The KEM Framework as a Route Planner?

This insight reflects on a recent study funded by a PPS grant, conducted by the Human Performance Management research group at the Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in collaboration with Platform ACCT and morgenmakers. The project investigates how young design professionals navigate complex societal innovation challenges, and what supports them in doing so effectively.

There is a moment in every complex assignment when everyone does the same thing: they nod. Words like ecosystem, transition pathway, and empowerment fill the room. It sounds logical. It feels urgent. And yet one question remains unanswered: what exactly am I supposed to do now? Complex innovation and change challenges involve multiple interests, incomplete information, vague problem definitions, and shifting success criteria. In that context, it is often difficult for designers to determine what is expected of them, particularly when briefs are loosely formulated and uncertainty arises around scope, role, and outcome (Kundu et al., 2021).

This study focused on young design professionals because the demand for design capacity in complex transition challenges is growing faster than the clarity in the briefs they receive. We wanted to understand which design tasks they distill from such assignments, and which tools they value to organize direction under uncertainty. To explore this, we used the KEM framework, the Agenda Key Enabling Methodologies 2024-2027, developed to bridge large societal ambitions and daily project work. Importantly, the KEM framework was not designed as a task analysis tool or resource organizer. However, we were curious whether it could serve that function in practice, helping designers make explicit both what is being asked of them and what might support them, in line with what the Job Demands-Resources model calls a demands-and-resource organizer (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).

To test this, we deliberately varied the level of support offered to participants, ranging from minimal guidance to directed questions, to an explicit introduction of the KEM framework, working with authentic and diverse brief descriptions that we asked young designers to reflect on. That methodological choice turned out to matter. And the results were more interesting than a straightforward confirmation.

Vision and Imagination

Where designers recognize their speculative strength.
In this KEM category, designers immediately recognized where their connective power lies: translating
complex realities into manageable perspectives, scenarios, and narratives that different disciplines can
share. This requires high cognitive performance, making sense of complex information while outcome
expectations remain unclear. As resources, designers reach primarily for task resources such as
mappings and visualizations, and for social resources such as sparring with colleagues to test
interpretations before committing to a single frame (Byron et al., 2010).
The KEM categories functioned as a useful scaffold here, helping designers name what they were doing
and why. However, when it came to direct practical translation, for instance quickly developing concrete
pathways or success criteria, the categories remained too abstract to offer immediate guidance. The
framework opened the conversation, but did not yet close the gap to action.

Participation and Co-creation

Where autonomy becomes a resource in itself.
This category surfaced primarily interpersonal demands: coordination in multi-actor contexts, role 
clarity, and connecting perspectives. Designers clearly recognized their role as facilitator and maker of
tools that enable participation, especially when a design-led approach was emphasized. A tension
emerged that is felt in many projects but rarely made explicit. Designers are generally positive and
enthusiastic about their work, but only when sufficient creative freedom and autonomy are secured.
Rigid formats quickly make the role feel merely executive.
This became concrete in how participants responded to potential task resources: there was regular
resistance to ready-made templates and canvases, precisely because these are associated with loss of
ownership and signature. Caniëls and Rietzschel (2015) note that constraints can both support and
hinder creative performance depending on how much autonomy they leave intact, a dynamic that was
clearly present here. The preferred form of support is light: prompts, examples, and modular formats
that provide structure without blocking design freedom, and that invite redesign by their users. That
insight matters for anyone developing tools for transition contexts: you are not only designing the
instrument, you are designing the sense of ownership.

Behavior and Empowerment

Where knowledge gaps become the actual design challenge.
In this category, designers recognized the domain primarily as a design task when the focus was on
stimulating target behavior and expanding agency, rather than on communication alone. However,
foundational knowledge about behavior and empowerment was frequently absent in our sample. When
that is the case, something predictable happens: environment and motivation are recognized as design
levers, while intervention logics remain abstract. Dediu et al. (2018) found that knowledge and skill
function as central job resources, and that their absence directly increases experienced demands. This
KEM category primarily generated insight into what the field requires of designers, but to experience
these categories as actual resources, designers also need foundational knowledge, examples, and
practice to translate them into concrete design choices.

Conclusion

The overall picture is cautiously promising. The KEM framework was not designed as a task
analysis tool, yet, across all three categories, it did help designers begin to name what was being asked
of them and what might support them. Its usability for early-career designers, however, remains limited without further translation into accessible design language and integration into education and training. At the same time, as far as we know, no effective task analysis tools for complex transition assignments currently exist. That absence makes it worthwhile to invest in developing the KEM framework further for exactly this purpose: its rich collection of methods and approaches already covers much of the relevant terrain, and adapting it for task analysis seems a more promising path than building from scratch.
The most important next step is therefore strengthening the connection between the KEM framework and design practice, through language that matches the prior knowledge of young designers, implementation in curricula, and personalized coaching that allows designers to develop targeted competence in the categories that align with their strengths. In complex assignments, that is precisely the work: making visible where the pressure lies, which resource helps, and which steps are needed to move from framework to action.

References

Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The job demands-resources model: State of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309–328.
Byron, K., Khazanchi, S., & Nazarian, D. (2010). The relationship between stressors and creativity: A meta-analysis examining competing theoretical models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 201.
Caniëls, M. C., & Rietzschel, E. F. (2015). Organizing creativity: Creativity and innovation under constraints. Creativity and Innovation Management, 24(2), 184–196.
Dediu, V., Leka, S., & Jain, A. (2018). Job demands, job resources and innovative work behaviour: A European Union study. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(3), 310–323.
Kundu, S. C., Kumar, S., & Lata, K. (2021). Effects of perceived role clarity on innovative work behavior: A multiple mediation model. RAUSP Management Journal, 55, 457–472.