Managing the Design Strategy
Managing the Design Strategy
This is the stage where design projects are conceived, and the focus placed on identifying and
creating the conditions in which design projects can be proposed, commissioned and
promoted.
At this stage, design management engages design thinking in the organisational strategy,
identifies opportunities for design, interprets the needs of the organisation and its customers,
and looks at how design contributes to the business as a whole.
Managing the Design Strategy
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Managing the Design Strategy
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Managing the Design Strategy
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Managing the Design Strategy
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
There are a range of tools and methods that can be used to proactively identify and flesh
out opportunities for design
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
PESTLE Analysis
The PESTLE analysis lists the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and
Environmental factors that can affect an organisation’s product or service.
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Political Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• When is the country's next local, state, or national election? How could this change government or
regional policy?
• Who are the most likely contenders for power? What are their views on business policy, and on other
policies that affect your organization?
• Depending on the country, how well developed are property rights and the rule of law, and how
widespread are corruption and organized crime? How are these situations likely to change, and how is
this likely to affect you?
• Could any pending legislation or taxation changes affect your business, either positively or negatively?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Political Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• How will business regulation, along with any planned changes to it, affect your business? And is
there a trend towards regulation or deregulation?
• How does government approach corporate policy, corporate social responsibility, environmental
issues, and customer protection legislation? What impact does this have, and is it likely to
change?
• What is the likely timescale of proposed legislative changes?
• Are there any other political factors that are likely to change?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Economic Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• How stable is the current economy? Is it growing, stagnating, or declining?
• Are key exchange rates stable, or do they tend to vary significantly?
• Are customers' levels of disposable income rising or falling? How is this likely to
change in the next few years?
• What is the unemployment rate? Will it be easy to build a skilled workforce? Or will
it be expensive to hire skilled labor?
• Do consumers and businesses have easy access to credit? If not, how will this affect
your organization?
• How is globalization affecting the economic environment?
• How your organization is working towards economic sustainability?
• Are there any other economic factors that you should consider?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Social Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• What is the population's growth rate and age profile? How is this likely to change?
• Are generational shifts in attitude likely to affect what you're doing?
• What are your society's levels of health, education, and social mobility? How are these changing,
and what impact does this have?
• What employment patterns, job market trends, and attitudes toward work can you observe? Are
these different for different age groups?
• What social attitudes and social taboos could affect your business? Have there been recent socio-
cultural changes that might affect this?
• How do religious beliefs and lifestyle choices affect the population?
• Are any other socio-cultural factors likely to drive change for your business?
• How your organization is working towards human and social sustainability?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Technological Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• Are there any new technologies that you could be using?
• Are there any new technologies on the horizon that could radically affect your work or
your industry?
• Do any of your competitors have access to new technologies that could redefine their
products?
• In which areas do governments and educational institutions focus their research? Is
there anything you can do to take advantage of this?
• How have infrastructure changes affected work patterns (for example, levels of remote
working)?
• Are there existing technological hubs that you could work with or learn from?
• Are there any other technological factors that you should consider?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Legal Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• What are the different laws and acts that may effect your organization?
• Is there any recent development/ amendment in any law and rule for the
offerings of your organization?
• Whether you see any new opportunity for new offerings, new businesses from
any recent development in law.
• If any law is negatively effecting your offerings, what is the way out?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Environmental Factors to Consider : PESTLE Analysis
• What are the different environmental norms that may effect your organization?
• How your organization is working towards environmental sustainability?
• Whether you see any new opportunity for new offerings, new businesses from
any recent development in environment protection law, guidelines and norms.
• If the offerings of your organization is having a significantly negative impact on
environment , what is the way out?
• How effectively are you doing Life Cycle Assessments and Environment Impact
Assessments of offerings of your organization. What are the possible design
interventions to improve your performance in this regard?
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis is used to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a particular
organisation or market opportunity. By identifying the factors that can, or do, have an impact on the
organisation, whether from the inside or outside, an appropriate response can be developed.
Combining SWOT and PESTLE
Identifying the Main Opportunities and Challenges from the
Implementation of a Port Energy Management System: A
SWOT/PESTLE Analysis
University of Gothenburg, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
Christodoulou, A., & Cullinane, K. (2019). Identifying the main opportunities and
challenges from the implementation of a port energy management system: A
SWOT/PESTLE analysis. Sustainability, 11(21), 6046.
This research focuses on the prospects and challenges facing the development of a
port energy management system.
It analyzes the main factors which exert an impact on such a plan and that need to
be taken into account for its successful implementation. This analysis is based on
empirical data from two leading North-European port authorities.
A SWOT/PESTLE analysis is utilized for
the identification of the political,
economic, social, technological, legal
and environmental factors that have
a positive or negative effect on the
adoption and successful
implementation of a port energy
management system.
Recommendations
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Scenario Planning
One way to create an imaginable future in which to explore new design opportunities is to use scenarios.
Scenarios create a context in which to imagine consumers using potential products and services. Thinking
about the everyday experiences and behaviours of consumers in a scenario can provide the design team
with a better understanding of their target audience as they highlight the relationships between the
consumer’s behaviour, situation and the products and services. By brainstorming and experimenting with
these scenarios – whether they are drawn, written or oral descriptions – new ideas for products and
services can emerge.
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Scenario Planning
Among the many tools a manager can use for strategic planning, scenario planning stands out for its
ability to capture a whole range of possibilities in rich detail. By identifying basic trends and uncertainties,
a manager can construct a series of scenarios that will help to compensate for the usual errors in decision
making — overconfidence and tunnel vision.
