A R T I C L E R E P R I N T

DesignManagementReview

Design Management Comesof Age

Thomas Walton, PhD, Editor, Design ManagementReview

Reprint #07183WAL06This article was first published in Design Management Review Vol. 18 No. 3

The State of Design Management Education

D M ID E S I G N M A N A G E M E N T I N S T I T U T E

Copyright © Summer 2007 by the Design Management InstituteSM. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced in any form without written permission. To place an order or receive photocopy permission, contact DMI viaphone at (617) 338-6380, Fax (617) 338-6570, or E-mail: dmistaff@dmi.org. The Design Management Institute, DMI, andthe design mark are service marks of the Design Management Institute.

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6 Design Management Review Summer 2007

E D I T O R ’ S N O T E S

Design ManagementComes of Age

One reason DMI decided to publish aReview back in 1989 was to give credi-bility to the discipline of design man-agement. During that era, mostexecutives felt there were design issuesand there were business issues, and thegeneral understanding was that the twowere not related. The DMI perspectivewas simultaneously startling andenlightening.

Less than 20 years later, it is a differ-ent world. Discussions of design fill thepages of mainstream business publica-tions. Corporations exploit design as astrategic resource. And the quest fordesign management wisdom is theimpetus for courses, programs, andprofessional recognition.

Earlier volumes of the Review ondesign management education featuredinnovative courses, workshops, andresearch. That continues. Today, how-ever, the legitimacy of design manage-ment as a discipline is further validatedwith the offering of degrees in the fieldand the certification of individuals andcompanies as having expertise in thisarena. Design management has comeof age. This quarter, we proudly sharean overview of the professional oppor-tunities that have made design manage-ment the norm in business.

Institutionalizing the value in thedesign-business relationshipSeveral authors comment on the grow-ing importance of design managers andthe many contributions they make tothe enterprise. Chris Conley, professorat the Institute of Design of the IllinoisInstitute of Technology in Chicago,highlights how design thinking andactivities are being dispersed through-

out organizations. Designers have theability to reframe challenges. They aregood at working conceptually and gen-erating multiple solutions. They canvisualize and prototype ideas. Thesetalents make them valuable leaders indevelopment, in the definition of newproducts and services, in portfoliomanagement, in strategy, and in opera-tions. To support this breadth ofcareers, the Institute of Design hastransformed its Master of Design andMaster of Design Methods curriculawith three core requirements—Observing Users, Design Analysis, andDesign Planning. Combined with elec-tives, these provide a thorough ground-ing in applying design thinking acrossmany dimensions of business manage-ment, “in as diverse a range of roles inindustry as students with an MBA,”according to Conley.

Along these same lines, MaryMcBride, chair of the design manage-ment department at Pratt Institute inNew York City, announces that designmanagement “is now fully establishedin academe.”At Pratt, it is defined asthe “identification and allocation ofcreative assets… to create strategic, sus-tainable advantage.” In a nuance,McBride rejects references to design asa “resource,” which connotes a cost-focused approach. Instead, she positsdesign’s power to enhance competitive-ness, add to the bottom line, and drivegrowth and innovation. Pratt’s gradu-ate degree in design management camefrom the first accredited program of itskind in the United States, with studiesintegrating finance, accounting, mar-keting, international business andstrategic technology, innovation and

Thomas Walton, PhDEditor, DesignManagement Review

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Design Management Comes of Age

business strategy, intellectual property, contractlaw, design operations management, new prod-uct development, and design futures. McBridebelieves that design management will go beyonddiscerning and managing the significant intangi-bles of the new economy to address businessprocesses, leadership, and sustainability. It is apromising future, one animated by ongoing dia-logue and research, expanded professional sta-tus, and new desire in companies for employeeswith these skills.

Efstathios Kefallonitis, professor of brandmarketing in the School of Business at the StateUniversity of New York Institute of Technologyin Utica, presents an international comparativeanalysis of design management education.Sensitive to themes related to branding, he ren-ders a number of intriguing insights:

• In the United States, design managementhas a corporate emphasis and is movingfrom its status as a project-managementsubject in design schools to a business topicthat involves such areas as brand and mar-keting communication.• In Europe, design management is associatedwith a country’s social and cultural policies.It is a component of training in design andbusiness, but is also promoted by nationaldesign councils.• In Hong Kong, applicability and practicalconcerns are stressed. Theory is comple-mented by hands-on experience and casestudies.

Kefallonitis’s next step is to outline an agenda forimproving design management curricula—beingmore precise about problem definition,strengthening the business content of course-work, and accentuating reality-based training asan entree to the profession. Continued research,the dissemination of design managementprocesses and information, and clearer commu-nication between designers and nondesigners areadditional priorities.

