You Can't Design Your Way Out of Fragmentation

Emma Toops

Oct 12

2 min read

You can't fix a fragmented system from the top down.

Only collective intelligence can transform it.

This post explains that a design handed down from above can be brilliant and still fail, because the people who have to live inside it had no part in shaping it.

After twelve years of watching fragmentation patterns in a variety of environments and teams, I thought I knew the answer:

build the right coordination architecture, then
roll it out.

However, this summer, as I completed the in-person segment of my Appreciative Inquiry Summit Training (AIST), my perspective changed.

AIST is the discipline of designing experiences that move a group from fragmented individual perspectives to a shared, strengths-based image of what could be.

I learned that when you leave the people living inside the design out of the planning, fragmentation hides what they'll actually see missing from the plan.

The people who do the work know what will break before it happens because they have real insight into what it needs to actually work.

A Better Question

If you want to bridge the gap between strategic intent and operational reality, you can't build the solution in isolation.

Ask a better question, and ask the right people.

Instead of trying to "fix" the fragmentation, try holding a question like this:

How might we build a more coordinated, mutually supportive cross-functional system that serves its overall purpose: full-spectrum flourishing for the people in it?

Notice the verbs. Build. Coordinate. Support. Serve.

That question asks no one to be repaired.

Something To Sit With