes.

Furthermore, it is assumed that the best way to study the system is through the construction of a formal model and the collection and processing of large amounts of factual data. Typical of such an orientation is the expressed attitude that 'we don't have enough information to really begin planning', reflecting an unjustified concern for precision and certainty.

Problem orientation limits the inquiry to the problem area only, isolating those components and aspects of the system that are directly linked to that which may go wrong, or that which already is a cause of pain and irritation. This approach is more focused than a general system analysis. It resembles the systemic orientation in as much as it assumes the existence of a system that ought to be studied, though in a limited, diagnostic sense.

In contrast to the two latter orientations, purpose orientation emphasizes will and deliberate intention. It does not preassume the existence of an underlying system. Therefore, it would be meaningless to begin with a system analysis. Instead, the first and crucial step is a clarification of purpose.

People involvement

The involvement of people is of special and growing impor- tance. This is related to growing frustration with the promises versus the undelivered results associated with big government and paternalist!;, elite-directed plans. The motivation to participat- and to be directly involved in planning decisions is .~pported by a general rise in the diffusion of political power To capture the essence of the people involvement dimension we have chosen Thomson's diagram for describing the rela- tionship between the designer and other decision makers in a project. 3 (see Figure 2). The diagram is self-explanatory, but the reader should note that the quantity being varied is

Figure 1. The strategy dimension

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Figure 2. Invo]vement of people

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the degree of control sharing between the designer and other participants. (Thomson uses a scale of six: unilateral action, verification of action, organizer of action, cooperator in action, consultant to action and servant to action).

Attitude toward change

The planner/designer operates within a surrounding socio- technical and natural environment, with the intent to bring about desired or planned change. The environment does not stand still. It changes over time and such unplanned change interacts with intended change to yield results that may or may not resemble the original intentions.

The degree of control the designer wields over future outcomes depends, to a large extent, on his attitude towards the phenomenon of exogeneous change and on the planning and design style mirrored by that attitude. To reflect the variation in attitudes we divide the change- attitude axis into four regions whose names are borrowed from Mason 4 and Ackoff s : reactive, anticipative, adaptive and interactive. (See Figure 3).

The reactive posture is associated with a 'static world' point of view. External stimuli are assumed to be few and far between. If they are regarded at all, they are viewed as threats. Responses are instinctive. Whatever planning and design efforts are brought to bear, they are defensive in nature and used for the elimination of perceived immediate or future threatening situations. Ackoff labels this behaviour 'crisis management'.

The anticipative posture (pre-active is the term Ackoff uses) is associated with a world view of steady and therefore predictable change. The planner must plan to meet a new, but essentially known set of future conditions. Future problems are anticipated and defensive action is planned. Future opportunities are identified and exploitive action is planned.

The adaptive posture aims to cope with a turbulent and highly uncertain environment. It is assumed that along with steady and predictable movement there wil l also be surprises - some catastrophic in nature. This calls for a flexible non-programmed response. One has to be on a constant look-out, monitoring the environment, discovering new trends as they are born and adjusting plans over time.

Interactive is the most ambitious planning and design change-posture. It not only monitors the environment (as does the adaptive) but attempts to influence it and cause it to change favourably. It not only recognizes and exploits opportunities as does the anticipative posture. Instead, it creates opportunities.

Knowledge and data

If strategy, people and change are treated as more or less autonomous dimensions, then the fourth one, knowledge, cannot. It surely is heavily dependent on each of the others. A descriptive (system or problem) strategy wil l emphasize model building and simulation and wil l involve collection and processing of a great deal of factual data. A prescriptive strategy wil l emphasize value-linked information such as purposes, goals and criteria.

( i.°,,o,0o,,. ] .°.0,,,. ) @ Figure 3. Change attitude dimension

A participative people involvement attitude will register direct user contribution in the areas of problem identification, value clarification as well as solution ideas. An elitist attitude does not value direct user contribution and wi l l , at best, rely on public opinion surveys.

A reactive change posture wil l favour quick action and wil l therefore seek cost and technical data. An adaptive posture wil l assign importance to emerging changes in society and technology and wil l therefore engage in their detection.

PLANNING AND DESIGN SPACE

A planning and design space is proposed, made up of the three independent dimensions: strategy, people and change. The space can be pictured as a cube or its three orthogonal projections. (See Figure 4).

Since each flat projection can carry only two out of the three dimensions it can be used to contain planning and design methods for which one of the three dimensions is missing. Indeed, the device may serve as a reminder that the third missing item needs researching.

The rest of this paper wil l examine several planning and design methods, approaches and techniques, and wil l suggest their location within the proposed planning and design space.

PARTISAN M U T U A L A D J U S T M E N T

PMA (partisan mutual adjustment), or muddling through, has been developed by Lindblom. 6

Strategy

According to this approach, policy decisions affect many different interest groups - groups that sometimes share and other times contest particular sets of values. Therefore, an explicit debate about goals and values is doomed even at the outset and should be avoided.

