Design management

Design management is an approach whereby organisations make design-relevant decisions in a market and customer-oriented way as well as optimising design-relevant (corporate-) processes. It is a comprehensive activity on all levels of business performance that effect design, from the fuzzy front-end to the execution of design. Design management acts as an the interface of management and design and functions as link between the platforms of technology, design, design thinking, corporate management, brand management and marketing management at internal and external interfaces of the enterprise.

Extended definition

Design management is not limited on a single design discipline. In his 'Classification of Design' (1976), Gorb’s divided design into three different classes; design management operates in and across all three categories:

• Product (e.g. industry design, packaging design, service design)
• Information (e.g. graphic design, branding, media design, web design)
• Environment (e.g. retail design, exhibition design, interior design)

Design management is not independent from the organizational and product situational context, and plays three integrative key roles in the interface of design, organisation and market:

1. align design strategy with corporate and/or brand strategy
2. manage quality and consistency of design outcomes across and within different design disciplines (design classes)
3. enhance new ways of user experience and differentiation from competitors

Supportive activities are used in design management to manage design more efficient ('doing the things right') and effectively ('doing the right things'). Depending on a multitude of factors (such as industry, company size, design focus, market situation and the position / role of design within the company), design managers have a broad range of job profiles, with very different roles, activities and responsibilities.

The term 'design management' includes a semantic contradiction and can be interpreted in two different ways: (1) managing design and (2) designing management.^[2] This distinction refers to the traditional understanding of design management on an operational level as well as to a relative new approach of integrating design thinking as a mental concept in different business functions (e.g. using design thinking on board level or within the context of innovation management).

Historical development

Difficulties arise in tracing the history of design management. Even though design management as an expression is first mentioned in literature in 1964, earlier contributions created the context in which design management could arise. Throughout its history design management was influenced by a number of different disciplines (e.g. architecture, industrial design, management, software development, engineering) and movements (e.g. system theory, design methodologies) and in its understanding it can be attributed neither directly to design nor to management.

early contributions

Peter Behrens (Portrait by Max Liebermann) is one of the first contributors to design management.

The early contributions to design management show how different design disciplines were coordinated to achieve business objectives on corporate level and demonstrate the early understanding of design as a competitive force on national level.

• 1907: Establishment of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) in Munich by twelve architects and twelve business firms as an state-sponsored effort to better compete with Great Britain and United States by integrating traditional craft and industrial mass-production techniques. The German designer and architect Peter Behrens designed as an external consultant the entire corporate identity (logotype, product design, publicity, etc.) of AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gessellschaft) and is known as first industrial designer in history. His work for AEG was the first large-scale demonstration of the viability and vitality of the Werkbund's initiatives and objectives and can be considered as first contribution to design management.^[3]
• 1914: The success of the Deutscher Werkbund inspired a group of British designers, industrialists and business people (who have seen the organization on the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne) to found the Design and Industries Association and campaigned for a greater involvement of government in the promotion of good design.^[4]
• 1933-1945: Adolf Hitler instrumentalised design, architecture and propaganda to stage his power, most exemplary shown through the annual Reichsparteitage in Nürnberg on September 5th. Heinrich Himmler coordinated several design activities for Hitler, including the all-black SS-uniform (designed by Prof. Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck in 1933), the Dachau concentration camp (designed by Theodor Eicke and prototype for the other Nazi concentration camps) and the Wewelsburg (redesign commissioned by Heinrich Himmler in 1944).
• 1936: Olivetti hired Giovanni Pintori (publicity department) and promoted Marcello Nizzoli (product design department) to develop design into a comprehensive corporate philosophy. The company got famous for its attention to design through their corporate design activities, which is understood as early contribution to design management.
• 1944: In Great Britain, the British Design Council was founded in 1944 by 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".
• 1949: The Royal College of Art (London) starts a research programme on the principles of art and design in relation to industrial and commercial processes.
• 1951: Chicago industrialist Walter Paepcke of the Container Corporation of America founded the Aspen Design Conference in the United States after World War II as a way of bringing business and designers together – to the benefit of both. In 1951, 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.

