DaS™ – History
Makers CONNECT by DESIGN.
Over the centuries, we have encountered pivotal moments that have defined today's design delivery. Unwillingly, we have been classified as a workforce, labour, or function, with others (often non-designers) defining how design is delivered. Often, the criteria were not even labour-related but were driven by time, budget, location, or other constraints that did not give the design the full capability to shape the proposition and connect the dots for smooth and impactful creation.
Mobilise
The Shift
The basis of a modern delivery is often tainted with one process or another. Marking that one could be better than the other for a specific desired outcome. You wouldn’t choose the soup recipe to bake a cake, yet many people choose the one method over another simply because they believe it is the right one.
The basis of all methods comes down to the stage-and-gate approach. Stage defined the process of forming an idea, trying to give shape or form to mud. And gate: where we consciously decide that whatever form or shape we have achieved is good enough for our next iteration of the final presentation.
[Figure Stage and Gate]
Stage and Gate can be experienced in Double Diamond, Agile, LESS, or PRINCE2. Even choosing the colours, shape, form, or layout is a stage-and-gate process. What is more important to today’s design is the context under which the “gate“ happens.
Our services are available 365 days a year. We help individual leaders, teams and departments to shape better integration within their organisations. Helping teams to monitor, manage and make contextual data-driven decisions about their design propositions.
1779
Adam Smith
In 1776, Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which became the foundational text of modern classical economics. Smith argued that national wealth is created by the productive labour of its citizens and free markets, rather than gold reserves, famously introducing the "invisible hand" metaphor for market regulation. In his book "The Wealth of Nations", he introduced the world to the Industrial Revolution.
1891
Walter Shewhart
Walter Shewhart (1891 - 1967), known to all as the 'father of statistical process control', became famous not only as Deming’s master but especially for his contributions to statistics and for developing the theory of common and special causes of variation. As the creator of Statistical Process Control (SPC), and the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle, his ground-breaking work helped shape the methodologies and thinking that we use today in quality management.
1911
Frederick W. Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor, in his book The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, predicted boldly and accurately, "In the past the man has been first. In the future the System will be first”. In 1881, he introduced his theory of time and motion study to the Midvale plant. This theory formed the basis of his subsequent theory of management science. The theory held that close observation of time and motion, and the elimination of wasted motion, would result in the most efficient method of production.
1950s
Edwards Deming
Dr. W. Edwards Deming introduced Statistical Process Control (SPC) to Japan, focusing on building quality into processes, not just testing end products. Deming’s work influenced the creation of Total Quality Management (TQM), a technique that focuses on continuous improvement and quality. Defined by ASQ as ‘A management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organization participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.’
1962
Horst Rittel
Horst Rittel (1930–1990) was a German-born design theorist and university professor who fundamentally reshaped our understanding of complex problem-solving. Trained as a mathematician and physicist, he spent his career at institutions like the Ulm School of Design and UC Berkeley, bridging the gap between scientific engineering and the design professions. "Wicked Problems": coined this term to describe complex problems that traditional linear processes could not solve.
1962 Conference on Design Methods: Often cited as the birth of modern design methodology.
1966
Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming (1900–1993) was an American statistician, professor, and consultant who is widely regarded as the "father of the quality movement". His work fundamentally shifted the design process from a focus on final inspection to a philosophy of continuous improvement and systems thinking. He pioneered total quality management and continuous improvement (Kaizen) – Some Theory of Sampling
1969
Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) was a polymath and Nobel Prize-winning scholar whose work provided the foundational "science" for the modern design process. Often called the founding father of Design Thinking, he transformed design from a subjective craft into a structured field of study by framing it as a universal human activity. He argued that "artificial" things (man-made objects and systems) are valid subjects for scientific study. He proposed that design is an interface between an inner environment (the system's internal workings) and an outer environment (the world it must adapt to).
1970
The Concept
The Concept (1970): The model was first formally described by Dr. Winston W. Royce in his 1970 paper titled Managing the Development of Large Software Systems. Ironically, Royce presented the sequential diagram as a cautionary tale, explicitly critiquing it as "risky and inviting failure" because it lacked feedback loops.