Outside the academic world, other initiativesunderwritten by governments and professionalorganizations are leveraging design managementwisdom. In the former category was a three-yeareffort (2003 through 2005) in Sweden to encour-age innovation, international competitiveness,and a greater awareness of design’s value. Ulla

Johansson, professor at Växjö University anddirector of the Business and Design Lab at theSchool of Business, Economics and Law atGöteborg University, and Patrik Persson, a PhDstudent at Växjö University, describe the varietyof investments made by the Swedish govern-ment. One was to have a designer spend about10 hours with employees of a selected companyto identify potential new products. Another wasto bring designers to automotive companies andsuppliers to refine their offerings and their inter-national marketing. There was a collaborativeventure among medical technology firms tobrainstorm business opportunities. Other proj-ects included design for services, packaging as avalue creator, design for learning environments,and Design Year 2005. The vast majority ofendeavors were modest in cost, but the payoffhas been impressive—new jobs, increased prof-its, a library of cases dealing with innovation,and above all, a newfound and enduring respectfor design among executives, managers, andemployees.

In the United Kingdom, the CharteredSociety of Designers (CSD) has moved in twodirections to acknowledge and foster designmanagement competency and best practices.Christina Onesirosan-Martinez, design businessanalyst for the CSD’s Design Association inLondon, details these two streams—the CSDAccreditation Programme and the DesignAssociation Diploma. The first endorses consult-ant and in-house design groups that meet spe-cific business and design criteria. Among therequirements are meeting certain fiscal andstatutory standards, implementing routine busi-ness policies, having a professional developmentprogram, maintaining professional member-ships, serving clients with creative and award-winning designs, and confirming the ownershipof ideas with appropriate intellectual propertyprotection. Accreditation is a competitive edgefor design organizations, helping to attract cus-tomers and ensure long-term success. The DAdiploma serves designers with 12 different work-shops and courses. These range from businessplanning and financial projections to doingbusiness globally to design project management.Together, accreditation and the diploma nurtureexcellence in design management among busi-nesses and practitioners.

The State of Design Management Education

8 Design Management Review Summer 2007

Publications are yet another aspect of the edu-cation puzzle. Today, books and articles ondesign management are common, but since1989, this Review (named the DesignManagement Journal until 2004) and DMI’sAcademic Review have to be regarded as the per-sistent and leading voices in this conversation.We have never had the time to look back, butfortunately Yu-Jin Kim, a faculty member inMedia Image Art and Technology at KongjuNational University in South Korea, and Kyung-won Chung, professor in both the Department ofIndustrial Design and the Business School of theKorea Advanced Institute of Science andTechnology in Daejeon, have examined trends inDMI’s publications. Through 2006, there were765 articles featuring the design process, designas a strategic resource, and branding as topics.Kim and Chung indicate there are opportunitiesfor a more international point of view, but notehow authors have shifted the understanding ofthis discipline “from managing product develop-ment into leveraging strategic and competitiveadvantages, managing identity and brand asstrategic assets, and maintaining a cutting edge inthe global and digital markets.” That’s an impor-tant legacy in design management education.

New academic pathwaysIn addition to the curricula at the Institute ofDesign and Pratt already mentioned, severalother programs merit attention. One alternativeis the Illinois Institute of Technology’s dualdegree—Master of Design/Master of BusinessAdministration. Institute of Design professorJeremy Alexis and professor and dean emeritusof the Stuart School of Business Zia Hassansummarize the benefits of this intensive two-year-plus-one-summer academic commitment.First, students end up with two professionaldegrees rather than a single hybrid master’s.Second, the two courses of study are a naturalfit. They complement one another, with bothsetting their sights on organizational success.The design approach is creative and synthetic;the business approach is analytic and fills theneed for decisive leadership. One outcome isbusiness-savvy designers; the other is design-sensitive business executives. The latter are par-ticularly impressed by the vision and breadth ofinnovation designers bring to decision-making.

In the job market, graduates lead the strategydiscussions in design firms and take on creativeentrepreneurial roles in the corporate world. It isa design management education with options.

Two courses at Virginia’s University ofRichmond’s Robins School of Business suggesthow design management is changing the MBAcurriculum. Sandra Shield, an architect withOdell Associates in Richmond, and RichardCoughlan, associate dean for graduate and exec-utive programs at the school, review two recentelectives in the university’s program. Creativityand Innovation in Organizations is a collabora-tion with a local consulting firm, Play, Inc. It iscentered on the notion that good ideas can befound in all kinds of places. Students explorebusinesses ranging from tattoo parlors to balletcompanies, discovering both the sources and thebarriers to innovation. They then apply the les-sons learned to problems at companies wherethey work. Principles of Design Management isa look at subjects such as the design process,brand identity, and design and business strategy.There are extensive readings and very popular“CEO vision” lectures. These are personal storiesabout how design has changed and made specif-ic corporations more successful. The electives,and notably the vision presentations, alwaysleave a lasting sense of design’s value.

