Design Management as core competency

Journal of Design + Management 2009 volume 4
NewSchool for Design New York
Design Management as Core Competency:
From “Design You Can See” to “Design You Can’t See”
Dr Brigitte Borja de Mozota
Director of Research, Parsons Paris School of Art + Design
brigitte.borja@parsons-paris.com
Abstract
Designers have consistently adapted their practices to the changes of the environmental
context(s), and have tried to invent a better future through new design artifacts. Whenever the
environment changes, design activity creates new design disciplines. The entry point for organizational
design is then based on these artifacts, as «design you can see” on the companies’ product portfolios
and identities.
Organizational strategy also means adapting the organization to environmental changes, and
developing unique differences that will give the organization a competitive advantage.
Now, organizations have modified further. They develop and select their strategies according
to the challenges and changes that all stakeholders and decision-makers are facing in our postmodern
context. What is also changing is that designers are taking part in this reconstruction, and are among
the decision makers.
Strategic development has changed from external “strategy as fit” according to Porter – with
the value chain and its generic strategies in a specific industry - to a “resource-based view” (RBV) of
strategy, focused on building a unique competitive advantage based on selected internal core
competencies.
Both the current challenges, and their consequences on strategic decisions, have an impact
on design management. Designers have specific skills that can help in coping with these 21 st century
challenges; therefore they have to adopt new organizational roles that are based on skills, processes,
research and knowledge. Design management is changing from merely designing the product portfolio
/ product strategy, to a ”design your can’t see” attitude –where design is a core competency in the
company’s assets.
The new challenges of our contemporary world are giving a renewed popularity to design
activity DNA, such as design science, design process and design theory. After presenting the
contemporary challenges and the reasons for this core competency view of design abilities, this paper
develops a design management model: the “S.P.A.R.K“ model of design management, which focuses
on design as Skills, Process, Awareness, Research, and Knowledge.
Due to contemporary challenges, designers now have an entry point at a strategic, decisionmaking
level in organizations and institutions. Is design education ready for this new strategic change
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Introduction: Changes in design activity are linked to changes in the environmental context
Designers have always been “actors of change “in society. Studying both the history of design
and the history of organizations demonstrates how the environment shapes simultaneously the
activities of designers and managers. Historical phases in organization theory follow the same
framework of design theories and design processes. There are no changes in design or in business
that are not derived from, or influenced by, changes -- whether social, technological or cultural.
Consequently, there is constantly a contradiction between the reality of the design activity
(through design projects classified under many design disciplines, namely ‘tangible design’, or “design
you can see”) and the definition of the design activity (that emphasizes design science, design ethics
and processes, design theory -- all intangible design attitude or ways of working, “design you can’t
see”).
As an example, see the present failure of “eco-design” which has not been sufficiently
powerful to change an economic system aimed at overconsumption. Few environmentally aware
designers find a way to follow their consciences whilst thriving economically. Most designers at a
professional level cannot follow their “Victor Papanek” consciences, and instead must apply their skills
to market forces. Designers should play a greater role in transforming society through more win-win
relations on broader, supra systems - but how
Managers and designers alike research changes in the world. From this research phase,
designers discover new trends in technology and culture, and new needs in and for human behavior,
which they embed in innovative cultural artifacts. Managers agree to develop these artifacts because
they see their coherence with their own research on the global context of change. Just as designers
are making new cultural routes tangible through their work, management are developing new strategic
routes according to the new challenges in the outside environment.
So what has changed What are the changes in our postmodern context that all decision
makers, including designers, have to face, andwhat are the challenges facing contemporary decision
makers in society What is their potential, and impact, for and on design
- Managing complexity: This requires applying “design thinking” as both a holistic view and as
“information design“; visualization skills are used to simplify complex environments, and to
build scenarios for system change.
- Globalization and innovation: Companies have to be international; design teams are used to
multicultural working environments, and creativity has no borders.
- Process-oriented companies: Companies have to be more human-centred, customerdriven,
and process-oriented; new information systems have to be invented for Customer
Experience Management. Designers have to take a wider view for “user oriented
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design”;customers are not the only focus and “users” must include customers as well as
employees, shareholders, suppliers, stakeholders, etc.
- Socially Responsible Enterprises: This business model is spreading, and methods are
needed in order to implement it as a collective action, as “sense building “according to
K.Weick. Designers’ input can go beyond “advanced design” projects in eco-design or
community design, towards inventing and implementing standard processes for change in an
SRE enterprise.
As a consequence of these challenges, the design and design management communities have
two directions for change: the incremental design strategy or “meta design” direction, and the radical
“basic design“strategy - or core competency – direction.
