Strategic Design

Strategic design is a growing professional field. Strategic designers are more and more often called to use their principles, tools and methods to influence the innovation strategy of the companies they work with. This extended role requires designers to be able to balance human centeredness with technical feasibility and business viability in their projects. This book illustrates eight strategic design practices that can enable designers to achieve this balance: envisioning, inspiring, simplifying, structuring, aligning, translating, embracing and educating. These practices are organized in four parts, each representing a key stage or aspect of a strategic design project. Part I (Setting the objectives of a strategic design project), Part II (Configuring a strategic design project), Part IV (Embedding a strategic design project) represent the sequential stages of a strategic design project, while Part III (Orchestrating a strategic design project) describes the ongoing, fundamental activity of a strategic designer as a facilitator. Every chapter contains a set of tools and methods that we believe will prepare designers to influence strategic decision making and balance desirability, feasibility and viability, and real-world cases that illustrative how the tools and methods can work in practice.

0. Introduction
   Giulia Calabretta (Delft University of Technology), Gerda Gemser (RMIT University), Ingo Karpen (RMIT University)
1. The increasing importance of strategic design
2. What is strategic design?
3. Structure of the book
• Part I: Setting the Objectives of a Strategic Design Project
1. Design Vision as Strategy: The KLM Crew Centre Case Study
   Roald Hoope (Delft University of Technology), Paul Hekkert (Delft University of Technology)
1. Introduction
2. Vision creation — an overview
3. Vision creation — a closer look
4. Conclusion
2. Co-creating and Prototyping to Trigger Innovative Thinking and Doing
   Giulia Cambretta (Delft University of Technology), Paul Gardien (Philips Design)
1. Introduction
2. Using visual and material artefacts for strategic purposes
3. Using co-creation for strategic purposes
4. Combining prototypes and co-creation: rapid co-creation at Philips Design
5. Conclusion
• Part II: Configuring a Strategic Design Project
3. Designing Transitions: Pivoting Complex Innovation
   Merijn Hillen (Fabrique), Jeroen van Erp (Fabrique), Giulia Cambretta (Delft University of Technology)
1. Introduction
2. Assessing the circumstances: shared vision and ownership
3. Four types of projects, four types of leadership
4. Conclusion
4. Creating Process Understanding: Design Practices and Abilities
   Kasia Tabeau (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Gerda Gemser (RMIT University), Jos Oberdorf (npk design)
1. Introduction
2. Practices supporting process understanding
3. Abilities needed to support process understanding
4. Case studies
5. Conclusion
• Part III: Orchestrating a Strategic Design Project
5. Aligning Organizations through Customer Stories
   Marzia Aricò (Livework), Melvin Brand Flu (Livework)
1. Introduction
2. Principle #1: Nail the customer story
3. Principle #2: Translate the story across different business units
4. Principle #3: Design for multispeed impact
5. Conclusion
6. Designing for Feasibility
   Gerda Gemser (RMIT University), Blair Kuys (Swinburne University), Opher Yom-Tov (Chief Design Officer ANZ Banking Group)
1. Introduction
2. A framework to assess feasibility
3. Case studies
4. Conclusion
7. Making it Count: Linking Design and Viability
   Nermin Azabagic (IBM Strategy), Ingo Karpen (RMIT University)
1. Introduction
2. Strategic design viability model
3. Step 1 — Setting up the business casing process
4. Step 2 — Developing and documenting assumptions
5. Step 3 — Co-creation of the business case, assumptions and solutions
6. Step 4 — Identifying key sensitivities for the implementation phase
7. Step 5 — Evaluate success of the design initiative
8. Conclusion
8. Lasting Design Impact Through Capacity Building
   Ingo Karpen (RMIT University), Onno van der Veen (Ideate), Yoko Akama (RMIT University)
1. Introduction
2. Design principles
3. Leveraging and embedding the design principles in the client organization: Designers as coaches
4. Transformational design and cultural interventions
5. Conclusion
• Part IV: Embedding a Strategic Design Project
9. Conclusion
   Giulia Calabretta (Delft University of Technology), Gerda Gemser (RMIT University), Ingo Karpen (RMIT University)
1. Strategic designers: Capital T-shaped professionals
2. Three-step approach for strategic design

Too shallow, too many words. Nothing against the content per se, but it could be presented a lot better.

A big disappointment, as there are other books that makes better, clearer and more succinct cases in the area.