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The traditional scientific approach to design extols the virtues of completeness. However, in environments characterized by continual change, there are challenges in adopting such an approach. We examine Linux and Wikipedia as two exemplary cases to explore the nature of design in such a protean world. Our observations highlight a pragmatic approach to design in which incompleteness is harnessed in a generative manner. This suggests a change in the meaning of the word 'design' itself -from one that separates the process of design from its outcome, to one that considers design as both the medium and outcome of action.Historically, much of the discourse on design has extolled the virtues of completeness. Completeness allows for the pre-specification of a problem, the identification of pre-existing alternatives and the choice of the most optimal solution. Such a scientific approach to design pervades much of management thinking, education and research (Romme 2003: 24). 1 For instance, this approach is evident in the design of traditional organizations at the turn of the 20th century. Organizations enhanced the efficiency of their operations by systematically applying principles of scientific management to discover 'the one best way' to organize (Kanigel 1997). Interchangeable parts, division of labor, routinization -each of these were features of an organizational design capable of mass producing 'any color car as long as it was black' (Ford and Crowther 1922: 72).For such an approach to work, however, there needs to be a clear and stable boundary between the entity being designed and the context for which it is being designed. Such a boundary makes it possible to fix the purpose of a design based on a stable set of user preferences and performance expectations. Clear boundaries, stable preferences and fixed goals: these form the cornerstones of the scientific approach to design as articulated by Simon (1996).But how does such an approach to design hold up in environments characterized by continual change? What if there are multiple designers, each with their own representation of the problem? What if users of a design are also its designers? To further complicate matters, what if the process of discovering new and potentially better states only takes place through a process of participation, and the unfolding of the process itself changes the problem? article title Organization Studies 29(03): 351-371

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