Design-Science is interested in problems where incremental improvement may no longer be enough. That does not mean ignoring reality. It means temporarily removing assumptions about how reality has been organized.
01 / Explore
Find the question underneath the problem.
Why does the system work this way? Which constraints are real? Which are historical accidents? What changed?
Exploration can involve research, history, domain immersion, simulation, technology, economics, and deliberately unreasonable questions.
02 / Design
Stand in the future. Work backward.
Define the desired capability. Then ask what system would make it possible.
Objects. Relationships. Rules. Actors. Decisions. Time. Consequences.
The result is not necessarily software. It is a model of how something should work.
03 / Make
Thinking gets better when it has something to collide with.
Build. Simulate. Prototype. Visualize. Write. Run the model. Break it. Put it in front of someone who actually knows the domain.
A prototype is not proof that an idea works. It is a more interesting way to discover why it doesn’t.
04 / Form
Design the vehicle.
Once a system appears worth pursuing, a different design problem begins: how should this become real?
It might remain research. It might become open source. It might belong inside an existing organization, require a partner, or justify a new company. An existing organization might even be re-founded around a better reason to exist.
Or the right answer might still be: not yet.
The objective is to make the right system real.