The “meta design” direction: incremental design strategy expanding “design you can see“
Existing design disciplines have to redefine themselves according to the changes in the global
context of the service - and aesthetics - based economies:
- The aesthetics-based economy and the development of new design disciplines must include: design
imaging, perception evaluation, cognitive psychology, pleasurable products and sensory design.
- The service economy must develop: service portfolios, as well as services industries that redefine
their activity in terms of customer experiences and customer relationships.
The “experience economy“is where new “meta design” disciplines are needed, to help
navigate between existing design-discipline silos. This “meta design“direction is an adaptation of
design that is understood as design outputs and solutions. The entry points for design in organizations
remain the same. The design demand starts with the company’s products and service portfolios, and
the design brief is to give the brands an emotional difference that customers can see in the market.
This direction is based on the classic strategy definition of Michael Porter: a strategy as fit in
selecting a unique value chain in a specific market after a SWOT analysis of internal strengths and
weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats of your competition. Design is a tangible
competitive advantage that is valued through improved sales, a brand image and market shares in a
defined market.
Finally, we have entered the “creative economy“ in which design is an industry that is part of
the bigger picture of creative industries, and where creative industries are now understood as having a
national competitive edge. Postmodern organizations are collages that value creativity. Managers in
postmodern organizations are reinventing a management that enhances autonomy and individual
creativity. Design managers in postmodern organizations enhance autonomy and individual creativity:
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co-design, user-centered design, inclusive design, etc. The postmodern design manager is seen as an
artist or a theorist who focuses on creativity, freedom and individual responsibility.
For example, the design manager focuses on self-entrepreneurship on “deconstructing
hierarchical power“ through a galaxy of projects. Design isnow valued as giving voice to silence, or
previously overlooked or unheard minorities.
The core competency direction: radical design strategy as “design you can’t see“
The traditional vision of strategy as fit is not helpful in solving the previously discussed
challenges of decision makers. Therefore, another strategic theory has emerged, emanating from a
resource-based perspective as well as a collective-learning objective. This RBV view of strategy
focuses on internal development, but also on pushing the traditional boundaries of organizations
through network management. This resource-based theory of building a sustained competitive
advantage has developed since Wernerfelt’s article in 1984, which responded to the changes of
organizations’ environments.
A resource refers an asset or input to production that an organization owns, controls, or has
access to on a semi-permanent basis. Therefore, the resource-based theory should be understood by
design managers as a paradigm shift from the structure–conduct–performance (S-C-P) paradigm,
where competitive advantage is primarily determined externally by environmental factors:
differentiating from my competitors in an industry. This S-C-P view of design strategy is reactive. It is a
tangible view of the company’s potential in regards to its competitive environment.
Resource-based management highlights how the possession of internal, valuable, rare,
inimitable and non-substitutable resources may result in sustained superior performance. The
Resource-Based View of a firm’s competitive advantage emphasizes the importance of the invisible
internal assets such as the skills and values of “design you can’t see”.
Pralahad and Hamel argue that information-based, invisible assets -- such as technology,
customer trust, brand image, corporate culture and management skills -- are the real resources of
competitive advantage, because they are both difficult and time consuming to accumulate, and may
also be used in multiple ways simultaneously. To design managers, it means promoting design
abilities as rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable; it also means managing design with a long-term
perspective of sustained, competitive advantage rather than a short-term view of project management.
It is refocusing on design as being skills that are pertinent – even essential -- in developing a
corporation’s intangible assets.
A more process oriented view of strategy in the new millennium part of the
strategic discourse embraced a reconstruction view in which market
boundaries and industries can be reconstructed by actions and beliefs of
industry players.– (Johansson &Woodilla 2009)
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See also the so-called Kim and Mauborgne “Blue Ocean strategy”, which creates an
uncontested market space that makes competition irrelevant. Strategy is dynamic, rather than solely
concentrated on the competitors. In this process the view of strategy is to valorize; design
management focuses on design process management rather than design project management.
(Figure 1)
Figure 1:The design process in business: the design function (Borja de Mozota 2006)
The excitement surrounding “design thinking”, as well as the new MBA often praised by Roger
Martin in business media, is a good example of this radical design strategy. So why should designers
now return to the basic, “what is design“ activity Quite simply, it is the skills of the designers that will
help decision makers facing their current challenges. The entry point for design within organizations is
not only the object to be designed for the company portfolio, but rather it is some specific skills of
designers.