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Early in this century, it was unclear how airplanes would affect naval warfare. When Brigadier General
Billy Mitchell proposed that airplanes might sink battleships by dropping bombs on them, U.S.
Secretary of War Newton Baker remarked, “That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that
I’m willing to stand on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit tries to hit it from the air.” Josephus
Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, was also incredulous, and said, “Good God! This man should be writing
dime novels.”
Even the prestigious Scientific American proclaimed in 1910 that “to affirm that the aeroplane is going
to ‘revolutionize’ naval warfare of the future is to be guilty of the wildest exaggeration.”
MIT Sloan
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
In hindsight, it is difficult to appreciate why air power’s potential was unclear
to so many. But can we predict the future any better than these defense
leaders did? We are affected by the same biases they were. It was probably as
hard for them to evaluate the effect of airplanes in the 1920s as it is for us to
assess the impact over the next decades of multimedia, the human genome
project, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, organ transplants,
superconductivity, space colonization, and myriad other developments .
MIT Sloan
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Scenario planning originated in the 1970s. The main goal of scenario planning is to
develop different possible views of the future and to analyze their possible
consequences for companies. Thus, scenario planning helps managers to challenge
their assumptions and to be better prepared for possible future developments.
Phelps, Chan and Kapsalis,
2001
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Scenario planning is a method for developing and thinking through possible future
states on the basis of different scenarios. The aim of the technique is not to
accurately predict the future but rather to develop better strategies by overcoming
the perceptual bias of managers. Scenario planning is based on the assumption
that future developments are largely uncertain. Thus, the basic idea of scenario
planning is to force managers to acknowledge this uncertainty and to translate it
into thinking in multiple options.
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Scenario planning is considered for strategic planning and policymaking in
descriptions, scripts and contents. Besides, developing scenarios is essential for
plausibly exploring future uncertainties. It is considered a management technology
profoundly utilized by decision-makers and managers of an organization to analyze
future possibilities. Scenario planning is a form of exploration.
Identifying Opportunities for Design
Tools and Methods for Identifying Design Opportunities
Organizations like British Airways, Electrolux and United Distillers, used scenarios to
anticipate the future and aid strategic planning with special emphasis to service
design.
Scenario planning is a very useful tool for formulating corporate strategy for design.
Scenario planning is a strategic perspective for anticipating and adapting to design
change in today’s uncertain business environment.
We can use three sets of techniques for scenario planning. These techniques
are viz.
1) Intuitive-logics models
2) La Prospective models
3) Probabilistic Modified Trend models.
These techniques aim to develop a strategy in an ongoing activity associated with
the organization, a more effective policy with the strategic decisions and tactical
plans. The scenario perspective for these models is descriptive or usually
normative.
Intuitive-logics models : The tools used in Intuitive-logics models are brainstorming,
system dynamics and stakeholder analysis.
La prospective models : The tools used in La prospective models are Morphological
analysis, Delphi technique, structural and actor analysis.
Probabilistic Modified Trend models: The tools used in Probabilistic Modified Trend
models are Trends impact and cross-impact analysis.
Please note that there are significant differences in these scenarios in terms of scenario
teams and expert participation in designing the scenario.
Bradfield et al. (2005)
An appropriate number of scenarios to be developed for a project is 2 to 5. The validation of
scenarios for internal consistency and plausibility are the essential aspects.
Scenario planning process has five phases
1. Tracking
2. Analyzing
3. Imaging
4. Deciding, and
5. Acting
However, preparation and pre-requisites for the process are the pre-stages.
Lindgren and Bandhold (2009)
In the pre-stages, the purpose of scenario development, the focal question,
time horizon is defined and the mapping of the organization’s past and
present is known.
1. Tracking
The tracking stage identifies the trends, uncertainty related to a project and
drivers of change in the surrounding environment. These factors influence
the outlined focal question about the future. Methods to identify these
factors are viz. media scanning, focus group, experts’ panel and the Delphi
technique.
2. Analyzing Phase
The analyzing phase depicts the descriptions of identified factors individually and
interrelationships between the trends.
3. Imaging Phase
The imaging stage is about creating visions. Visions provide meaning, identity, belief,
guidance and inspiration for a project of an organization. Meaningful visions must be
supported by strategies, goals and actions of the organization.
4. Deciding Phase
The deciding stage is to integrate the information identified from the previous steps ( i.e tracking,
analyzing and imaging) and move towards the vision. Looking at the advantage of opportunities, core
competencies and avoiding threats, decision-makers could finalize strategies. The deciding stage
methods are viz. strategies versus life cycle and competitors, cross-impact analysis and causal loop
diagrams.
5. Acting Phase
The Acting stage is to put the strategy into actions or follow-up continuously the scenario planning
process.
Scenario Planning for Domestic Plumbing
Services
The scenario planning started with a key focal issue of services toward domestic
plumbing. Likely issues of preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance,
plumber’s responsiveness to the customer and strategic management to the service
provider. Plausible scenarios were created for a time frame of 5-10 years. Scenario
planning accounts for the effect of multiple drivers of change, trends and delivers
significant possibilities, risks and opportunities. This study identified the driving forces
of change and trends for domestic plumbing from four perspectives: political,
economic, social and technological.
Scenario 1: With Indian cities witnessing significant growth, plumbing services
online will expand sufficiently to tier II and tier III cities.
Scenario 2: Potential customers are likely to solve minor plumbing issues with
specific instructions through online streaming
Based on the outcome of scenario planning, design brief was developed for service
system design for online domestic plumbing services in Indian tier-1 and tier-2
cities.
End of Module 2