Eventually, after some back and forth along the framework’s path, the geodesign team will perform the study, make their assessment of the result, and present the material to the decision makers or stakeholders. It is important to emphasize that the product of the geodesign study is still a work-in-progress. Steinitz calls the product at this stage “preliminary results.” The stakeholders can have three different responses: yes, no, and maybe. If your team receives a “yes” response, then you may consider it a job well done because the stakeholders have accepted your proposed creative change and will start taking the next steps to see it is implemented. Only upon a “yes” response can the geodesign study’s product be “final.” A “yes” response, however, is not typical when presenting the preliminary product. In practice, it is more likely the stakeholders or geodesign team will need to make revisions to the study before a plan can be finalized. Revisions result from a “maybe” or “no” response.
A “maybe” response implies that the framework is generally producing the appropriate information and results, but there is something unsatisfactory or there are aspects that were not fully addressed. As we will discuss below, stakeholder feedback will be critical to learning why this is only received as a “maybe.” A common response is to change the scale of the study. Increasing the scale to a larger area will capture more information at the risk of losing detail. The inverse is true if the team decreases the scale to focus in on a smaller area. Either way, the adjustment enables the team to revisit all or some of the steps of the first and second iteration and re-present their findings to the stakeholders. The preliminary findings of the study may prove to be acceptable, but further investigation is needed to make that decision.
A “no” response is not a signal that the team failed to produce a valuable study. If the study framework was thoughtfully and collaboratively constructed, then the results are important to the scenario. However, the findings may not align with the stakeholder’s expectations or values, or these preliminary results may not have provided enough information to enable the stakeholders to make a decision. There may also be a question of how suitable the proposed design is for the place. Whatever the cause, a “no” response means that the stakeholders are unable to accept the current results and the team needs feedback to better understand why. A “no” response definitely requires the team to revisit some or all of the decisions made in the first and second iteration of the framework.
The geodesign process is iterative. While the framework asks a series of linear questions, in practice the team will reiterate the process of answering questions, gathering, and analyzing data multiple times. The third “iteration” of the framework is a series of many non-linear and partial revisions of study informed by new information as well as team and stakeholder feedback. It may be valuable to look at feedback as a series of individual changes. If the time, budget, and feasibility constraints of the project allow, it would be enormously informative to perform each change individually and compare the results to the original study. This process may yield an invaluable understanding about how the landscape is performing and open doors to a more fit design.