Design Management Definitions

Why is it important for us to define what we do?

“For stu­dents, the chang­ing roles and chal­lenges of design mean there are new demands made on those want­i­ng to build careers in design and the cre­ative indus­tries. Design is inex­tri­ca­bly linked to the way in which soci­ety, the envi­ron­ment and busi­ness inter­act, and as a result today’s orga­ni­za­tions are approach­ing design in a more ‘man­aged’ way.In order to have a suc­cess­ful, long-term career in design, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand how and where design sits with­in a wider con­text, and how the true poten­tial of design can be exploit­ed, pro­fes­sion­al­ly man­aged and uti­lized as a tool for inno­va­tion and change.”

– Kathryn Best

What are some current definitions of Design Management?

“Sim­ply put, design man­age­ment is the busi­ness side of design. Design man­age­ment encom­pass­es the ongo­ing process­es, busi­ness deci­sions, and strate­gies that enable inno­va­tion and cre­ate effec­tive­ly-designed prod­ucts, ser­vices, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, envi­ron­ments, and brands that enhance our qual­i­ty of life and pro­vide orga­ni­za­tion­al suc­cess.”

– Design Man­age­ment Insti­tute

“Being the cham­pi­on of inno­va­tors and the guardian of design, the design man­ag­er can also ensure the brand is pro­tect­ed for its long-term health, espe­cial­ly with­in com­pa­nies where design and inno­va­tion is the lifeblood of its future. By doing so, the design man­ag­er con­cen­trates on deliv­er­ing the true needs for the end cus­tomer.”

– Joe Fer­ry, Head of Design, Vir­gin Atlantic Air­ways

“The com­bi­na­tion of the words design and man­age­ment does design man­age­ment a ‘real dis­ser­vice.’ Design schools are not keen on ‘man­age­ment,’ which is often asso­ci­at­ed with “con­trol” and ‘putting things into box­es,’ there­fore exclud­ing any ‘breath­ing space’ and cre­ativ­i­ty. At the same time, some man­age­ment and busi­ness schools are not ful­ly con­vinced about design, which often is linked to, and under­stood as just ‘mak­ing things look pret­ty.’”

– Weroni­ka Rochac­ka, DMI view­point con­trib­u­tor

“For a com­pa­ny that has achieved ‘world-class’ in all oth­er dimen­sions, the next chal­lenge is design… Qual­i­ty design and the many con­tri­bu­tions it can make to a glob­al cor­po­ra­tion as a facil­i­ta­tor, dif­fer­en­tia­tor, inte­gra­tor, and com­mu­ni­ca­tor is, like most strate­gic resources, not an event but a process.”

– Pro­fes­sor Robert Hayes, Har­vard Busi­ness School

“DMGT unites the per­spec­tives of sys­tems think­ing, design and inte­gra­tive think­ing, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, finance, entre­pre­neur­ship, and gen­er­a­tive lead­er­ship into a holis­tic strate­gic frame­work.”

– MBA in Design Strat­e­gy at Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts

“The pow­er of design and inno­va­tion can actu­al­ly reshape an entire brand or mar­ket­place in which it exists. In the past, design­ers focused on mak­ing one new prod­uct. Today, they cre­ate a much broad­er sto­ry, an expe­ri­ence that con­sumers remem­ber which has far greater impact on the bot­tom line.”

– David Rock­well

“It would be very easy to over-intel­lec­tu­al­ize a response to this ques­tion, I think many design man­agers are as con­cerned as our cre­ative cousins that design can­not be tak­en seri­ous­ly unless we secure a place on the board and use the word ‘strate­gic’ as often as pos­si­ble. For me the design man­ag­er is sim­ply some­one who can take the whole design process from great idea to even greater real­i­ty.”

– Helen Atkin­son, Senior Design Man­ag­er, Integri­ty Design Man­age­ment Ltd.

“Cre­ate social­ly respon­sive, cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant, and tech­no­log­i­cal­ly appro­pri­ate last­ing val­ue and help orga­ni­za­tions devel­op new busi­ness mod­els for the future.”