The Term (1976): Royce never actually used the word "Waterfall" in his paper. The term was officially coined later in a 1976 paper by Bell and Thayer titled "Software Requirements: Are They a Problem?".
1977
The Term
The Term (1977): The term "user-centered design" was originally coined by Rob Kling in 1977. User-Centred Design (UCD) is an iterative design philosophy that places the end-user's needs, behaviours, and limitations at the heart of every stage of the design and development process. It seeks to create products that are highly usable and accessible by involving users throughout the project lifecycle.
1980
DWMS
A Digital Workflow Management System (DWMS) is a software platform used to define, automate, and monitor a sequence of tasks to achieve a specific goal. It transforms manual, often paper-based processes into predictable, automated digital roadmaps. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) was founded to create industry standards, publishing a glossary and a reference model that solidified the modern definition. To manage an enterprise DWMS, one must reconcile the duality of Stability and Velocity. This hybridity employs Waterfall at the macro level to govern immutable requirements—such as compliance and brand integrity—through a traceable, linear framework. Simultaneously, it leverages Agile at the micro level to facilitate iterative execution, allowing localised teams to adapt to market shifts without compromising the system's core. Therefore, the organisation achieves "Dynamic Stability": a rigid strategic foundation paired with a fluid, responsive perimeter.
1985
The Documentation Trap
The adoption of DOD-STD-2167 on 4 June 1985 by the U.S. Department of Defence was a watershed moment that institutionalised the "Waterfall" model as the global benchmark for large-scale systems engineering. Ironically, the Waterfall model adopted by the DoD was based on a diagram from Winston Royce’s 1970 paper, which Royce had used to illustrate a process that he believed was "risky and inviting failure". The Documentation Trap: The standard required "excruciating detail" in document deliverables (Data Item Descriptions). Barriers to Iteration: Although the 2167A revision technically allowed for some overlap, the rigid requirement for formal reviews and audits at the end of each phase made it virtually impossible to pivot once a stage was "signed off".
By the early 1990s, reports on high failure rates estimated that 75% of projects failed or were never used, leading to the replacement of MIL-STD-498 in 1994, which officially allowed for more iterative and evolutionary methods.
1982
Nigel Cross
"Designerly Ways of Knowing" is a landmark concept introduced by Nigel Cross in a 1982 paper. It argues that design is a distinct intellectual discipline—a "third culture"—that sits alongside the sciences and the humanities with its own unique values, methods, and ways of thinking. The work of Nigel Cross shifted design from a "subservient" craft to a rigorous academic discipline. It provided the theoretical backbone for what we now call Design Thinking, proving that the creative process is a form of intelligence that is essential for innovation across all fields.
1986
Donald Norman
Donald Norman: Introduced User-Centred Design (UCD) in the late 80s, shifting focus from pure utility to the user's needs and emotional experience. It gained global prominence following the publication of User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction (1986), co-authored by Don Norman and Stephen W. Draper.
1986 - Six Sigma: Motorola pioneered Six Sigma, a highly structured methodology to reduce defects and improve quality.
Dr W. Edwards Deming first published the theories that became Out of the Crisis in 1982, originally under the title Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position. The definitive and more widely known version titled Out of the Crisis was published in 1986 by the MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study (MIT-CAES). The book serves as a manifesto for "Quality" as a management system rather than just a technical checklist. It introduced the 14 Points for Management and identified the "Seven Deadly Diseases" that Deming believed were causing the decline of American industry.
1987
Peter G. Rowe
Peter G. Rowe is a distinguished scholar in architecture and urban design, best known for formalising the term "design thinking" in his seminal 1987 book of the same name. He currently serves as the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor.
1990
The Machine That Changed the World
1990: James Womack, Daniel Roos and Daniel T. Jones publish The Machine That Changed the World about the Toyota Production System. The book looked at how the company’s system of “Lean” production produced superior results to those of traditional mass manufacturing. Following the success of this book, Womack and Jones founded the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) in 1997 and published the follow-up bestseller, Lean Thinking (1996), which expanded these concepts beyond the automotive industry into all sectors of business.