Figure 2 is a synthesis of designers’ skills, and -- in italics -- the skills that are most relevant to
our present context:
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Knowledge Attitude Values Applied skills Understanding
skills
Design process
Risk-taking
Managing uncertainty
Practical design skills
Prototyping
Drawing ability
Observation
Material Originality Creative techniques Researching
Lateral thinking
Market Anticipating future Commercial skills Logical thinking
trends
Forward thinking
Technology Proactive in Communication skills Analyzing
developing
(Presentation and Prioritizing
relationships
report writing) Structuring problems
User awareness Open-minded Computer skills Scenario building
Narrative
Culture
Understanding Design
for Synthesizing
multidisciplinary manufacture
Holistic thinking
context
Aesthetic awareness Focusing on usability Project management Intuitive thinking &
action
Human factors Attention to detail Optimization Consumer and
stakeholder needs
Manufacturing
process
Learning from errors Team work Human empathy
Figure 2: Design skills: in italics, the strategic skills for now
And one of most important skill is “holistic thinking” or the designers curiosity, their open-mindedness
that transcends existing barriers of industries silos .
The design agency IDEO has branded designers’ skills under the term “design thinking”, and
their global success -- the Davos summit, Procter & Gamble, the design school that they have opened
at Stanford University -- is evidence of the coherence between their discourse with the needs of both
CEOs and politicians worldwide. Design science as entrepreneurial science on a society and world
level.
This, therefore, is where we must to return to our introductory remark on the contradictions in
the design community, between the reality and the definition of the design profession. In the design
community, and particularly among academics in design, everyone is familiar with: Simon’s design
science, Donald Schon’s reflexive practitioner, and Willemien Visser’s vision of design as a
construction of representations. Writers such as Bryan Lawson or Nigel Cross have explained
designers’ ways of knowing and of thinking. Indeed every designer will probably refer individually to
one or more of these concepts: design activity as problem solving, as part of the industrial process, as
social engineering, as a question, as a research activity, as a discourse rather than a thing, as a label,
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as an art form, etc. Why, therefore, is it that our current context requires us to return to the most basic
of design definitions
Design science is what is needed to change the strategic definition process within companies.
Strategy definition is also becoming a complex and “wicked problem”; comparing and competing with
one’s rivals on market share targets in well documented, static industrial sectors will provide no
sustained advantage. This is not the way the economy is working now, after the digital revolution.
Where is your “competition“ when industries’ frontiers are blurring, when Amazon and Google
are the new entrants’ competition for traditional industries such as editing, publishing and general
commerce Consequently, all strategic methods based on competition analysis, whether used by
designers or by managers, are less and less relevant as decision-making tools.
In this transitional economy, where any individual on the Internet is challenging the role of
institutions to regulate the economy, new skills are needed to innovate in your relationship to the
world. Design activity becomes an agent of change for prototyping the new socio-technical system that
has to be invented, as well as for helping companies manage the transition between the old, and the
emerging socio-technical systems.
Recently, the way that designers think has become increasingly interesting to business
managers because it is often seen as creative and holistic rather than specialist and bureaucratic.
(See Figure 2: designers ’skills.)The emerging roles for designers in the 21st century, according to the
previously discussed challenges in a complex world of stakeholders are: (Inns2007)
-Design as a facilitator of thinking: the designer in the 21 st century will need to know how to mobilize
and energize the thinking of others.
-Design as a visualizer of the intangible: not a new role but an extended one, visualization of systems,
relationships, emotions, experiences and networks.
-Design as a navigator of complexity: in a world of complexity and ambiguity, designers have to
understand complexity theory in order to help others understand complexity.
- Designer as a mediator of stakeholders:“meta design” with tools that can allow multiple stakeholders
to debate a complex issue.
-Design as a coordinator of exploration: coordinate the exploration of relevant technical and contextual
sources to maximize creativity in the early stages of a design.
What are these new challenges, and why is design the best solution
Understanding the link between design as a core competency and the new “person-centric
“economy may be seen through two examples: the healthcare industry and the travel industry.
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How might design inform healthcare and vice versa Design tends to be person–centric, while
healthcare is rather pathology-centric. However, individuals have less revenue for managing illness in
the new economy, so they take care of themselves differently and/or they wish to avoid hospitals. It is
therefore no longer the illness or pathology --such as diabetes -- that defines the medical industry, but
rather the individual suffering from this long term illness. How can he or she co-design his or her own
way of living with the pathology within a person-centric system and entrepreneurial attitude
Consequently, we find the rise of service design, co-design/inclusive design, system design, platform
design, etc. in national healthcare systems worldwide.
