Object-lens vs Process-lens (a way to feel the difference)

What is being designed

• Object-lens: A thing, plan, artefact, or solution
• Process-lens: Conditions for ongoing emergence and evolution

Primary question

• Object-lens: What should we make?
• Process-lens: What needs to be happening, over time, for this system to become more alive?

Role of the designer

• Object-lens: Expert maker, problem-solver
• Process-lens: Facilitator of sense-making, participation, and learning

Relationship to time

• Object-lens: Linear, milestone-driven, oriented toward completion
• Process-lens: Developmental, cyclical, attentive to phases and rhythms

Measure of success

• Object-lens: Quality and performance of the output
• Process-lens: Increased capacity of the system to self-organise, adapt, and evolve

Relationship to people

• Object-lens: Users or stakeholders of what is produced
• Process-lens: Agents within the system, co-evolving it through participation

What remains after the work

• Object-lens: A finished thing (and dependency on future interventions)
• Process-lens: A living capability — practices, relationships, and shared ways of seeing

Typical failure mode

• Object-lens: Elegant solutions that don’t survive reality
• Process-lens: Slow, uncomfortable, harder to “explain” early on

A useful reframe:
Object-design asks “How do we get this right?”
Process-design asks “How does this keep learning?”