1990s: Many companies adopt Total Quality Management (TQM) — a method similar to Six Sigma but also incorporating aspects of the Japanese system of continuous improvement. TQM is a management framework based on the belief that an organisation can build long-term success by having all its members—from low-level workers to its highest-ranking executives—focus on improving quality and delivering customer satisfaction.
1991
RAD
The phrase "rapid digital development" is a modern evolution of Rapid Application Development (RAD), a methodology first defined and popularised by the British information technology expert James Martin. Methodological Shift: Martin's original RAD was a direct response to the rigid Waterfall model of the 1970s and 80s. He argued that software should be treated like "clay" that can be moulded, rather than "steel" that is fixed once cast. Modern Context: Today, "rapid digital development" incorporates Agile methodologies (formalised in 2001) and low-code/no-code platforms that allow for the nearly instantaneous creation of digital tools.
1992
David Kelley
David Kelley and IDEO are the primary forces credited with bringing Design Thinking from academic research into the global business mainstream. By packaging complex cognitive theories into a practical, repeatable toolkit, they transformed design from a focus on "aesthetics" to a human-centred method for solving complex organisational and social problems.
Richard Buchanan is a leading design theorist and professor best known for bridging the gap between design, the humanities, and the social sciences. He is currently a Professor of Design, Management, and Innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management. "Wicked Problems in Design Thinking" (1992): This landmark paper, published in Design Issues, is among the most-cited works in the field. Buchanan took Horst Rittel’s concept of "wicked problems" (complex, unsolvable social issues) and argued that Design Thinking was the best framework to address them.
1993
BPR
Michael Hammer and James Champy are renowned management thinkers who pioneered "Business Process Reengineering" (BPR) through their seminal 1993 book, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. They argued for radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality, service, and speed, focusing on customer needs and leveraging technology.
2000s
BPM
Business Process Management (BPM) is a systematic discipline used to discover, model, analyse, measure, improve, and optimise business processes to achieve strategic goals. Unlike project management, which focuses on one-time efforts, BPM is dedicated to repeatable processes that happen consistently across an organisation. Companies like IBM's FileNet developed early digital systems to route scanned documents through predefined steps. Modern BPM is managed through a continuous five- or six-step loop: Design – Model – Execute – Monitor – Optimise. The market for BPM software is projected to reach approximately $70.93 billion by 2032. Modern suites (iBPMS) now integrate AI and Machine Learning to predict bottlenecks and low-code platforms to allow non-technical "citizen developers" to build their own workflows.
2001
Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto (formally the Manifesto for Agile Software Development) is a foundational document that revolutionised project management by prioritising flexibility and human collaboration over rigid, documentation-heavy processes.
The Manifesto is built on four value pairs, favoring the left side over the right, while still recognizing the value of the latter: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change by following a plan. These values are supported by 12 principles focused on customer satisfaction, frequent delivery, and team collaboration. Key tenets include welcoming changing requirements, maintaining a sustainable pace, favouring face-to-face conversation, and encouraging self-organising teams to regularly reflect on improvements.
2004
Double Diamond
The Double Diamond is a world-renowned visual representation of the design and innovation process. It was popularised by the British Design Council in 2005 to describe how a design project moves from an initial challenge to a final solution through two cycles of divergent (broadening) and convergent (narrowing) thinking. The model was created between 2002 and 2004 under the direction of Richard Eisermann, then Director of Design and Innovation at the Design Council. The team reviewed methodologies from global giants like Sony, Microsoft, and LEGO and noticed a recurring pattern of "opening up" and "closing down" at two critical points in the process. It was built upon earlier concepts, most notably the divergence-convergence model proposed in 1996 by the Hungarian-American linguist Béla H. Bánáthy.
