FDM

A major new publication on Fundamental Design Method is now available. Click here for selections from this title and details on how to obtain this document.

FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN METHOD

by Edward Matchett MSc CEng FRSA

Fundamental Design Method is the name I gave to a method of thinking that allows one to adapt and creatively respond continuously to the ever-changing needs of one's world. The name of Fundamental Design Method did not come easily. I needed words that described: simple, basic, beginning, supporting, important, intrinsic, and the word that suited all was 'fundamental'. 'Design' suits all vocations, whether engineering, architecture or managerial; and 'Method', of course, is self-explanatory. Therefore let me take you on from here and wish you a very happy journey.

All actions originate in thought and attitude, therefore it is in our thoughts and attitudes that we should look for the means of checking, taking and having real control. Thought and attitudes do not, of course, exist in a vacuum. They are unpredictably and erratically projected from a world that slowly is added to and modified, modified by what one perceives of the world to give us an incomplete view of reality. These deficiencies are what Fundamental Design Method overcomes. It is a highly controlled and disciplined form of thinking that a person acquires by a carefully organised and painstaking study of the nature, appropriateness and effectiveness of those controls that he already imposes on his own thought processes. Whereas in normal thinking the majority of mental activity and the material on which it draws is inaccessible to consciousness, in FDM the threshold of consciousness is changed...(these are the opening passages from the newly produced work from the Matchett Foundation. It is the by far the most comprehensive document on Fundamental Design Method yet produced. Please refer to new FDM book for more excerpts and details on how to obtain the whole book.)

Complementing the above, here is a passage that briefly describes the definition that led to Fundamental Design Method and all his subsequent teachings:

The Definition That Led to Fundamental Design Method, Logosynthesis, Sophiagenics and Neural Education

In 1952, shortly after taking up my new post at the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield (now Cranfield University) I began to define 'good design', to provide a firm and consistent basis for my teaching, tutoring, coaching and counselling ... and for evaluating my students' design schemes and detail drawings, which was a major part of my work. I was attempting to obtain a 'metaphysical star' that I, or anyone, could steer by whilst designing or critically analysing any product, system, method, plan, procedure, strategy, tactic, logistic or organisation. It was this early definition formulated over many months of taxing intellectual effort that was to become the basis of almost all my methodologies for controlling thinking and creating.

The early definition also produced - in its first major transposition to "the optimum solution to the sum of the true needs of the particular set of circumstances" - the foundation for many other systematic approaches: such as 'PABLA' (Problem analysis by logical approach), at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston ... and the Royal Navy's 'MAUD' (Methodical analysis for use in design) design system. In its second major transposition - fifteen or sixteen years later (1968) - it spawned "the making of media plus matter meaningful", the formulation that Arthur Koestler and, earlier, Rene Descartes had both been seeking ... but never discovered. The early definition described only qualities and characteristics of a component ... but any component of any technological system:

A well designed part is one which, while having the simplest possible configuration, will do all that is required of it, and give reliable and efficient service for the whole of its intended life ... under all foreseeable conditions of operation and misuse. It will neither waste nor push to the limit materials, workshop processes or human skills that will be used in its manufacture or subsequent servicing, and will not be in any way inconvenient, hazardous or objectionable to people using it or being affected by its use (unless its purpose is to cause discomfort). Also its function, characteristics, and general configuration will be such that they blend with those of the unit to which it belongs. Its cost will be as low as possible, while coming within the category of what one can afford to have, will have been determined by the inclusion of those features that one cannot afford to do without in the particular case. It will not include novel features that are different simply for the sake of being different (unless this is calculated to increase its saleability) but, instead, will include that which has already proved itself good in practice, whenever it is convenient to include it. It will permit the highest reasonable degree of standardisation of tooling in its manufacture, and the highest reasonable degree of interchangeability where a number of such parts are to be made.

from The Definition that Led to Fundamental Design Method, Logosynthesis, Sophiagenics and Neural Education (see papers)

An excellent example of the application of FDM can be found at Example of Application of FDM by Michael Pym, from the paper Two Remarkable Men.

Edward Matchett's 'Credo'

The great gulf that divides mankind is not political. It is not the gulf between religions, between religion and science, between science and art. It is not the gulf between rich and poor, between the privileged and the underprivileged. Not the gulf between the practical and the theorist, between those who would work and those who would dream. It is not the gulf between management and those that are managed, between the possessive and the philanthropist, between the saints and the sinners. All of these things are important, yet none so important as men often suppose. They are all streams that flow towards the same sea. All would meet and be reconciled except for one division that is greater by far then these - a division that is far more fundamental. It is the split between those persons who would hang on to old forms and those who wish to see new ones.

Two spirits are at work in the world. It is they who are the cause of the great divide. One would drive the world along at an ever-increasing rate, one would have the world stay precisely where it is. One has its foot hard down on the accelerator, the other is trying hard to apply the brake. One has his eyes fixed firmly on the future, the other has his eyes fixed firmly on the past (he does not realise that the ground that he thinks he is standing on disappeared many years ago).

What is it that has to be preserved? Every form that still equates to needs. What is it that has to be uilt in addition? New forms that equate to needs that either were not present earlier or that have not been satisfied. What does this have to do with the person who is doing the creating? Everything! At every moment, within himself, the same ceaseless battle must go on. He must destroy every form (ideas, beliefs, visions, attitudes, values etc.) that is no longer needed. He must preserve every form that still equates to needs. He must build new forms within (new ideas, new beliefs, new visions, new attitudes, new values etc.) that equate to needs that either were not present earlier or that have not yet been satisfied. To the extent that he does this within he will be able to do it without. Neither more nor less; it is all very precise.

There are several complete papers on FDM which can be found in the papers section of this site, including:

Create a New Meaning

Idea - Concept Enlargement Series Two

Living Knowledge

Some Standard Mental Controls Used in Controlled Thinking #4

What is Media