How Being a Design-Driven Company Will Get You From Good to Great (FT Press Delivers Elements)

leondumoulin.nl: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and The Idea-Driven Organization: Unlocking the Power in Bottom-Up Ideas Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how? .. items: innovation management, culture change, economic development , you.
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Innovation is inherently risky, to be sure, and getting the most from a portfolio of innovation initiatives is more about managing risk than eliminating it. Since no one knows exactly where valuable innovations will emerge, and searching everywhere is impractical, executives must create some boundary conditions for the opportunity spaces they want to explore.

The process of identifying and bounding these spaces can run the gamut from intuitive visions of the future to carefully scrutinized strategic analyses. Thoughtfully prioritizing these spaces also allows companies to assess whether they have enough investment behind their most valuable opportunities. During this process, companies should set in motion more projects than they will ultimately be able to finance, which makes it easier to kill those that prove less promising.

Once the opportunities are defined, companies need transparency into what people are working on and a governance process that constantly assesses not only the expected value, timing, and risk of the initiatives in the portfolio but also its overall composition. Most established companies err on the side of overloading their innovation pipelines with relatively safe, short-term, and incremental projects that have little chance of realizing their growth targets or staying within their risk parameters.

Some spread themselves thinly across too many projects instead of focusing on those with the highest potential for success and resourcing them to win. These tendencies get reinforced by a sluggish resource-reallocation process. Our research shows that a company typically reallocates only a tiny fraction of its resources from year to year, thereby sentencing innovation to a stagnating march of incrementalism.

Innovation also requires actionable and differentiated insights—the kind that excite customers and bring new categories and markets into being. How do companies develop them? Genius is always an appealing approach, if you have or can get it. Fortunately, innovation yields to other approaches besides exceptional creativity. The rest of us can look for insights by methodically and systematically scrutinizing three areas: You could argue that nearly every successful innovation occurs at the intersection of these three elements.

See, for example, Marla M. One thing we can add is that discovery is iterative, and the active use of prototypes can help companies continue to learn as they develop, test, validate, and refine their innovations. As smartphones and mobile apps threaten to upend oldline industries, business-model innovation has become all the more urgent: Why, then, do most innovation systems so squarely emphasize new products?

Leading companies combat this troubling tendency in a number of ways. They up their game in market intelligence, the better to separate signal from noise. They constantly reevaluate their position in the value chain, carefully considering business models that might deliver value to priority groups of new customers. They sponsor pilot projects and experiments away from the core business to help combat narrow conceptions of what they are and do.

And they stress-test newly emerging value propositions and operating models against countermoves by competitors. Amazon does a particularly strong job extending itself into new business models by addressing the emerging needs of its customers and suppliers. In fact, it has included many of its suppliers in its customer base by offering them an increasingly wide range of services, from hosted computing to warehouse management. Another strong performer, the Financial Times , was already experimenting with its business model in response to the increasing digitalization of media when, in , it launched an innovative subscription model, upending its relationship with advertisers and readers.

Now, more than half of it comes from content, and two-thirds of circulation comes from digital subscriptions. Virulent antibodies undermine innovation at many large companies.

The eight essentials of innovation

Cautious governance processes make it easy for stifling bureaucracies in marketing, legal, IT, and other functions to find reasons to halt or slow approvals. Too often, companies simply get in the way of their own attempts to innovate. A surprising number of impressive innovations from companies were actually the fruit of their mavericks, who succeeded in bypassing their early-approval processes. Are managers with the right knowledge, skills, and experience making the crucial decisions in a timely manner, so that innovation continually moves through an organization in a way that creates and maintains competitive advantage, without exposing a company to unnecessary risk?

Companies also thrive by testing their promising ideas with customers early in the process, before internal forces impose modifications that blur the original value proposition. Companies need a well-connected manager to take charge of a project and be responsible for the budget, time to market, and key specifications—a person who can say yes rather than no. In addition, the project team needs to be cross-functional in reality, not just on paper. Cross-functional collaboration can help ensure end-user involvement throughout the development process.

But this responsibility is honored more often in the breach than in the observance. And the more quickly and frequently a project team gets—and uses—feedback, the more quickly it gets a great end result. Some ideas, such as luxury goods and many smartphone apps, are destined for niche markets. Others, like social networks, work at global scale. Explicitly considering the appropriate magnitude and reach of a given idea is important to ensuring that the right resources and risks are involved in pursuing it.

The seemingly safer option of scaling up over time can be a death sentence. Resources and capabilities must be marshaled to make sure a new product or service can be delivered quickly at the desired volume and quality. Manufacturing facilities, suppliers, distributors, and others must be prepared to execute a rapid and full rollout. For example, when TomTom launched its first touch-screen navigational device, in , the product flew off the shelves.

