Category: Design Strategy


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 |
Sorena Veerman

‘Best practice’ in design


Sorena Veerman, April 30th, 2010

In today’s journey of design departments to become more effective and efficient more and more existing management models are used and copied to design: One of those being ‘best practice’.

A best practice is a technique, method, process, approach, activity or tool that is believed to be more effective and efficient at delivering a particular outcome than any other technique, method, process, etc. when applied to a particular condition or circumstance (wikipedia).

We see that many design departments are currently looking for best practices in design and design management, either by capturing current internal practices or by using external ones.…

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Management Definition, Design Strategy |
Frans Joziasse

What we should learn from Indian leaders


Frans Joziasse, April 12th, 2010

As the global economy is slowly recovering it seems that some industries come back stronger than ever.

But how is this with the design industry? We have seen many lay-offs and we see a renewed focus among designers and design managers on creativity instead of efficiency and effectiveness. But are they prepared to cope with the dynamics of the future markets and what are the competencies do they need to cater for?

I was shocked to read the gap between Western leaders and Indian leaders when it comes to the point of people development. Only 7% of the Western leaders …

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Strategy |
Florian Weiss

Get the basics right first!


Florian Weiss, March 8th, 2010

Development of management concept fads, 1950-2000 (cf. Pascale)

New buzzwords are dominating the design management discussion here and there, most recent in the design thinking debate. But are you sure which fashions are worth to follow? How do you decide in which issues you are going to invest time and money?

Certainly, other disciplines are facing the same challenge, e.g. a huge amount of new management concepts, tools and themes are published in business magazines, daily magazines and management books. Many researchers are focusing on the effectiveness and efficiency of management concepts, tools and techniques, but there is little knowledge …

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Posted in: Design Management, Design Organisation, Design Strategy |