Category: Design Management


Sorena Veerman

Proofing the value of design


Sorena Veerman, September 10th, 2010

The Dutch design council BNO just published their research about the effectiveness of design (in cooperation with Rotterdam School of Management and Delft University of Technology).

The research report (only available in Dutch) contains some interesting highlights:

“The financial results of a new product developed with lots of attention to functional and experience design are 20% higher than products with regular attention to design. So, if a company wants to optimise the financial results of a product, they have to consider both functional as well as experience design.”

“If a company allows designers to explore ideas beyond strict project definitions,

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Management Definition, Design Objectives & KPIs |
PARK

Norms, simple, clear and agreed…


PARK, August 17th, 2010

… are now the way forward in design management!

Over the past decade, the practice of design management has become more professionalised. Corporate boards take leaders of design functions seriously. Boards, however, affirm top design managers informally. In the recruitment of design managers, they don’t have a whole lot of evidence to go on, apart from candidate résumés and war stories. Introducing some sensible norms for design management practice would help designers continue the process of professionalisation into the next decade.

The way design managers do their work and succeed in it cannot be left at the level of oral …

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Posted in: Design Culture, Design Management |
Marjolein de Wilde

Stop making excuses, start acting responsible!


Marjolein de Wilde, August 5th, 2010

We need to change our 1950’s mindset where people were totally enchanted about “better living through more consumption”. www.thestoryofstuff.com

Design has become the flagship of many companies and it is being hyped to sell more products within the B2C market as well as in the B2B market. But in these days where sustainability is a major topic, we cannot justify design relevance with the fact that we thereby sell more products. There is definitely a challenge for the design community to ensure creation of sustainable design. To address the topic more holistically I’d rather talk about responsible design: design that …

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Objectives & KPIs, Design Strategy |
Jay Peters

Business Model Innovation: Identifying the WHY!


Jay Peters, August 3rd, 2010
Business Model Canvas, Osterwalder, Pigneur & al. 2010

Business Model Canvas: nine business model building blocks, Osterwalder, Pigneur & al. 2010

Recently my colleague and I delivered a great workshop on business model innovation for new services. We used the Business Model Canvas developed by Alexander Osterwalder published under the creative commons license, which does an excellent job at explaining the WHAT.

However, what is left a bit undefined is the WHY?

Granted, we all know that companies need innovate business models to stay fresh and competitive in today’s changing landscape, but generating ideas based on assumptions of what the consumers (don’t know they) need is a …

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Strategy, Design Tools, Innovation Management |
Florian Weiss

Engage silent designers


Florian Weiss, July 23rd, 2010

Design managers in technology-oriented companies often face the challenge to create awareness for design throughout the company. Many design related decisions are made by employees with no or limited design knowledge. Those people are not educated as designers, but make decisions that have an impact on the final design of the product. Two papers from the London Business School by Peter Gorb and Angela Dumas adressed this issue of “Silent Designers” already over twenty years ago (Silent Design and Why Design is Difficult to Manage).

It can be argued that a great deal of design activity goes on

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Posted in: Design Culture, Design Management, Design Management Education, Design Presentation |