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The Lean Post / Articles / Socially Responsible Design Meets Lean Product and Process Development: A Conversation with Cynthia E. Smith

WLEI Socially Responsible Design Meets Lean Product and Process Development: A Conversation with Cynthia E. Smith

Product & Process Development

Socially Responsible Design Meets Lean Product and Process Development: A Conversation with Cynthia E. Smith

By Cynthia E. Smith and Lex Schroeder

March 13, 2025

In this episode of the WLEI podcast, explore how socially responsible design tackles real-world challenges—and why collaboration is key to shaping a better future.

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In this episode of WLEI Podcast, we welcome Cynthia E. Smith, Curator of Socially Responsible Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and author of Design for the Other 90%. Cynthia speaks about design as a catalyst for change and what it means, as she says, to be in “the collective work of building capacity and agency in communities across the world.” The conversation explores: 

  • How socially responsible design works and what types of problems it aims to solve (for example, improving quality and access to basic services we all need to live)
  • The importance of collaborating closely with local communities throughout the design process and how architects, engineers, designers, and local experts can work together differently
  • How design studios can move beyond the fee-for-service model by learning from public health models
  • The future of socially responsible design, the “moral imagination”, and what it means to “model the future we want that doesn’t exist yet”
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Designing the Future Using Lean Product and Process Development

Learn how to reduce time to market, improve quality, and drive innovation in a hands-on, coach-led experience that applies Lean Product and Process Development across your value stream.

Written by:

Cynthia E. Smith|
Lex Schroeder

About Lex Schroeder

Lex Schroeder is a strategy and operations leader/writer breaking open new conversations about the future of work. A longtime editor in the systems thinking community, she has led strategic initiatives at The Lean Enterprise Institute and The Berkana Institute. In 2015, she served as Founding Editor and Co-Lead of The…

Read more about Lex Schroeder

About Cynthia E. Smith

Trained as an industrial designer, over a decade she led multidisciplinary planning and design projects for cultural institutions. After earning a graduate degree at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Smith joined Cooper Hewitt, where she integrates her work experience with her advocacy on human rights and social justice issues as their Curator of Socially Responsible Design. She co-authored “The Politics of Genocide: U.S. Rhetoric vs. Inaction in Dafur” for the Kennedy School Review; co-curated the 2010 Design Triennial: Why Design Now?; curated 2007 Design for the Other 90%; 2011 Design with the Other 90%: CITIES; and 2016 By the People: Designing a Better America. Named 20/20 New Pioneer by Icon design magazine & Metropolis magazine’s next generation of young curators, a member of World Economic Forum Expert Network, serves on international design juries & lectures widely on socially responsible design.

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