Design strategy

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Design strategy is an emerging discipline created to help firms determine what to make and do, both immediately and over the long term. Design strategy is the interplay between design and business strategy, wherein design methods are used to inform business strategy, and strategic planning provides a context for design. While not always required, design strategy often uses social research methods to help ground the results and mitigate the risk of any course of action. The approach has proved useful for companies in a variety of strategic scenarios.

Design strategy can play an integral role in helping to resolve the following common problems:

• Promoting the adoption of a technology (Example: Toyota designing the hybrid Prius to resemble the conservative Echo instead of making the Prius look high-tech and adventuresome)
• Identifying the most important questions that a company's products and services should address (Example: John Rheinfrank of Fitch Design showed Kodak that its disposable cameras didn't exist to replace traditional cameras, but instead to meet specific needs, like weddings, underwater photography and others)
• Translating insights into actionable solutions (Example: Jump Associates helped Target turn an understanding of college students into a dorm room line designed by Todd Oldham)
• Prioritizing the order in which a portfolio of products and services should be launched (Example: Apple Inc. laid out the iPod+iTunes ecosystem slowly over time, rather than launching all of its pieces at once)
• Connecting design efforts to an organization's business strategy (Example: Hewlett-Packard's global design division is focused most intently on designs that simplify technology experiences. This leads to lower manufacturing costs at a time when CEO Mark Hurd is pushing for cost-cutting)

[edit] Origins

Many schools have pioneered the thinking that has contributed to the theory and practice of design strategy, most notably the Stanford Joint Program in Design and IIT Institute of Design. Rolf Fäste at Stanford, in particular, has had an out-sized influence on the field. A student of his, Dev Patnaik, further pioneered the ideas behind design strategy while serving as the design director of Forbes-Marshall, an industrial controls firm in Pune, India.

[edit] Practicioners

Several design-related consulting firms have made design strategy part of their overall practice. A few, highlighted in bold, mark it a core competence.

• Jump Associates
• Point Forward
• Doblin Group
• IDEO
• Gravity Tank