In the space of only a few years, companies in nearly every sector have conceded that innovation requires external collaborators. Flows of talent and knowledge increasingly transcend company and geographic boundaries. Successful innovators achieve significant multiples for every dollar invested in innovation by accessing the skills and talents of others. In this way, they speed up innovation and uncover new ways to create value for their customers and ecosystem partners.

Smart collaboration with external partners, though, goes beyond merely sourcing new ideas and insights; it can involve sharing costs and finding faster routes to market. High-performing innovators work hard to develop the ecosystems that help deliver these benefits.

The first secret of great design

Indeed, they strive to become partners of choice, increasing the likelihood that the best ideas and people will come their way. That requires a systematic approach. First, these companies find out which partners they are already working with; surprisingly few companies know this. Then they decide which networks—say, four or five of them—they ideally need to support their innovation strategies.

This step helps them to narrow and focus their collaboration efforts and to manage the flow of possibilities from outside the company. Strong innovators also regularly review their networks, extending and pruning them as appropriate and using sophisticated incentives and contractual structures to motivate high-performing business partners.

Becoming a true partner of choice is, among other things, about clarifying what a partnership can offer the junior member: The success of the Deutscher Werkbund inspired a group of British designers, industrialists and business people after they had seen the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne in , to found the Design and Industries Association and campaign for a greater involvement of government in the promotion of good design. The British Design Council was founded by Hugh Dalton, president of the Board of Trade in the British wartime government, as the Council of Industrial Design with the objective "to promote by all practicable means the improvement of design in the products of British industry".

Germany also realized the national importance of design during World War II. Heinrich Himmler coordinated several design activities for Hitler, including: Since the s the practice of design promotion evolved, and governments have used policy management and design management to promote design as part of their efforts of fostering technology, manufacturing and innovation. In the first conference topic, "Design as a function of management", was chosen to ensure the participation of the business community.

After several years, business leaders stopped attending because the increased participation of designers changed the dialogue, focusing not on the need for collaboration between business and design, but rather on the business community's failure to understand the value of design. These were to recognize outstanding examples of design policy in organizations that maintained a consistently high standard in all aspects of design management, throughout all industries and disciplines.

With these awards the RSA introduced the term design management.

The product management role

The medal selection committee included representatives of the RSA council and the faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. Since the mids the DMI has been an international non-profit organization that seeks to heighten the awareness of design as an essential part of business strategy , and become the leading resource and international authority on design management.


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One year later the first conference was organized. The DMI increased its international presence and established the "European International Conference on Design Management" in , and a professional development program for design management. The aim was to encourage companies — especially small and medium enterprises SMEs — to introduce design management procedures to; improve their competitiveness, stimulate innovation, establish a European knowledge-sharing platform, organize the Design Management Europe Award , and to identify and test new activities to promote Design Management.

Gorb had previously embedded design management in the Burton Retail Group before joining LBS where he later founded the Design Management Unit in in collaboration with Charles Handy which he led for over 20 years. In his talk at the RSA entitled Design and its Use by Managers [53] provided a background introduction to the wide scope of design within industry and commerce, an appreciation of the power of design as a management resource, and advocated the teaching of design to managers. Papers from the London Business School [56] Gorb is also remembered as introducing the concept of Silent Design, [57] design undertaken by non-designers, in an influential paper with Angela Dumas In the University of Art and Design Helsinki founded the Institute of Design Leadership and Management and established an international training program.

The publication is solely focusing on design management and has become the flagship publication of the discipline. Design and design management have experienced different generations of theories. In its first generation design focused on the object, in the second on the process, and in the third on the user. For design management this has been illustrated by Brigitte Borja de Mozota, [62] using Findeli's Bremen Model as a framework. Design management research organised itself into: It is difficult to predict where design management research is heading.

Different types of design management depend on the type and strategic orientation of the business.

The evolving role of product management

In product-focused companies, design management focuses mainly on product design management, including strong interactions with product design, product marketing, research and development, and new product development. This perspective of design management is mainly focused on the aesthetic, semiotic, and ergonomic aspects of the product to express the product's qualities and to manage diverse product groups and product design platforms [65] and can be applied together with a user-centered design perspective.

In market and brand focused companies, design management focuses mainly on brand design management, including corporate brand management and product brand management. Focusing on the brand as the core for design decisions results in a strong focus on the brand experience, customer touch points, reliability, recognition, and trust relations. The design is driven by the brand vision and strategy. Market and brand focused organizations are concerned with the expression and perception of the corporate brand.

