This is an amazing post, Andrea. So close to what I have been saying in slightly different ways. I do avoid the framing of learning, but you connect the dots so beautifully here.

The reason I avoid it though is that in most business settings “learning” seems to be corrupted a bit by the Lean movement where hypothesis based experimentation is what people mean by learning.

The challenge then is how to differentiate the value of designing’s contribution to learning, or to the value it provides to the org.

I have just seen too many posts by folks trying to justify design, or get designers to embrace Lean by saying they are the same thing. They are about learning, and they use somewhat similar visualizations to make their case as well.

But what is soooo true in your piece is the associative and abductive modes of creativity that differentiate designing from the rest of most business and product role capabilities.

Lots of great stuff in here to take and extrapolate on.

Thank you.