The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, universally known as the d.school, is the academic hub that turned "Design Thinking" into a global educational standard. Founded in 2004 by David Kelley (founder of IDEO), it does not grant degrees; instead, it serves as a meeting ground for students from all disciplines—engineering, medicine, business, law, and education—to learn a human-centred approach to innovation. In 2005, Hasso Plattner (co-founder of SAP) provided the funding to formalise the institute, later opening a "sister" d.school at the University of Potsdam in Germany. Today, their "Design Thinking Bootleg" is one of the most downloaded sets of design tools in the world.
2007
Six Sigma
BusinessWeek runs an article entitled Six Sigma: So Yesterday? about how major companies like Home Depot, GE, and 3M, were either abandoning or reducing their Six Sigma programs.
2008
Design Thinking Goes Mainstream
Refers to the period between 2008 and 2015 when the methodology transitioned from a niche architectural and engineering theory into a dominant global business strategy. IDEO, Stanford d.school, and the double diamond. Empathise, define, ideate, prototype, test. A rigorous process, but still: the designer draws, someone else builds. The "tipping point" is widely attributed to a few key publications and institutional moves that proved design could drive corporate ROI, not just aesthetics. As it went mainstream, the process also faced backlash. Critics like Natasha Jen and Bruce Nussbaum (who originally championed it) argued that it had become "theatrics"—sticky notes and workshops that lacked the rigour of actual design craft. This led to the modern "Post-Design Thinking" era, which focuses more on Lean UX and Agile integration.
2012
iBPM
Intelligent Business Process Management (iBPM) or an Intelligent Business Process Management Suite (iBPMS) is an advanced evolution of traditional BPM that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), real-time analytics, and cloud capabilities to create more dynamic and responsive workflows. The term iBPMS was coined by Jim Sinur and a team of analysts at Gartner in their 2012 Magic Quadrant report.
Smart Process Applications (SPAs) are a category of software designed to support business activities that are people-intensive, highly variable, and loosely structured. While traditional BPM focuses on predictable, automated "happy paths," SPAs are built for the "grey areas" of business where human judgment and collaboration are essential. The term was officially coined by analysts at Forrester Research, led by Craig Le Clair. His research through Forrester identified that while previous systems excelled at automating stable, transactional processes (where the goal is minimal human involvement), they failed at collaborative, people-intensive activities that are highly variable and subject to frequent change.
2011
The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup, published by Eric Ries in 2011, is a methodology for developing businesses and products that aims to shorten product development cycles and rapidly discover if a proposed business model is viable. The goal is to eliminate waste—not just physical waste, but the time and effort spent building products that nobody actually wants to buy. Would you like to see how the MVP concept in Lean Startup differs from a Prototype in Design Thinking?
2013
Lean UX & Build-Measure-Learn
Ship fast. Validate with real users. Kill your darlings. The cycle shortens again, but the translation layer between design intent and engineering output survives. In the modern design process, Lean UX is the application of the Build-Measure-Learn loop (from Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup) specifically to the user experience design workflow. It shifts the designer’s goal from "creating a perfect set of wireframes" to "learning if this feature actually solves a user problem" as quickly as possible.
2007
Six Sigma
BusinessWeek runs an article entitled Six Sigma: So Yesterday? about how major companies like Home Depot, GE, and 3M, were either abandoning or reducing their Six Sigma programs.
2016-2018
Design Systems 1.0
The 2016–2018 era was the "Golden Age of Documentation and Structure," where design shifted from producing static pages to building modular systems. This period was defined by the move away from Adobe Creative Cloud toward specialized tools like Sketch and the widespread adoption of Atomic Design. Atomic Design (2016): Brad Frost officially released his book Atomic Design in 2016. It provided a mental model for building interfaces from the bottom up: Atoms, Molecules, Organisms, Templates & Pages. The 8-Point Grid System: This became the industry standard for spacing and layout. It simplified handoff by ensuring all margins, padding, and sizing were multiples of 8, creating visual rhythm and reducing "pixel-pushing" debates between designers and developers.
