Intersections of Social Order and Brainstorming Rules: Some Aspects of the Organisation of Collaborative Idea Generation Ben Matthews Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark matthews@mci.sdu.dk Abstract This paper explores how designers manage their accountability to both the rules of brainstorming and normative social order. It finds that designers’ adherence to the rules of brainstorming are noticeably tempered by their orientation to social order, a finding that suggests a reassessment of the nature and use of methods in design. 1. Introduction For many years, design research has exhibited a persistent interest in design methods. Of course, this interest in methods has been diverse. For some researchers, methods for doing design offered a way of formalising design practice. This was seen as a key to understanding how designers work (a way of describing designers’ activity), to automating design (e.g. by means of algorithms), and to educating design practitioners. In many ways, Simon (1981) remains an archetype of such research programs and their ambitions. Over time, the interest in methods shifted; ultimately they were challenged as a means to each of these ends. Problems were found when attempts were made to account for the activities of designers in terms of the steps prescribed by design methods (e.g. Hales and Wallace 1988); the inherent limitations (philosophical and practical) of formal logic and its derivatives to produce solutions to genuine design problems has been the basis of a wide ranging discussion in design research (Coyne and Snodgrass 1993, Rittel and Webber 1973, Simon 1973); and the very idea that good design work is, or can be, the straightforward outcome of the application of a method was not something ever vindicated by the results of methods-based design programs at universities and design institutes. Other bases were sought for design education (Schön 1987). Whatever it does take to be a successful designer, it is surely more than having facility with design methods. Nevertheless, methods are still taught, are still found useful, and remain a fundamental component of many educational programs and professional design studios. But designers’ situated and practical use of methods has not been a topic of study for design research, with few exceptions. Perhaps most notably is Bucciarelli’s (1994) memorable account of one project manager’s ‘disaster meeting’ with the Pugh method (pp. 151-164). The Pugh method is a common engineering