Corporate design management implements, develops, and maintains the corporate identity, or brand. This type of brand management is strongly anchored in the organization to control and influence corporate design activities. The design program plays the role of a quality program within many fields of the organization to achieve uniform internal branding. It is strongly linked to strategy, corporate culture, product development, marketing, organizational structure, and technological development. Achieving a consistent corporate brand requires the involvement of designers and a widespread design awareness among employees.

A creative culture, knowledge sharing processes, determination, design leadership, and good work relations support the work of corporate brand management. The main focus of product brand management lies on the single product or product family. Product design management is linked to research and development, marketing, and brand management, and is present in the fast-moving consumer goods FMCG industry.

It is responsible for the visual expressions of the individual product brand, with its diverse customer—brand touch points and the execution of the brand through design. Service design management deals with the newly emerging field of service design. It is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components of a service.

The aim is to improve the quality of the service, the interaction between the service provider and its customers, and the customer's experience. The increasing importance and size of the service sector in terms of people employed and economic importance requires that services should be well-designed in order to remain competitive and to continue to attract customers. Design management traditionally focuses in the design and development of manufactured products; service design managers can apply many of the same theoretical and methodological approaches.

Systematic and strategic management of service design helps the business gain competitive advantages and conquer new markets. Companies that proactively identify the interests of their customers and use this information to develop services that create good experiences for the customer will open up new and profitable business opportunities. Companies in the service sector innovate by addressing the intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability of service the IHIP challenge: Service design management differs in several ways from product design management.

For example, the application of international trading strategies of services is difficult [68] because the evolution of service 'from a craftsmanship attitude to industrialization of services' requires the development of new tools, approaches, and policies. Whereas goods can be manufactured centrally and delivered around the globe, services have to be performed at the place of consumption, which makes it difficult to achieve global quality consistency [69] and effective cost control.

Business design management deals with the newly emerging field of integrating design thinking into management. The designerly way of problem solving is an integrative way of thinking that is characterized by a deep understanding of the user, creative resolution of tensions, collaborative prototyping, and continuous modification and enhancement of ideas and solutions. This approach to problem solving can be applied to all components of business, and the management of the problem solving process forms the core of business design management activity.

Engineering Design Management is a knowledge area within engineering management. It represents the adaptation and application of customary management practices, with the intention of achieving a productive [engineering design process]. Engineering design management is primarily applied in the context of engineering design teams, whereby the activities, outputs and influences of design teams are planned, guided, monitored and controlled. The output of an engineering design process [70] is ultimately a description of a technical system.

Therefore, the domain of engineering design management includes high volume, mass production as well as low-volume, infrastructure. Urban design management involves mediation among a range of self-interested stakeholders engaged in the production of the built environment. Such mediation can encourage a joint search for mutually beneficial outcomes or integrative development. Integrative development aims to produce sustainable solutions by increasing stakeholder satisfaction with the process and with the resulting urban development. Conventional real estate development and urban planning activities are subject to conflicting interests and positional bargaining.

The integrative negotiation approach emphasises mutual gains. The approach has been applied in land use planning and environmental management, but has not been used as a coordinated approach to real estate development, city design, and urban planning. Urban design management involves reordering the chain of events in the production of the built environment according to the principles of integrative negotiation. Such negotiation can be used in urban development and planning activities to reach more efficient agreements.

This leads to integrative developments and more sustainable ways to produce the built environment. Urban design management offers prescriptive advice for practitioners trying to organise city planning activities in a way that will increase sustainability by increasing satisfaction levels. Real estate development and urban planning often occur at very different decision-making levels. The practitioners involved may have diverse educational and professional backgrounds.

They certainly have conflicting interests. Providing prescriptive advice for differing, possibly conflicting, groups requires construction of a framework that accommodates all of their daily activities and responsibilities. Urban design management provides a common framework to help bring together the conventional practices of urban and regional planning, real estate development, and urban design. The work on Integrative Negotiation Consensus Building [74] and the Mutual Gains Approach [75] provide a helpful theoretical framework for developing the theory of urban design management.

Negotiation theory provides a useful framework for merging the perspectives of urban planning, city design, and real estate project proposals regarding production of the built environment. Interests , a key construct in negotiation theory, is an important variable that will allow integrated development, as defined above, to occur. The path-breaking work of Roger Fisher and William Ury , Getting to yes , advises negotiators to focus on interests and mutual gains instead of bargaining over positions.

