Three's company: Situation-problem-solution co-evolution

This paper reports the results of a study examining the co-evolution of design situations, problems, and solutions. The research method is a longitudinal study tracking the creative problem-solving processes of 4 MSc student design teams on an industrial design project. The data includes observations, interviews, field notes, and documents. Visual mapping and temporal bracketing analysis techniques reveal insights into the teams' design processes. The results provide evidence that integrating effectuation enabled some teams to pivot their projects by co-evolving the situation, problem, and solution spaces simultaneously. This finding suggests designers can shape situations through effectuation, rather than just passively respond to environmental cues. These exploratory results indicate the potential value of expanding design theory to consider triadic co-evolution of situation, problem, and solution. The implications highlight opportunities for design education to cultivate designer entrepreneurs skilled in strategic pivoting through situation-problem-solution co-evolution.