On the European front, the faculty ofIndustrial Design Engineering at the DelftUniversity of Technology in The Netherlands hasbeen an innovator in design management educa-tion. Professor Jan Buijs explains how, since1963, the product design program has coveredtechnology, form-giving, ergonomics, and busi-ness sciences. Today, its Master of StrategicProduct Design program is a more specializeddesign management opportunity created to giveprofessionals the skills to create sustainable andcommercially successful products and services inan internationally competitive marketplace. Itincludes seminars on customer research, brandand product strategy, and new product commer-cialization. Hands-on work with corporations isalso a facet of the two-year learning experience.Since 2003, enrollment has grown from 23 to 75students, and an increasing percentage of alumniare in managerial and executive positions.Clearly, the curriculum at Delft reconfirms globalenthusiasm for training in design management.

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Design Management Comes of Age

In Germany, the Zollverein School ofManagement and Design was founded in 2003to offer one of the first MBAs linking businesswith the creative disciplines. Indeed, the schoolconsiders management to be a design task. Basedon this premise, Andrej Kupetz, president of theschool, and students Martin Mangold andMiriam Selbeck explain how classes are con-ceived to change people’s attitudes. Designerswork with engineers, and economists work witharchitects. The goal is an intellectual transforma-tion that synthesizes design studies with businessstrategies and perceptions about culture andsociety. In Martin Mangold’s thesis on a Germancompany making acoustic systems for automo-biles, this holistic sensibility led to a renewal ofthe firm’s brand and identity that, in turn,improved planning and innovation. Today, thecompany not only makes highly competitiveproducts but has also reduced time-to-market.In Miriam Selbeck’s thesis on the Audi brand,the School’s merge of business and creativityended up challenging corporate executives toreconsider how they move from old to newbrand concepts and how they engage the nextgeneration of customers.

A third example in Europe is the Master ofBusiness Design (MBD) granted by the DomusAcademy in Milan, Italy. Under the direction ofGiovanni Lanzone, the MBD is divided intothree components: business economics and mar-keting; entrepreneurship and innovation; anddesign strategies and business ideas. There areseveral other interesting features of the Domusdegree, including internships with various com-panies and the chance to prepare a plan for anew business. Students also compare differentdesign processes, the role of advanced technolo-gy, and the relationship between design and cul-ture. It is a distinctive approach, one thatdemonstrates the diversity available in designmanagement programs.

The question of interdisciplinary collaborationAlways essential in business, teamwork is per-haps even more crucial to effective design man-agement. Not unexpectedly, then, three articlesevaluate techniques for facilitating interdiscipli-nary collaboration in the education context.Christopher Vice, professor at the IndianaUniversity Herron School of Art and Design in

Indianapolis, along with colleagues, found thatovercoming problems with group design proj-ects necessitated a carefully delineated develop-ment methodology. First, using a frameworkcalled the Simplex System, team members pre-pare a roadmap that distinguishes among con-tent, process, and skills. Next, peoplecharacterize their roles. Generators sort the chal-lenges; conceptualizers devise solutions; opti-mizers determine the plan of action; andimplementers are responsible for execution.Some individuals take on hybrid roles.Withinthis structure, students distill a shared under-standing of what they are doing and how theycan work together to achieve the desired objec-tives—a model they can apply in school andwork, as well as in their communities and socialinteractions.

The TED (Technology, Economy, andDesign) project in Stockholm, Sweden, is aboutboth teamwork and team teaching. It involvesthe faculties of industrial design at Stockholm’sUniversity College of Arts, Crafts and Design;Engineering Design at the Royal Institute ofTechnology; and the Market Academy atStockholm University. Lisbeth Holm, professorat the Stockholm University School of Businessand the Lund University of Design Sciences,writes that each year the elective is themed,probing such issues as problems in the publicsector, emotionalized technologies, and sustain-able play. Students majoring in industrial design,engineering, and marketing divide themselvesinto nine-person teams. Three weeks of lecturesare followed by a five-week project, with cri-tiques about once a week from faculty and out-side professionals. The experience is intense,moving from problem definition through mar-keting research to design options and the pres-entation of a schematic proposal. Interestingly,however, the impact of the course has less to dowith the project than with gaining an under-standing of team leadership, group dynamics,and different ways of thinking and problem-solving. Looking back, students say this is whatthey value most.

With that we have a “wrap”—a baker’s dozenof articles that convincingly assert that designmanagement has come into the mainstream atdesign and business schools. �

Reprint #07183WAL06