Architectural management can be defined as an ordered way of thinking which helps to realise a quality building for an acceptable cost or as a process function with the aim of delivering greater architectural value to the client and society. Research by Kiran Gandhi describes architectural management as a set of practical techniques for an architect to successfully operate his practice. Architectural practice was merely considered a business until after the Second World War, and even then practitioners appeared to be concerned about the conflict between art and commerce, demonstrating indifference to management.

There was apparent conflict between the image of an architect and the need for professional management of the architectural business. Reluctance to embrace management and business as an inherent part of architectural practice could also be seen in architectural education programmes and publications. It appears that the management of architectural design, as well as architectural management in general, is still not being given enough importance. Architectural management falls into two distinct parts: Office management provides an overall framework within which many individual projects are commenced, managed, and completed.

Architectural management extends between the management of the design process , construction, and project management, through to facilities management of buildings in use. It is a powerful tool that can be applied to the benefit of professional service firms and the total building processes, yet it continues to receive too little attention both in theory and in practice. Design plays a vital role in product and brand development, and is of great economic importance for organisations and companies. Creativity and design in particular as an activity: The creative industry workforce is 3.

Creative industries have attained an unprecedented average annual growth rate of 8. The increasing importance of creative industries and especially design in knowledge-intense industries is reflected not only in the policies and studies on EU levels, but has initiated design and creative policies and programmes in the most advanced economies. Furthermore, design and creativity has been recognised on a regional and local level as a driving force for competitiveness, economic growth, job market, and citizen's satisfaction.

The investment in creative and cultural industries are considered a significant component of EU growth in the Lisbon Strategy and the Europe strategy; [83] and designers are increasingly involved in innovation issues. To better understand the value of design and its role in innovation, the EU holds a public consultation on the basis of their publication Design as a driver of user-centred innovation [51] and have published the mini-study Design as a tool for innovation. In addition to the design share in the export of all creative industry products, design can also have a positive impact on all business performance indicators; from turnover and profit to market share and competitiveness.

If and how design management is applied in a company correlates with the importance and integration of design in the company, but depends also on industry type, company size, ownership for design and type of competitive competence. The research showed that companies that considered design on a higher level of the ladder were constantly growing.

With increasing importance of design for the company, design management also becomes more important. The value of design can be leveraged if it is managed well. Research by Chiva and Alegre shows that there is no link between the level of design investment and business success, but instead a strong correlation between design management skills and business success. Effective design management increases the efficiency of operations and process management, has a significant positive impact on process management, improves quality performance internal and external quality , and increases operating performance.

Three different orientations for the choice of design management can be identified in companies. These orientations influence the perception of management and the responsibility of design managers within the organisation. The strategic orientations are; market focus, product focus and brand focus. Depending on the strategic orientation, design management overlaps with other management branches to differing extents:.

The concepts and elements of brand management overlap with those of design management. In practice, design management can be part of the job profile of a marketing manager, though the discipline includes aspects that are not in the domain of marketing management.

This intersection is called "brand design management" and consists of positioning, personality, purpose, personnel, project and practice, [note 16] where the objective is to increase brand equity.

At the operational level design management deals with the management of design projects. Processes and tools from operations management can be applied to design management in the execution of design projects. Due to the increasing importance of design as a differentiator and its supporting role in brand equity, design management deals with strategic design issues and supports the strategic direction of the business or enterprise. The debate on design thinking suggests the integration of design thinking into strategic management. Design thinking and strategic thinking have some commonalities in their characteristics, both are synthetic, adductive , hypothesis-driven, opportunistic, dialectical , enquiring and value-driven.

How product management evolved

The value of the coordinating role of design in new product development has been well documented. Design management can help to improve innovation management, which can be measured by three variables: Like the management of strategy, design can be managed on three levels: These three levels have been termed differently by various authors over the last 50 years.

Operational design management involves the management of individual design projects and design teams. Its goal is to achieve the objectives set by strategic design management. Success of good design management can be measured by evaluating the quality of operational design management outcomes.

It deals with personal leadership, emotional intelligence, and the cooperation with and management of internal communications. Regular management functions, tools, and concepts can often be applied to the management of design on the operational level. It is implemented to achieve specific design objectives and manage the judgment of design proposals.

It can help to build brand equity through the consistent creation and implementation of high-quality design solutions that best fit the brand identity and desired consumer experience, in the most efficient way. Depending on the type of company and industry, the following job titles are associated with this role: Tactical design management addresses the organisation of design resources and design processes.

