The (death of the) process: Do researchers and designers even need a next Double Diamond?

The canonical design process represented by Double Diamond seems terribly mismatched with current reality, with more and more voices announcing its death (the most notable recently being Claude's Head of Design Jenny Wen).

AI encourages moving from a problem-first approach to a solution-first approach, with quick production and constant validation to define problems as we go. Evangelists of the new order argue that the old way was too time-consuming and became a bottleneck for product teams. Guardians of the correct ways retort that this new not-a-process leads to a situation in which we create a lot of sh\*t to throw at the wall and see which one sticks – so we know it is a Good Sh\*t™; the risk is that sh\*t stays sh\*t.

During the roundtable we will discuss:

- Is there a need for a new model to guide research and design (reversed double diamond, stingray model, triple diamond, quadruple diamond, quintuple...)?

- How can we make sure that our work is efficient, supports valuable innovations and leads to real problem solving, instead of becoming AI-native product theatre?

- Are taste and judgement the last types of input humans can bring to Human-Centered Design, and whatever happened to empathy and insight, once hailed as the most important?

- And finally: maybe no process is the best process of all, for now?