1960s and 1970s

In the early years of design management the discipline was strongly influenced by system science and the emergence of a design science (e.g. blooming period of design methodologies in Germany, USA and Great Britain); main contributors were coming from the discipline architecture. The early discussions on design management were strongly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon literature (e.g. Farr, Rittel), the methodological studies (e.g. HfG Ulm, Christopher Alexander) and theories in business studies and dealt with two main issues: (1) how to develop corporate systems of planning aims and (2) how to solve problems of methodological information processing. Instruments and checklists were developed to structure the processes and decisions of companies for successful corporate development.^[5]

The Royal Society of Arts in London is one of the first institutions supporting design management. It bestowed the first Presidential Medal for Design Management in 1964.

• 1964: The Royal Society of Arts Presidential Medals for Design Management was instituted in June 1964 to recognise outstanding examples of design policy in organisations that maintained a consistently high standard in all aspects of design management, throughout all industries and disciplines. With this award the RSA introduced the term design management. In 1965, the first medals were given to four companies (Conran & Co Ltd., Jaeger & Co Ltd., S. Hille & Co Ltd. and W. & A. Gilbey Ltd.)^[6] in the category "current achievements" and two companies (London Transport^[7] and Heal and Son Ltd.^[8]) in the category "long pioneering in the field of design management". The medal selection committee included representatives of the RSA council and the faculty of Royal Designers for Industry.
• 1964: The architects Brunton, Baden Hellard and Boobyer phrased the term architectural management and highlighted the tension and synergy between the management of individual projects (job management) and the management of the business (office management)^[9]. Although they did not use the term design management, they stressed identical issues.
• 1964: Christopher Alexander's work played an important role in the development of the design methodology, he devoted his attention to the problematic of form and context and focused on disassembling complex design challenges into constituent parts to approach a concrete solution. His intention was to bring more rationalism and structure into the solving of design problems.
• 1965: The term design management was published first in a series of articles in the Design Journal. This series includes a pre-publication^[10] of the first chapter of the book "Design Management" by Michael Farr^[11], which is considered as the first comprehensive literature on design management. His thoughts on system theory and project management led to a framework on how to deal with design as a business function on corporate management level by providing the language and method to effectively manage it.^[12]
• 1972: The Royal School of Art (London) established its scientific design research department in 1972.
• 1973: Horst Rittel formally introduced the term 'wicked problems' to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements. His work contributed to the understanding of complex decision making in design and a systemic approach (in the context of first order cybernetics) to divide the design process in independently, clearly defined steps.
• 1975: The Design Management Institute was founded 1975 at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Since mid-1980s the DMI is an international non-profit organization that seeks to heighten awareness of design as an essential part of business strategy and become the leading resource and international authority on design management. One year later the first conference is organized.
• 1976: A research, initiated by Alan Topalian, on design leadership and board-level responsibility for design leads to a description of a corporate approach to manage design.
• 1976-1979: Peter Gorb defined his design reclassification in 1976 and published his book Design and its Use by Managers two years later.
• 1982: Teaching design to managers is pioneered at the London Business School in 1976 ^[13] and has been taught on a full-time basis since 1982. Peter Gorb, a Life Fellow of the Design Management Institute and a long time Fellow of the RSA, has led the Design Management department for over 20 years and is seen as a godfather for design management.
• 1977: Christopher Alexander publications 'A Pattern Language' (1977) and 'A Timeless Way of Building' (1979) were vital to the paradigm shift in design and the new approach to design methodologies (beside the work from Paul Feyerabend in 1976). In contrast to the old methodologies (with an deductive approach, from outside-in), focused the new methodology ('New German Design') on an inductive approach to the design problem (from inside-out) and questioned for which target group the solution was designed and marketed.