Its goal is to create a structure for design in the company, bridging the gap between objectives set through strategic design management and the implementation of design on the operational level. This includes the use of a central body to coordinate different design projects and activities. It deals with defining activities, developing design skills and competencies, managing processes, systems and procedures, assigning of roles and responsibilities, developing innovative products and service concepts, and finding new market opportunities.

Outcomes of tactical design management are related to the creation of a structure for design within the company, to build internal resources and competencies for the implementation of design. Depending on the type of company and industry, the following job titles are associated with this function: Strategic design management involves the creation of strategic long-term vision and planning for design, and deals with defining the role of design within the company. The goal of strategic design management is to support and strengthen the corporate visio by creating a relationship between the design and corporate strategy.

Strategic design management is responsible for the development and implementation of a corporate design programme that influences the design vision, mission, and positioning. It allows design to interact with the needs of corporate management and focuses on the long-term capabilities of design. Where strategic design management is applied, there is often a strong belief in the potential to differentiate the company and gain competitive advantage by design. As a result, design thinking becomes integrated into the corporate culture.

Depending on the type of company and industry the following job titles are associated with this function: Design management is not a standard model that can be projected onto every enterprise, nor is there a specific way of applying it that leads to guaranteed success. Design management processes are carried out by humans with different responsibilities and backgrounds, who work in different industries and enterprises with different sizes and traditions, whilst having different target groups and markets to serve.

Design management is multifaceted, and so are the different applications of and views on design management.

The evolving role of product management - O'Reilly Media

The function of design management in an organisation depends on its tasks, authority, and practice. Similar tasks can be grouped into categories to describe the job profile of a design manager. Different categories in management that encompass design were defined by several authors; those tasks occur on all three design management levels strategic, tactical, and operational:. The authority and position of the design management function has a large influence on what the design manager does in his or her daily job. Kootstra distinguishes design management types by organisational function: Design management as a "line function" is directly responsible for design execution in the "primary" organisational process and can take place on all levels of the design management hierarchy.

The main attributes for design managers in the line are authority over and direct responsibility for the result. Design management as a staff function is not directly responsible for design execution in the "primary" organisational process, but consults as a specialist on all levels of the design management hierarchy. The main attributes for design managers in this function are their limited authority and the need to consult line managers and staff. When the design process is defined as a "secondary" organisational process, design management is seen as "supportive function".

Today, most developed countries have some kind of design promotion programme. The Design Management Institute has dedicated three issues to design policy development. A very comprehensive analysis on the situation of design on national level in Britain is the Cox review. The chairman of the Design Council , Sir George Cox, published the Cox Review of Creativity in Business [] in to communicate the competitive advantage of design for the British industry. Innovation policies have been excessively focused on the supply of technologies, neglecting the demand side the user.

There have been several initiatives by the European Commission to support and research design and design management in recent years. While design management had its origins in business schools, it has increasingly become embedded in the curriculum in design schools, particularly at the postgraduate level. Teaching design to managers was pioneered at the London Business School in , [] and the first programme of design management at a design school was started in the s at the Royal College of Art RCA , DeMontfort, Middlesex, Staffordshire.

Although, in the UK, some design management courses have not been sustainable, including those at the RCA, Westminster and Middlesex, other postgraduate courses have flourished including ones at Brunel, Lancaster and more recently the University of the Arts with each providing a specific point of view on design management. In the same year the Stanford University Institute of Design founded the D-school, a faculty intended to advance multidisciplinary innovation.

Since the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland offers one of the few undergraduate studies in design management, completely taught in English. BusinessWeek annually publishes a lists of the best programmes that combine design thinking and business thinking D-schools [] and D-school Programmes to Watch [].

This model also applies to companies, when they shift their focus from small T innovations innovations involving only one discipline, like chemists to big T innovations innovations involving several disciplines, like design, ethnography, lead user, etc. Like in education, this shift makes breaking down silos of departments and disciplines of knowledge essential. A list-defined reference named "Cox" is not used in the content see the help page. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


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  7. Design portal Business and economics portal. He was one of the most influential contributors to modern concepts of management. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. The goal of the project was to stimulate companies to invest in design management and use it as a key driver for innovation and competitiveness e. Following references proof this argument: Philips, Trefoil Publications, London.

    The Management of Design Projects. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. A Handbook of Issues and Methods, Oxford: Hollins, Gillian, and Bill Hollins. Gestion du Design et Management d'Entreprise, Chotard. Blaich, Robert, and Janet Blaich. Cooper, Rachel, and Mike Press. Those workers generate revenue of billion EUR, which is 2. The creative industry is on the 3rd place among the economic sectors of the EU and the international trade in creative goods and services experienced an unprecedented average annual growth rate of 8.