While my own posting frequency remains low due to various business projects I’m more than happy that some friends of my design management network take over some ‘responsibilities’.
Earlier this month I’ve written a posting about a former student of mine Roderique Duell (Operations Manager, Marketing & Industrial Design) now working for Johnson Controls Europe. Roderique and his boss Han Hendriks have been speakers at the recent European DMI conference in Copenhagen. As a side note I’d like to mention the BusinessWeek Online article where Roderique is mentioned as well. Congratulations!
So when I’ve returned to my computer an hour ago I’ve been more than (positively) surprised to see that Roderique commented to my teaser posting regarding his dissertation and the ‘quite-the-opposite’ topic he’s been talking about the DMI conference.
Even though I didn’t ask explicitly for it ;-) I’m sure Roderique will not appeal against quoting his comment in full here on the front page. Enjoy and feel free to leave your comments as well!
Hello Ralf,
and hello as well to all the others who are wishful waiting for my response to Ralf’s hint.
First of all many thanks for your short laudation - it’s a honour to be mentioned as key reference for the DMI on your blog;-). Unfortunately we did not have the chance to meet in Copenhagen. I have to admit that I was really looking forward to meeting you after a long-time. However, the reason for your absence is reason enough to congratulate you. Hopefully I do well in translating the German idiom “Give credit where credit is due”
But, let’s forget the personnel stuff for a moment to not loose the momentum. I can calm you down, neither I suffer from double personality nor I’m brain washed by my current employer. I still strongly believe that design (effectiveness) in not necessarily numerically and monetary measurable. At least not to that extend that you can built up a feasible correlation between design and business performance. If at all we can talk about a proxy to the reality. However, I question the value add of the exercises looking for the ROI for design. The current ongoing discussions about the ROI (as financial term) seem to me similar to the search of the Holy Grail: So far nobody found it but the myth and the faith are still strong. The many unknown factors of the equation make it difficult to assess the ROI of design as a financial ration. And just for coming up with another proxy I see it a waste of time investing these approaches.
The approach of measuring design as presented at the DMI is less financial driven but more process focused. This might alleviate you as this is close the thoughts described in my dissertation, or? By developing a strong, tight design process which is embedded in the companies key process the impact will be more than relying on a blackball figure. At the end everything comes down to obtain acceptance within the company; by the Senior Management Team and other stakeholders. While you might convince the CEO or the CFO with the “magic” ROI of design your day-to-day partners are not bothering about the ROI. They expect a process discipline, quality and the accomplishment of deliverables. You should measure this within design to identify the “Best Business Practice”.
The best measure stick is to built the best product for customer and/ or end consumer.
I like the quote also Han Hendriks mentioned at the DMI conference: „…Our goal was never to become the biggest – but to make the best quality cars for our customers…“ - Mr. Watanabe, President Toyota -