To clarify this idea: it is di f f icul t for the planner to accurately predict how each interest group will interpret the value implications of alternative policies. Therefore, it is more frui t ful for the planner to concentrate on feasible actions, letting the parties themselves take care of the value judgements. Accordingly, this approach is located within the problem region of the strategy scale.

People involvement

Decisions are reached through an advocacy or bargaining process within a highly pluralistic and decentralized system. The political decision process is so structured that advocates of every significantly affected interest group have a voice in policy shaping. Thus, self-interest wil l insure that each advocate traces out in advance the consequences of any action for the values which he holds. This way, a mutual

Strategy /~ ~J

People

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Figure 4. A planning and design orientation map

172 DESIGN STUDIES

adjustment of widely differing values is achieved not by ideological agreement on specific ends, but through prag- mat ic tradeoffs and agreement on specific means. Within such a framework, the planner is but a servant to action, putting forth alternative solution concepts to be accepted, rejected or modified by a political tug of war.

Attitude toward change

Lindb lom states that movement toward objectives should proceed in small steps. Radical action leads beyond the realm of reasonable foresight. Trial and error lead to pro- gress through successive approximation. Information is revealed along each step, continuously modifying both ends and means. Such a process is by nature myopic, defensive and therefore reactive.

PROGRAM PLANNING AND BUDGETING

Strategy Purpose identification is an important and integral part of PPB (program planning and budgeting) according to Schultze. 7 In four out of the six steps he specifies, goals and objectives are the main theme:

• identification and examination of goals • analysis of output of a given program in term of its

objectives • measurement of total program costs for several years • formulation of objectives and programs extending

over a number of years • analysis of alternatives to find the most effective and

efficient means to achieve objectives • incorporation of data and logic of the earlier steps

into the budget

In PPB described by Schultze, goal identification is the element that starts and triggers the planning process. However, a fair amount of measurement and quantification is involved, shifting this method slightly toward the analysis end.

People involvement

Schultze discusses a mode of planning which he labels 'partisan efficiency advocacy'. Throughout the decision process participants are champions of particular policies, pursuing values important to them. So far this is just like Lindblom's world. The difference lies in the existence of a new and special actor, the professional planner. The pro- fessional planner is a consultant to action. He deals with efficiency and effectiveness criteria as well as with other technical and abstract notions.

It is his task to produce, present and clarify all of these items and to make them available to the other actors as well as the decision maker. The ultimate decision maker has to balance this new actor's voice against political, tactical and other considerations.

Attitude towards change

Planning is based on a multiyear program from which annual projects are selected. Feedback from the annual plans is applied to long term programs, reflecting a touch of adaptivity. However adaptivity is not the heart of PPB which basically is an anticipative process.

PURPOSE DESIGN APPROACH

Strategy PDA (purpose design approach) 2 as its name implies, strongly relies on purpose identification. The first and perhaps most critical phase is concerned with clarification of intent through the construction of a purpose hierarchy. Following that, ideal solutions are generated and converted to feasible and working solutions. Thus the process begins with value- oriented information. Factual data is used only later for validating and refining the design.

People involvement

Equal opportunity for each participating member to contri- bute is essential to the PDA process. This is achieved by a liberal use of the nominal group procedure in which partici- pants are given individual turns to express their views, s The resulting effect is one of strong cooperation. Everyone contributes, but cooperation is not spontaneous. It is mani- pulated by the design leader who serves as a facilitator and organizer of action.

Attitude toward change

PDA seeks to enlarge the system's domain by a structured search for a high level purpose - the highest that is still within the system's control space. In PDA the world is viewed as a continuously changing environment and there- fore no solution is regarded as permanent. Each solution carries the seeds for its eventual change and modification. This is obviously an adaptive attitude

I N T E R A C T I V E P L A N N I N G S T R A T E G Y

Strategy

Ackoff's point of departure with IPS (interactive planning strategy) is the attainment of a desirable future. 5 His strategy is made up of the fol lowing phases:

• Determine what one wants. • Determine how to get there. • Determine the specific means. • Determine the organizational arrangements. • Design the implementation and control.

The above sequence of phases is strongly purpose oriented.

People involvement

Ackoff believes that people should plan for themselves, while planners wil l facilitate and guide the planning process by providing tools, techniques and assisting in their use.

To assure that participation as viewed by Ackoff wi l l occur, there is a need

• to provide every one who may be affected by the plan with an opportunity to participate

• to provide the participants with instruction and motivation to enable effective contribution

Location on the participation scale is in the region of consul- tant to act ion. Participants determine ends and the degree to which they want to get involved; planners aid them in the use of techniques and by explaining the possible consequences of decisions.