2018-2022
Adoption and Professionalisation
The 2018–2022 era was the "Adoption and Professionalisation" phase of design systems. During this time, the focus shifted from simply creating components to operationalising them at scale, largely driven by Figma’s dominance and the formalisation of DesignOps. The methodology evolved from static pattern libraries into integrated ecosystems through a duality of Standardisation and Dynamism. The formalisation of design tokens and the rise of Storybook established a synchronised "source of truth" between design and code, while the integration of rich media transitioned systems from rigid UI components into fluid, interactive experiences. Organisations began using maturity models to measure the success of their systems. A common framework from this era (e.g., InVision, 2018) ranked teams across five levels:
- Level 1: Individual-level task-oriented
- Level 2: Team-level tool and interface-oriented
- Level 3: A design function that supports other functions.
- Level 4: Design function is directly linked to engineering.
- Level 5: Design function has a leading role in business strategy and operation
2024
Long-term Continuity
Waterfall remains a cornerstone of modern engineering by reconciling the duality of Structural Rigidity and Long-term Continuity. In high-stakes sectors, its linear framework secures stable requirements and rigorous compliance and safety through mandatory documentation, whilst simultaneously facilitating seamless knowledge transfer by establishing a comprehensive, immutable source of truth.
2023-2025
Figma Variables
In the 2023–2025 era, the design system process underwent its most significant technical shift since the invention of symbols: the move from static assets to semantic logic. This period is defined by the launch of Figma Variables (2023) and the mass adoption of the W3C Design Tokens standard, which allowed systems to scale across multiple brands, modes, and platforms with almost no manual design work. By changing one semantic variable, a designer could instantly rebrand an entire suite of products or switch from a "Compact" to a "Spacious" layout for accessibility. The introduction of Figma’s Code Connect in 2024 has effectively neutralised the traditional handoff by establishing a duality of Synchronised Truth and Technical Parity. By mapping live production code—such as React or SwiftUI—directly into the design environment, the tool ensures that designers and developers operate within a single ecosystem, where updates in the codebase are reflected in the documentation to maintain absolute alignment.
During this era, DesignOps moved from "managing files" to "managing pipelines." Organisations began treating their design systems as APIs, where the brand's visual identity could be pushed to any digital touchpoint via a data stream.
Would you like to see how this logic-based foundation set the stage for the "Agentic Era" of 2026, where AI began to govern these systems autonomously?
2007
Semantic Flexibility
The current stage of the design system process is the "Agentic Infrastructure" phase. We have moved from designers using tools to AI Agents acting as active maintainers of the system.
Current operations are increasingly defined by a shift toward Autonomous Governance, a paradigm that reconciles Algorithmic Enforcement with Semantic Flexibility. Through self-healing code, AI agents proactively monitor repositories to rectify deviations from established design tokens, whilst automated accessibility protocols enforce real-time WCAG compliance, pre-emptively blocking non-conformant components. This ecosystem is further unified by semantic translation, which replaces traditional hand-offs with natural language directives that simultaneously synchronise Figma variables and CSS, ensuring absolute parity across the entire technical stack.
For Practitioners
I make
An individual program for design leaders, managers, and design directors who shape their design function from scratch. Do not hesitate to roll up your sleeves and make adjustments, tweaks, and internal validation with your own team — for design leaders who dare to scale. You challenge + our experience.
This is a 09 x 45min session over 9 weeks.
For Organizations
We Transform
A program designed for organisations that are looking to adopt or transition to a product operating model. Whether you are an agency supporting an in-house design team, brand, or marketing, transparency is everything. We tailor the proposition to your product environment.
12 weeks minimum engagment.
Design at Scale™: How Individuals Shape Future Organisation Through Design
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Design at Scale™ is defined by three models, which form the Method. Each model operates in a different part of the business and collects and informs parties on design and engineering decisions that have a direct impact on the delivery.
All brands and trademarks presented on the Design at Scale™ website are owned by their relevant companies or agencies. The projects represent collaborations between designers, developers and product owners. Do not copy or publish any of the projects shown here without written approval from Design at Scale™ (alternatively GIVE™, 9V™) and/or relevant companies and agencies.
