Design Strategy is a process and approach for creating or re-inventing businesses and directing innovation/new growth strategies. I think few people have heard of design strategy though they might already be doing something similar, perhaps under the name innovation strategy or product strategy.

The key difference lies in the word design. Design strategy follows a design thinking process grounded in a human-centered approach (for more on design thinking: Why Design Thinking Works).

Within most organizations we can see deployment of several different kinds of strategies and plans. Does anyone really need another one? I would argue yes, design strategy is an essential and often missing tool in the strategy toolkit. Essential because the approach is one designed to challenge the status quo, innovate from the future, and challenge leadership team on their assumptions in order to imagine different possible futures that are actionable and differentiated. This work is especially helpful during times of disruption, when your industry has changed due to new competition, new technologies and/or new expectations from your customers.

A closer look at design strategy and its value

Unlike other strategic approaches Design Strategy emphasizes:

Human-centered from the start and throughout; offering a strong vision that explicitly commits organizations to making trade-offs that favor not just feasibility and viability but also desirability – putting customer needs in the decision-making mix
Defines opportunities or plausible futures based what is ideal, not based on current constraints
Deploys Systems-level thinking, connecting, and reaching across standard company silos
Challenges status quo
Identifies the most important questions that a company's products and services should address
Highly collaborative
Provides a north star or ideal vision that sets that stage and defines the metrics for ongoing decision making
Prioritizing the order (via road maps) in which a portfolio of products, services and communications should be launched

How it’s done

Design strategists leverage systems thinking, research methods, business management basics, and client engagement to have a grounded point of view on what the next steps and future state should be. Design Strategists “prototype” the future through storyboards, plausible/speculative futures, value propositions – and inspire not only with insights but provocative prompts. They communicate the story and design in impactful ways so that it resonates and “sticks” with the client. They tell you not just “what” is happening (actions, beliefs, opinions, trends) but uncover why and synthesize observations and data into “so what” insights (patterns, themes, recommendations, design principles) and “now what” next steps (opportunity areas, road maps, action plans).

Graphic of four phases of design thinking

How it changes things

Customers are put at the center of decision making
Groups across the organization collaborate and develop empathy for each other’s jobs
Provides a road map of innovative products and services that keep you differentiated and ahead of the competition
Simplifies decision making
Provides an understandable, relatable, brand-able story that customers use to set expectations.

What you get

Innovation playbook for the future, envisioning how the portfolio of products, services and experiences can work together to differentiate from the competitors. Design strategy can help resolve questions such as:

What is the most important question the company should be addressing regarding products and services?
How can insights move into something actionable and measurable?
What order should we roll-out a portfolio of products and service?
How do the products and services fit in and benefit the ecosystem of the business?
How to greater connect activities in the organization to the business strategy?
How can the brand intent and principles be used as attributes of the design language to create a compelling and differentiated experience?

Its not easy

Embarking on a design strategy program is not easy. Design strategy requires exploring alternatives, challenging the status quo, and tackling issues that seem unfixable. Wicked problems require that we challenge long held values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to uncover what is possible. Most organizations are designed and built to resist this type of disruption, rightfully so. But innovation requires this type of disruption, making this a tough process to negotiate within an organization. As Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, and Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, point out, in Design for Action, complex innovations often encounter stiff resistance from intended beneficiaries and those delivering the new product or service, because they jarringly disrupt existing behaviors and business models.

Is it worth it? Yes

Tackling innovation is difficult, sometimes having a breakthrough idea is the easy part. Navigating the organization and turning that idea into reality is often the hardest part. A design strategy can help you create a vision and navigate the many risk factors and failure modes that all too often sink some of the best ideas. And, if that is not enough of a reason, according to the McKinsey publication titled The Business Value of Design, "The best design performers increase their revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice the rate of their industry counterparts.”

What is design strategy and why do you need one?