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Attitude toward change

As in PDA, Ackoff seeks to expand the range of control of the affected system. He is more extreme and recommends an interactive mode for influencing the structure and beha- viour of the larger environment, over which he has no direct control.

ANALYSIS OF INTERCONNECTED DECISION AREAS

Strategy The AIDA (analysis of interconnected decision areas) 9 approach opens with a problem exploration phase during which fundamental areas of decisions are identified. Based on these decision areas, alternative solution strategies are generated, each representing a unique combination of decisions.

People involvement

The AI DA approach encourages participation through the use of techniques such as Delphi. However, it is reported in the East Oxford case history that no actual participation took place. Instead, role playing was used. At the stage of option evaluation a criterion of user acceptability was applied, but its application was based on planner judgement. Thus an approach that promises to be structurally cooperative, turns out, upon field application to be unilaterally controlled by the professional planner.

Attitude toward change

The problem analysis within the AIDA approach has a definite anticipative bent. There is no reference to exoge- neous change nor any indication of a turbulent environment. The work centres on issues well known to the planners. Their major concern besides locating the problem is to iden- t i fy linkages between problems, thus enhancing forecasting of action consequences.

SYSTEM ANALYSIS

Strategy

Of all the many existing and suggested planning and design approaches, SA (system analysis) 1°'1~ is the one most heavily reliant on formal mathematical models that imitate the structure of the system under study and simulate its behaviour. Classical land use and transportation studies and system dynamics are two examples within this broad class since they both come very near to 'pure inquiry'. They are, of course, different from each other. The former anticipates system behaviour at one given moment in time though in great spatial detail. The latter produces continuous time paths for the system under study while ignoring or vastly simplifying its spatial structure.

It is worthwhile to review the sequence of steps suggested by Creighton for the transportation planning process, and to note the priority given to survey and model building (inventories and forecasts). (See Figure 5.)

People involvement

Because of its technical nature, system analysis must rely on a team of highly skilled and specialized professionals

I I nventories

I Forecasts

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Figure 5.

Plans

I Tests

i =1 q Evaluation

Metropolitan transportation planning process

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who communicate in a jargon of their own. Though people in touch with real life systems are often approached for advice and insight, they are usually at top management levels. Obviously, this is an elitist, designer dominated planning style.

Attitude toward change

System analysis is highly anticipative in as much as it makes a heavy investment in tools for predicting future conditions. However, this strong interest in discovering and recording how the existing system functions, betrays a conservative attitude which is at the heart of this approach. In spite of all its ingenuity and sophistication, the system analysis approach sometimes stands in the way of innovation by preventing a break with, or discontinuity from current ideas.

CONCLUSIONS

Having worked through the six illustrative items, the follow- ing picture emerges (Figure 6). Since only a handful of

People Unilateral oct(x"

Organizer

Cooperator

Consultant

Servant to action

Strategy

System Problem ,Purpose '

eSA i A~DA .... ~ L I _ _ ;

Change

React Anticipate Adapt Interact

ISA r

ePPB •

----T .... f . . . .

Change Reactive

Anticipotive

Adaptive

Interactive

• sA 1 AIOA

L

Figure 6. Plotted items

174 DESIGN STUDIES

items was mapped, no statistical generalization is justif ied, except to say that the sample of items is comfortably con- tained wi th in the constructed space and appears to be randomly distributed over the space. This suggests that no part of the space is superfluous, and on the other hand, that the space is large enough to contain the complete populat ion of P and D methods and approaches.

Further work using this conceptual framework would include the mapping of a large and more complete set of items. Then it would be sensible to look for proximit ies and other spatial characteristics such as especially dense or empty regions. Another direction of study would relate locations in the space to degrees of success or failure of actual P and D events. A third possible direction would increase the number of dimensions, not l imit ing them to the suggested triads.

REFERENCES 1 Jones, J C Design Methods John Wiley and Sons, London

(1971)

2 Nadler, G "Relating system concepts and public planning" TIMS/ORSA Joint National Meeting, San Francisco, USA (May 1977)

3 Thomson, T L Trekking through a participatory wilderness Design Methods end Theories Vol 9 No 2 (April-June 1975)

4 Mason, R O "Toward the learning manager' in Ackoff, R L (ed) Sytems and management annual Petrocelli (1974)

5 Ackoff, R L 'Planning in the system age' in Ackoff, R L (ed) Systems and management annual Petrocelli (1974)

6 Lindblom, C E "The science of muddling through' Public Administration Rev. Vo110 No 2 (1959)

7 Schultza, C L The politics and economics of public spending The Brookings Institution (1968)

8 Delbecq, A Van de Ven A group process model for problem identification and program planning J. AppI. Behavioural Sci. (1971)

9 Faludi, A 'Essays on planning theory and education' in Action space analysis Pergamon Press (1978)

10 Creighton, R L Urban transportation planning University of Illinois Press (1970)

11 Forrester, J W/ndustrial dynamics MIT Press (1969)

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