Time by Design: How Communicating Slow Allows Us to Go Fast (Design Thinking, Design Theory) - Softcover

Ballard, Dawna I

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262552701 ISBN 13: 9780262552707

Publisher: MIT Press, 2025

Synopsis

Speed in collective action, like teamwork or organizing, is never simply a time-based issue. While conventional theory relies on time-based interventions to achieve speed, this approach typically fails. In Time by Design, Dawna Ballard shows how speed is actually a function of the relationship between time and communication, or chronemics.

Ballard identifies two communication design logics—fast and slow—that reflect contrasting beliefs about how communication works to support urgent, time-sensitive work demands. Fast communication design logics are linear, short-term in orientation, and treat time in interaction as transactional. Slow communication design logics are nonlinear, long-term in orientation, and treat time in interaction as transcendent. Given these distinct approaches, the book offers a practical toolkit that shows the reader how the two chronemic designs can be used in complementary fashion—and how effective teams, communities, and organizations routinely communicate slow to go fast.

About this title

About the Author

Dawna I. Ballard is Associate Professor of Organizational Communication and Technology in the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas Austin. Her research and commentary are regularly featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Atlantic, Fortune, Forbes, Inc., and NPR, as well as venues such as SXSW and Creative Mornings.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262552701
• ISBN 13: 9780262552707
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232