Strategic design
Applies design to strategy: it helps public and private organizations decide what to do, adapt to their environment and change it without losing their identity.
What it deals with
Many organizations only bring in design at the end, to give shape to decisions that have already been made.
Principles
From object to strategy
Design helps decide what to do, not just how it looks.
Scenarios
Imagine and make visible possible futures to decide better.
Identity
Change without ceasing to be recognizable.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Bring design to the table where priorities are decided.
Avoid
Using design only to dress up a strategy that has already been decided.
Don’t fall for it
A design strategy without changes in how people work stays a document.
Especialidad
Design-driven innovation
Innovates by changing what a product means, not just its technology or its features.
Models
- ModelFour orders of designSigns, things, actions and systems: four places from which to approach the same problem.
- ModelDesirability, feasibility, viabilityThree criteria for judging an idea: people want it, it can be built and it can be sustained.
Methods and tools
- MethodTrend researchDetecting and explaining changes in society, culture and consumption before they become widespread.
- MethodFour Actions FrameworkRethinking an offering by asking what to eliminate, reduce, raise and create.
- MethodScenario planningImagining several plausible futures to make decisions that hold up in all of them.
- ApproachDesign thinkingTackling open problems the way design does: understanding people, ideating and prototyping.
- MethodPrototypingBuilding quick, incomplete versions of an idea to test it before developing it.
- MethodSix Thinking HatsReviewing an idea as a group, everyone from the same angle at once, switching angles in stages.
- ApproachJobs to be doneUnderstanding what progress a person seeks in a situation and what they “hire” a product for.
Connections
Authors and works
- 2008
Anna Meroni
Described strategic design as the way to give organizations rules, values and tools to adapt and transform their environment.
- 2018
Danish Design Centre
Measures with its “design ladder” how many companies use design as strategy: 15% in Denmark in 2018.
Sources
Original sources
- Danish Design Centre & Confederation of Danish Industry (2018). Design delivers 2018: How design accelerates your business. View source: Danish Design Centre & Confederation of Danish Industry (2018)
Academic reviews
- Meroni, A. (2008). Strategic design: Where are we now? Reflection around the foundations of a recent discipline. Strategic Design Research Journal, 1(1). View source: Meroni, A. (2008)
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