– MBA in Design Strat­e­gy at Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts

“Design man­age­ment is not only about man­ag­ing design process­es, but also about design­ing man­age­ment process­es.”

– Rudolf Gre­gor, Man­ag­ing Part­ner, GP design­parts, Aus­tralia

“Design is about peo­ple, and today more than ever soci­ety needs lead­ers and cre­ators who try to hold onto two things: integri­ty and per­spec­tive. The best thing design lead­ers and man­agers can do is to find the right peo­ple, explain the oppor­tu­ni­ties and goals, pro­vide the resources that allow design teams and busi­ness­es to cre­ate mean­ing­ful solu­tions.”

– Clay Burns, Vice Pres­i­dent, Smart Design, Barcelona

“Design man­age­ment is the bridge between design and busi­ness that enables the designer’s voice to be heard.”

– Mary McBride, Direc­tor of Design Man­age­ment grad­u­ate pro­gram at Pratt Insti­tute

“Design man­age­ment: the total­i­ty of the design activ­i­ty, its admin­is­tra­tion and con­tri­bu­tion to an organization’s per­for­mance. Note: Design man­age­ment encom­pass­es the orga­ni­za­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the process for devel­op­ing new prod­ucts and ser­vices.”

– Bill Hollins, Direc­tion Con­sul­tants

“Late­ly I have been ask­ing clients who come to us to find ‘design man­agers’ to use the words ‘design lead­ers’ instead. Man­agers opti­mize resources to imple­ment pro­grams in the most effi­cient and prof­itable way. I want our cor­po­rate clients to put design in the con­text in which it belongs so they know what they are real­ly look­ing for. Lead­er­ship is where it’s at.”

– Rita­Sue Sie­gal, Design Exec­u­tive Search, Rita­Sue Resources, NYC

“We help com­pa­nies artic­u­late their vision, mak­ing abstract aspi­ra­tions tan­gi­ble and under­stand­able. We safe­guard a company’s high­er ambi­tions, ensur­ing that prod­ucts not only meet mar­ket demands but also con­tribute to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. And we help com­pa­nies pre­pare for the future, spot­ting and inter­pret­ing long-term trends in soci­ety, tech­nol­o­gy, busi­ness and sci­ence.”

– Ste­fano Marzano, CEO & Cre­ative Direc­tor Philips Design

“The DME net­work part­ners agreed to use the fol­low­ing work­ing definition:Design man­age­ment is the cul­tur­al, strate­gic and oper­a­tional use of the design resources (inter­nal and exter­nal) avail­able to an orga­ni­za­tion, direct­ed towards the cre­ation and attain­ment of busi­ness and orga­ni­za­tion­al objec­tives.”

– Pro­fes­sor Peter McGro­ry, Uni­ver­si­ty of Art & Design Helsin­ki Taik

“The term ‘design man­age­ment’ includes a seman­tic con­tra­dic­tion and can be inter­pret­ed in two dif­fer­ent ways: (1) man­ag­ing design and (2) design­ing man­age­ment. 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).”

– Richard J.Boland & Fred Col­lopy

“Design man­age­ment is the effec­tive deploy­ment by line man­agers of the design resources avail­able to an orga­ni­za­tion in the pur­suance of its cor­po­rate objec­tives. It is there­fore direct­ly con­cerned with the orga­ni­za­tion­al place of design, with the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with spe­cif­ic design dis­ci­plines which are rel­e­vant to the res­o­lu­tion of key man­age­ment issues, and with the train­ing of man­agers to use design effec­tive­ly.”

– Peter Gorb

“Design man­age­ment is a com­plex and mul­ti-faceted activ­i­ty that goes right to the heart of what a com­pa­ny is or does […] it is not some­thing sus­cep­ti­ble to pat for­mu­las, a few bul­let points or a man­u­al. Every company’s struc­ture and inter­nal cul­ture is dif­fer­ent; design man­age­ment is no excep­tion. But the fact that every firm is dif­fer­ent does not dimin­ish the impor­tance of man­ag­ing design tight­ly and effec­tive­ly.”

– John Thackara