1980s and 1990s

The 10th European International Design Management Conference organized by the Design Management Institute (speaker: Tim Selders, Partner at PARK advanced design management).

In the 1980s several managers realized the economic effect of design^{[15][16][17][18]}, which increased the demand for design management. Because companies were unsure how to exactly manage design, there was a market for several consultancies, focussing on helping companies in managing the product development process, including market research, concept, project, communication and market launch phases, as well as positioning of products or companies. The new method based design management approach helped to improve the communication to technical and marketing managers. The new methods included for example trend research, product effect triad, style mapping, milieus, product screenings etc. and gave design a more communicative and central role in the company.

• 1980-1991: At Philips, the senior managing director of design Robert Blaich introduces a design-management system that regards design, production and marketing as single unit. This has been an important contribution to the definition of design as a core element in business.
• 1981: The Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (SIAD) forms its design management group in 1981.
• 1986: The Design and Business Association (DBA) is founded with the aim to bring design to business, to bring business to design and to bring design to the government.
• 1989: The British Standard on how to manage design is published; different parts are added and updated over the following decades (in 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2005).
• 1989: The first international research project on design management is initiated by the Design Management Institute and the Harvard Business School, the TRIAD research project.
• 1989: The Design Management Review is published by the Design Management Institute, as first magazine solely focusing on design management.
• 1990: Two important publications are published: the Publication of Design Management - A Handbook of Issues and Methods by Mark Oakley (Editor) and the Publication of Design Management - Papers from the London Business School by Peter Gorb (Editor).
• 1991: In 1991 the University of Art and Design Helsinki founded the Institute of Design Leadership and Management and established an international training programme.^[19] The International Design Management Conference was organized in the same year by the University of Art and Design Helsinki.^[20]
• 1991: At Philips Design, Stefano Marzano becomes CEO and CD. He continues the work of his predecessor Robert Blaich to align design processes with business processes and integrating the design strategy as an important asset of the business strategy.
• 1995: The Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), University of Art and Design Helsinki (TaiK), and University of Technology (TKK) cooperate to create the International Design Business Management Programme (IDBM), which aims to bring together experts in different fields within the concept of design business management.^[21]
• 1997: The Design Management Institute increased its international presence and established the European International Conference on Design Management in 1997 and a professional development programme for design management.

2000s and 2010s

The Zollverein School of Management and Design was one of the emerging universities for a MBA in design management.

Design Management takes a more strategic role in business processes and more academic programmes for design management are set up in business and design universities. At the same time design management gets recognized (and subsidised) on European Union level as a function for corporate advantage for companies and nations.

• 2000: The Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario organises the first Design Thinkers Conference.
• 2001-2005: The Design for Business Programme is established and monitored by the Design Council.
• 2002: In 2002 the Design Leadership Forum is launched.
• 2004: The Dutsch Design Management Network is founded during a seminar at the Design Council. The objective is to provide a forum to support, inform and connect all those with a concern for the effective delivery and development of design management education and training (design management academics, researchers and practitioners).
• 2005: The Design Leadership Fellowship by the University of Oxford is founded.
• 2005: The Stanford University Institute of Design founded the D-school, a faculty intended to advance multidisciplinary innovation.
• 2005: The Chairman of the Design Council, Sir George Cox, published the Cox Review of Creativity in Business to communicate the competitive advantage of design for the British industry.
• 2007: The European Commission funded the ADMIRE (Award for Design Management Innovating and Reinforcing Enterprises) project in 2007 for two years, as part of the Pro Inno Europe Initiative, which is the EU’s “focal point for innovation policy analysis, learning and development”. The aim was to encourage companies - especially SME - to introduce Design Management procedures in order to improve their competitiveness, to stimulate innovation, establish a European knowledge-sharing platform, organise a European Design Management Award and to identify and test new activities to promote Design Management.
• 2010: The Finnish Aalto University will become effective in January 2010 and is a merger of the three established Finish universities, that cooperate since 1995 on a design management programme: Helsinki School of Economics (HSE), University of Art and Design Helsinki (TaiK), and University of Technology (TKK).

