There’s a lot of layers here I think!
Re: Second Paragraph
It seems the gist of what you’re getting at in the second paragraph, seems to be this aspect:
Is it better for people to share their ideas all together and influence each other with them?
OR
Is it better to have people think through things all together on their own?
I think it’s impossible to know the answer, I’ll offer these two considerations.
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It seems that people are different. Everyone seems to need some amount of time to think on their own about things, and that need can vary greatly from person to person. For some people, just a bit of time in a meeting is enough. For others, they may need a week and some research. It also depends on the puzzle. So I guess the question is: how much space is appropriate for this group and this puzzle to give people enough time to mature their own ideas?
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When people share ideas during the process, they impact each other. That alchemy is part of the magic of sociocracy. As in the selection process, when the change round goes one by one instead of all at once, that alchemy is invited. Similarly in the “policy process” (MVOS page 97) that alchemy is invoked. However, the dose of mutual impact can be titrated with facilitation choices. For instance:
– How long between phases? (same meeting, different meetings, etc.)
– Are people given time to think and take notes on their own, before hearing others shares?
– Who and how is the synthesis done?
Re: First Paragraph
For the the first paragraph, I think @jerry.koch-gonzalez 's response is key: a thorough Understand phase (MVOS page 97) can hopefully prevent acting before the problem is thoroughly understood.
I’ve definitely seen things go completely squirly by skipping that first phase. When the people working on the project aren’t clear on the inputs, the whole thing can go sideways.
Skipping them might seem faster… but it seems it rarely is. There are usually gnarly downstream effects that compensate for any time saved.
However… there are still more layers to the puzzle of design and sociocracy…
More on Design & Sociocracy
Some other things that come to mind are:
1. Design is a special thing!
There are many strategies, and how it works can depend greatly on context and resources.
There are a lot of processes which can be used in a complimentary way with sociocracy, but modifications may be needed depending on the resources available.
Google’s Design Sprints for example are a model that brings a cross functional team together in a concerted “sprint” to accomplish design.
However, if you don’t have a cross functional team with enough free time/resource to run a full “sprint” then this process won’t really work.
Also, that process is tailored to building something truly from the ground up. If resources are limited, it’s frequently the case that a system is making due with limited resources, such as using pre-made building blocks that offer limitations. All of this can impact the facilitation of the process. A multi-day intensive is probably not accessible for anything but a well funded project.
SoFA’s Support Circle adapted this process when it was working on the Membership workflow, and it took forever, and went back the the drawing board exactly as you described from the very end, which was predicted. It was definitely a lesson in range of tolerance for consent for me. Objections are feedback - feedback frequently and early 
Also, design can be iterative. One can design something as prototype, rough and ready, and then re-work it based on on feedback. The Lean Startup model is a pretty sociocratically aligned business development model that focuses on fast feedback to inform design. This is in stark contrast to design processes which put a lot of energy into making the perfect design from the beginning to make them perfect before they are released into the wild. You’ll notice lean startup’s the “build-measure-learn” is kinda similar to “lead-do-measure”, except it’s framed specifically in a design context of producing a thing (which can be built), whereas “lead-do-measure” is more process oriented.
2. Sociocracy’s Proposal Forming Process & Design
I would offer that Sociocracy’s proposal forming process has a lot of potential for design. And it can be applied in different ways to (to positive or negative effect in different ways) emphasize or de-emphasize different parts which can have a significant impact on the outcome and satisfaction with the process.
Specifically, the Understand-Explore-Decide and Lead-Do-Measure concepts discussed in 3.3 of Many Voices One Song.
However, exactly how this same process plays out for systems of different complexity is different. For instance, Workflows, which also use the Lead-Do-Measure model can have very little or very much detail depending on the level of details worthwhile.
The same is true for design. But questions remain: How much time and energy do we have? How much do these details matter? The answer will likely have a significant impact on the facilitation of the process.
In a simple case, it may be that a group could go through all three steps of the “policy process” shown below together:
I have certainly done this with groups for simpler tensions (or “triggers”).
However, that process for more complex systems, or with groups who only have partial understanding of more complex problems doesn’t always work.
Some examples of how you can play with different parts of the process to match the complex needs of the group and the system are:
Partial Outsourcing
Referencing the image above:
Do the first two parts of the understand Phase together as a group, and have someone synthesize the needs and bring them back, then do the first two parts of the explore phase, and have a someone synthesize the proposal and bring it back for the decide phase
This maximizes input, while minimizing group processing time, which may be limited and cumbersome, especially for very complex systems.
This process was recently used in Membership Circle to improve SoFA’s membership systems based on a bundle of tensions.
It has some nice benefits of including much of the group process, but speeding up the synthesizing elements a fair bit.
Outsource to a Helping Circle
On the other hand, helping circles could be used to allow a core group to work on something using the full process.
It may not be possible for larger group to dedicate the amount of time, or they may lack particular expertise, In this case a Helping Circle could be formed to do a more intensive sprint.
One could see the Language Equity Helping Circle has an example of this in SoFA.
Tactfully Skip Group Process in Some Areas
This one is probably used way too often, and is most likely to backfire, but it’s worth mentioning doubly for those reasons.
Rather than doing full rounds to understand context, then full rounds to explore needs, then rounds to synthesize needs, almost always people combine various areas. Kinda like combining Question and Reaction rounds, or doing a popcorn question round. Depending on the context, it’s probably fine to just lump the Understand section all together in a single round and move right on along to the explore phase. Who has time for 6-9 rounds for every decision?
However, in a design process… it’s probably more necessary.
Moreover, it’s also tempting to entirely skip sections of the group process and just give context without doing rounds. This is danger zone IMO.
I’m certainly guilty! It’s so tempting, especially if the working group has limited knowledge of the issue. Still, avoiding this whenever possible, even going through the whole process results in the same original proposal often creates a much greater sense of group cohesion, trust and shared vision and understanding, which is invaluable.
Without that trust, one will probably get confusion and complaints like “designs systems that are too complex” 
And honestly, for relatively complex systems even when not skipping group process… this can still happen that people reject the results or process. Unfortunately Sociocracy doesn’t solve for humanness or physical limitations, it just accommodates humans given their situations it as best as it can, but we are still bound by time and our bodies!
