The ancient way of working of which “the design process” is one modern (and usually shallow, in practice) incarnation. Dubberly summarizes it as “observe, reflect, make.” I elaborate on what it means to me over in this article: Culture Work.

Two key qualities of the creative process: each step involves opening — a willingness to be changed by the work, and each step is conversational — either with others or with your own experience and values. This is true for individuals, and for teams or participatory groups.

Facilitating a creative process, or at least defending the space in which one can take place, is a wonderful challenge to grow into.