Design management in Companies

Design Management Hierarchy

If and how the design management levels are applied in the company correlates often 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 from the Danish Design Centre (DDC), which led to the Danish Design Ladder, shows effective how companies interpreted already design with different depths:^[22]

1. non-design: Companies that do not use design (15% in 2007).
2. design as styling: Companies that use design as styling appearance (17% in 2007).
3. design as process: Companies that integrate design into the development process (45% in 2007).
4. design as innovation: Companies that consider design as key strategic element (21% in 2007).

The research showed that companies that considered design on a higher level of the ladder were constantly growing. Additionally, the Danish Design Centre published an 'Evaluation of the Importance of Design' in 2006 with the result that most companies considered design as promoter for innovation (71%), as growth potential for the company (79%) and to make products more user friendly (71%). With increasing importance of design for the company, also design management gets more important.

Design management can be divided by its different fields of application into the three different levels:

1. operational design management^{[23] [24] [25] [26]}
2. tactical design management^[26]
3. strategic design management^{[24] [27] [26]}

Operational design management

Tactical design management

Strategic design management

Design Management 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 would lead 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 function of design management in an organisation depends on its tasks, authority and practice.^[35]

Design management tasks

Similar tasks can be grouped into categories to describe the job profile of a design manager. Cooper and Press (2005) identify in their management model five different categories in management that encompass design. Design managers face different tasks on strategic, tactical and operational level in the following categories.^[32]

• vision / mission
• strategy / policy formation
• goals / targets / objectives
• planning / scheduling / resourcing
• activity / monitoring / evaluation

Design management authority & position

The authority and position of the design management function has a huge influence on what the design manager does in his or her daily job. Kootstra (2006) distinguishes design management types by its organisational function:^[29]

• Design management as line function
• Design management as staff function
• Design management as support 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 is the extensive authority and the direct responsibility for the result.

Design management as 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 is their limited authority and their function to consult line managers and staff.

When the design process is defined as a “secondary” organisational process, design management is seen as supportive function. In this function it has only a supportive character, classifying the design manager as a creative specialist towards product management, brand management, marketing, R&D and communication.^[29]

Education

Design management was first taught on a business school, since teaching design to managers is pioneered at the London Business School in 1976 and the first program of design management on a design school started in the 1980s at the Royal College of Art, DeMontfort, Middlesex Staffordshire and other universities. Today, design management is much less common in business universities as it is in design universities. The BusinessWeek publishes every year a list of the best programs that combines design thinking with business thinking (D-schools 2009 and D-school programs to watch 2009).

Current Debates

Design management versus design leadership

In the daily business, design managers often operate in the area of design leadership. However, design management and design leadership are not interchangeable, but interdependent.

Like management and leadership, they differ in their objectives, achievements of objectives, accomplishments and outcomes. Design leadership is pro-active: it leads from creation of a vision to changes, innovations and implementation of creative solutions. It stimulates communication and collaboration through motivation and enthusiasm, sets ambitions and points out the future direction to achieve long-term objectives. In contrast, design management is re-active and responds to a given business situation by using specific skills, tools, methods and techniques. Design management and design leadership are interdependent: design management needs design leadership to know where to go and design leadership needs design management to know how to get there.

Other current debates

• Design management versus brand management
• Design management performance & efficiency
• Design thinking versus managerial thinking
• Design management in innovation management

References

See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Design

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Management

• Brand management
• Commercial operations management
• Collaborative method
• Corporate Identity
• Design
• Design leadership
• Design management in organization
• Innovation
• Leadership
• Marketing
• Product management
• Reputation management

Further reading

Books