Navigating Ambiguity : Creating Opportunity in a World of Unknowns

✍ Scribed by Andrea Small; Kelly Schmutte; Stanford d.school

• Publisher: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 144
• Series: a Stanford d.school guide
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A thought-provoking guide to help you lean in to the discomfort of the unknown to turn creative opportunities into intentional design, from Stanford University's world-renowned d.school.

“Navigating Ambiguity reminds us not to run from uncertainty but rather see it as a defining moment of opportunity.”—Yves Béhar, Founder and CEO, fuseproject

A design process presents a series of steps, but in real life, it rarely plays out this neatly. Navigating Ambiguity underscores how the creative process isn’t formulaic. This book shows you how to surrender control by being adaptable, curious, and unbiased as well as resourceful, tenacious, and courageous.

Designers and educators Andrea Small and Kelly Schmutte use humor and clear steps to help you embrace uncertainty as you approach a creative project. First, they explain how the brain works and why it defaults to certainty. Then they show you how to let go of the need for control and instead employ a flexible strategy that relies on the balance between acting and adapting, and the give-and-take between opposing approaches to make your way to your goal.

Beautiful cut-paper artwork illustrations offer ways to rethink creative work without hitting the usual roadblocks. The result is a more open and satisfying journey from assignment or idea to finished product.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents

A Note from the d.school

Enter Ambiguity

Part I: Understand Ambiguity

What Is Ambiguity?

Brain Stuff

Attitudes About Ambiguity

Embracing Ambiguity

Part II: Navigate Ambiguity

Navigation Tools

Look In • Look Out

Speed Up • Slow Down

Focus • Unfocus

Follow the Course • Create Your Own Path

Zoom In • Zoom Out

Emerge

Acknowledgments

Sources

Index

✦ Subjects

Cognitive psychology, Business, strategy and management, ambiguity as an opportunity, navigating ambiguity