Author: Oliver Broadbent

The Ambition Loop model proposes that system change is much more likely to occur if three stakeholder groups – users (customers or the public), business (suppliers or service providers) and government (from local to national/regulatory bodies) – form a mutually reinforcing feedback loop. 

When the needs of these three groups are aligned, then they can form a virtuous circle of change that can grow, gather momentum and eventually shift the system around it. 

For designers interested in creating system change, the ambition loop model is valuable test of viability in the conceptual design stage. 

The test is simple: Can I describe a viable ambition loop for my proposed concept?

The model for the test is a stakeholder diagram. To create this model: 

1. Draw out the stakeholders involved in a system;
2. Map how they interact.
3. Draw arrows showing how the desires or actions of each group reinforce the behaviours of the next. 

If we can show using this simple model that our concept passes the ambition loop test, then we have a good signal that the idea has the potential to grow and shift the system we are working in. If our concept does not pass the ambition loop test, then we have a signal that the signal we are working in will resist the change we are seeking to make. 

Once a viable ambition loop can be described, the next stage is to test it as the scale of the ‘minimum viable pattern’. 

Ambition Loops in practice: pioneering doorstep recycling

This is the story of how local grassroots activists were able to begin a process that resulted decades later in legislation – the Household Recycling Act of 2003.

The development of doorstep recycling in the UK wasn’t centrally driven, but was pioneered at local scale, and in particular by local activities from Avon Friends of the Earth, a local-level campaigning organisation. 

The context

In the 1970s, manufacturers were shifting towards using more disposable packaging and ending for instance bottle take-back schemes. Meanwhile, public awareness of environmental issues and the problem of waste to landfill was growing. At the time, the UK government judged doorstep recycling to be too expensive to implement. Avon Friends of the Earth saw the opportunity to prove otherwise. 

Although they didn’t frame it in these terms, we can see retrospectively that they were able to establish an ambition loop between three stakeholder groups that enabled their interests to align.

The local community – increasingly concerned about the impact of waste, with awareness heightened by the rubbish collection strikes at the time. 

Business – local businesses willing to buy waste paper as a feedstock if it could get its hands on a supply. 

The local council – saw that local waste disposal costs were rising. Government also had the challenge of how to deal with high levels of unemployment.

Minimum viable pattern: small-scale collection

In 1976, Avon Friends of the Earth began small-scale waste paper collections that collected household paper waste door to door and sold it to a local business that could use this material stream. 

A key element in this process was creating a viable business for receiving and using the waste paper stream. Environmentally-minded business entrepreneurs collaborated to guarantee a market for recycled paper, helping to get the system moving. 

A third enabling factor was leveraging the government’s existing Community Programme, which provided temporary jobs for the long-term unemployed through community-based projects. Avon Friends of the Earth used this programme to fund workers work in their recycling project. 

These basic elements -public interest, business opportunity and alignment with government objectives – enabled kerbside recycling of paper, and later other materials to be demonstrated. And not only did they show that the initiative was viable, they showed it could make a profit.  

Increasing scale

Over many years, recycling initiatives grew scale and this success of these initiatives gave government evidence that they could confidently legislate for recycling. This activity culminating in the adoption of the 2003 Household Recycling Act, which made doorstep recycling a legal requirement for local authorities.

This example shows that when a simple, reinforcing loop – what we call an ambition loop – is set up, it has the power to change a system. But also, that this change can take years, and even decades.

Applying the Ambition Loop in Design

Step 1 – Identify the stakeholder groups

• Users: Who are the customers or public involved? What are their desires. What are their pain points? How is the current system failing them?
• Businesses Which businesses are involved? What are their priorities? What barriers do they face? What shift in operating conditions would make business better?
• Government and Regulation: Which public bodies are involved? What are their ambitions? What challenges are they seeking to overcome? What in the policy landscape is a blocking change?

Step 2 – Draw a self-reinforcing loop

• Try connecting up the stakeholder groups in different combinations to find mutual benefit. 
• Draw an arrow showing how the action of each stakeholder benefits the next stakeholder in the loop.
• Ask how might the loop become self-reinforcing over time, so that the change can gather momentum?