Another example is seen in the travel industry. Traditionally it was organized by where you
wanted to travel, how you wanted to travel -- train, car, plane—and how much you wanted to pay for
your hotel room. Now, simply by looking into the number of occurrences in Google searches, you will
see websites answering these traditional segmentation criteria; however the most frequently cited
websites are referring to a new criterion --travelling alone. So “being alone” is a new segmentation
criterion for travel, but could also be used for innovative ways in arranging service industries. After all,
you may be alone at some time of your life for many different reasons: hence the rise of the
“concierge“ services successes.
Therefore I -- first as a person, then as a person being “alone” -- am reconstructing many
different industries, and pushing alliances between traditionally competing actors. Consequently, in
this individual economy – the DOWN/UP economy–the brand power of organizations is fundamental in
shaping our mental images that this brand, rather than another brand, is best for ME regardless of
whatever product or services it offers. The power is in “ME” as a human being, with the power of
individual choice.
The “complexity economy” means adopting this “DOWN/UP”, person-centric attitude. This,
therefore, is the reason for the “design thinking“, user-driven design attitude: an empathetic attitude
gives designers new roles. Designers’ research skills and attitudes mean that the design profession
can embrace larger issues such as social innovation and, as such, invent new business models.
Designers and strategists share an entrepreneurial spirit.
Designers need to explore how design knowledge might be exported and imported across the
traditional borders of design. A key question to consider is:”Can designers industrialize socially
responsible solutions” (Morelli,2007)Designers need to understand the concepts and values of their
skills in order to design from outside the traditional boundaries.
Design Management as core competency
What has changed in Design Management, from seeing design primarily as design strategy
and managing design projects, to recognizing design as an integral function of all organizations In
becoming a function of organizations, design can be selected as a core competency. Our model
Designence (Borja de Mozota 2006) has given evidence for four types of design values; ”design you
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can’t see “ through the managerial process value of design and the transformational value of design
skills have now been well-documented.
Our assumption is that designers should change from their focus on product and service
portfolio or product strategy and from design discipline-centered views of their territory.
Example: Current Design territory in organizations to be expanded :(Moultrie et al, 2008).
-Design in the communication, promotion and delivery of products and services and in the creation
and communication of the identity of the business.
-Design as the creation of products and services.
-Design within the business: design of the organization’s operating environment workplaces, design of
business processes and systems.
Design is an asset giving value to other intangible assets in organizations. This core
competency view of design is based on the design profession’s myriad capabilities. The changes in
the global context have created a new model of postmodern organizations, where designers have new
roles to play. Design skills are for reinventing new business models.
Rather than seeing the present system as more complex, it is the system that has to be
reinvented. New business models and new industries will emerge that will change the balance of our
socio-technical system. Also, in this transition period, “design thinking” as holistic and “user oriented“
will coax the change. Designers’ empathy is a key factor. Nonetheless, holistic systemic thinking for
inventing value for all stakeholders is in concordance with the shift in strategy definition (Borja de
Mozota & Kim 2009, Figure 3).
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Figure 3:From design strategy as fit to design strategy as a resource (Borja de Mozota& Kim 2009)
What has changed in management is the emergence of a mental image of design as a
horizontal function in organizations and institutions. Based on Skills (figure 1),on Process (figure 2), on
Awareness, on Research and on Knowledge for improving organizations’ capital -- whether human,
knowledge, cultural, or technological (figure 3) -- we call this Design Management model the
S.P.A.R.K model of Design Management (Borja de Mozota & Dong 2009).
Conclusion
Unlike managing design as a competitive advantage, managing design as a core competency
is high-risk and needs long-term vision; therefore many companies have been reluctant to invest in
building design capabilities. However, some companies have understood that building a sustainable,
competitive advantage requires adopting a long-term resource view of design management in order to
improve the probability of success in the present chaotic business environment.
Managers have to integrate design theories in their organizational al theories, and see “design science”,
design theories and conceptual models as skills for designing their organizational platforms, structures
and organizational studies.
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The problem, however, is that even though designers have this potential to work at a higher
strategic level of organization, they are not yet trained to do so. This is a challenge for design
education. Designers have to reinvent the guilds, and to become more effective entrepreneurs in order
to help society at large to face the changes in this transitional period between two socio-technical
systems. They also have to design their profession as a part of the creative industries.
References
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Seven Korean companies”.Design Management Review. (In press, 2009).
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models define its territory A transcultural conversation between design and business”. D2B2,
Design To Business conference. Conference Paper. Tsinghua University, Beijing China. April
2009.
Inns Tom.(ed).Designing for the 21 st century: interdisciplinary questions and insights. Gower: 2007,
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responsible solutions”Design Issues. Volume 23 (Autumn 2007), pp 3-21.
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