Design in business education--a square peg in a round world?

Design Management Journal, Summer 2002 by Lockwood, Thomas

Design is also a change tool, and businesses today think of change as a competitive advantage. In the future, they will likely find corporate creativity to be the differentiator, as in the case of "3M innovation" and "HP invent." Companies that harness the collective creativity of their employees will have an advantage. And design will be recognized as a key creative discipline.

Corporate and executive education programs are not MBA-accredited, and so they develop quickly and track more closely with current business practice. This provides opportunities for designminded intervention for the business executives with an interest in learning more about design in business.

Corporate and executive education and the rising importance of corporate creativity will afford design managers and designers of all disciplines a more strategic role in business organizations.

So when these trends finally overcome academic gridlock, what will business students need to learn about design? They'll need to learn why design is an effective business tool.

They'll learn what design is and how it turns corporate strategy into reality. They'll learn how it brings products and ideas to market, how it can affect the bottom line, and how and why it "works." They'll learn how to manage design processes and design organizations. They'll learn how to let designers design in support of clearly defined business objectives. And they'll learn that design is important not only to business, but also to customers and users. Design influences perception, which, in turn, influences customer satisfaction.

So how do we designers facilitate this process? Get involved. Teach a class. Take a class. Learn to make design decisions based on business criteria, relating design to return on investment and improving stakeholder equity. Make every design solution support corporate strategy, or start over. Show CEOs how design can make a business difference.

We must learn to link the design profession to what business executives value:

* Quantitative results

* Customer satisfaction

* Corporate strategy

* Process improvement

* Operational excellence

* Bottom line

In these ways, we can prove the value of design to business. Apparently, business educators are either slow to learn or slow to change. But as real-world business further embraces the value of design through measurable results, educators will follow. Even if it takes 10 years.

Reprint # 02133LOC19

Find related articles on www.dmi.org with these keywords: design education; design management education; interdisciplinary education; management of change; marketing education; organizational management

1. I would like to recognize Guy Faulkner as co-author of this article. Guy is the former director of the MBA in design management program at the Harrow Business School, University of Westminster, London, England and was my academic advisor.

2. I asked specifically about course content and course titles (design management, design in business, creativity, innovation, and so on); however, it is obvious that this terminology invites subjectivity and individual interpretation. For example, the question "Does your curriculum teach about innovation?" frequently got a positive response, because innovation was assumed to be part of classes on entrepreneurship, product development, or marketing.