Step 3 – Find the minimum viable pattern

• What is the smallest scale that this ambition loop can be demonstrated?
• Who could you test this minimum viable pattern with?
• How can you gather evidence that this loop is working?

Why Ambition Loops matter to systems designers. 

The systems that we live with are often very resistant to change. Design that parachutes in a new idea with no reference to the needs of the existing system is risky. There is a great chance that the existing system will reject a new idea unless it can help the agents in the system meet their needs better than they can already. 

The ambition loop model provides a useful test to see how our idea of change might be taken up by the system. If yes, then the idea has the potential to create real change. If not, we may need to rethink our approach.

See also

• Continuous Place-Based Design – the Ambition Loop is an example of a test to apply in the Making and Testing phase.

References:

Schumacher Institute, 2023. Bristol’s Green Roots. [pdf] Available at: https://schumacherinstitute.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Bristols-Green-Roots.pdf [Accessed 10 February 2025].

Future Stewards, 2021. 10 Tools for Systems Change to a Zero Carbon World. [pdf] Available at: https://futurestewards.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/10-tools-for-systems-change-to-a-zero-carbon-world.pdf [Accessed 10 February 2025].

In design, the design brief is what we test our ideas against for adequacy. If the ideas and the brief don’t match, then either the ideas are wrong, the brief is wrong, or both.

We often think of the brief as something that is fixed but in reality it is something that evolves during the design process. In this entry we explore the dynamic nature of the brief and the patterns that can help us work with a brief more effectively.

Small b design brief

At the start of this exploration of the design brief I would like to loosen our the definition of a brief to include not just those formal, capital B design Briefs, on Design Projects. If we work with the idea of design being the act of making things better (see the Herbert Simon definition under design process diagrams), then we can extend the design brief as being any time someone is trying set some intentions or requirements for a piece of work. Think of this as a ‘small b’ design brief. Whether it’s designing a new font, or planning a holiday with your friends, or writing a report, it is all design and so each of these have a brief. This is helpful because we can draw our understanding of design briefs from a far wider range of situations than those formal ones in the design office.

Design versus shopping

If you fully know what you want at the start of a design process; if you can completely describe the outcome of a design process at the start; then it isn’t design – it’s shopping.

The point about design is that the answer doesn’t exist yet. That is why we do design. To work with an emergent situation and make it better.

So if we don’t know what want, how can we write a comprehensive brief for the project? We can’t, because of the Designer’s Paradox.

The Designer’s Paradox

The Designer’s Paradox says that you don’t know what you want until you know what you can have. I have always heard the quote attributed to my former colleague Ed McCann, but I have also heard it attributed to Steve Jobs.

The more we think about it, the more the paradox rings true. From ordering food in a restaurant to specifying the fit-out of a building, we don’t know what we want until we know what we can have.

Another version is that we change what we want when we know the consequences. You want something until you realise the cost, or the lead-in time.

And for designers we don’t know what we are going to design until we start designing.

As Ed once said to me, the art of design is resolving the resolution of the Designer’s Paradox, iterating back and forth between client and designer to try and get convergence between what is wanted and what is possible.

Design brief versus the contract

The other reason why we might expect a brief to be fixed is that we get them confused with contracts. But whereas a contract is an agreement between two or more parties about what they will exchange, a design brief isn’t an agreement. Rather it is something that they create. That’s because the design brief is itself something that needs creating – that needs designing..

Designing the design brief and the idea together

I once interviewed an official responsible for the procurement of a very large ship. They explained to me that the project started with a series of high-level requirements, which as the design progressed, turned into a more detailed specification. But ultimately, the brief was not fully known until the ship was finished.

Implicit in this story is an important concept. That in design we develop the brief alongside the design. The two develop together. What is required is influenced by what is possible. What is possible becomes clearer as we work through design and changes what is required.

So how to we make progress?

So if the brief is not fixed, and not known at the start of the process, then how are we supposed to make progress? Well, the answer lies in seeing the brief as something that you develop through the design process, so that by the end, what is wanted and what is desired match. Here are some techniques to start us on this journey.

• Looking for the missing elements of the design brief
• Look for the disputable purpose in the brief
• Beware of the unreliable brief