We’ve assembled the chart on “What is a Design Strategy” you see on the left hand side some weeks ago.
For some reason I did only push it via twitter so far maybe for the reason that it still needs some ‘iterations’ to reflect all the constructive feedback I’ve received in the meantime. Sure in these days of collaboration credits do go to several input channels, but mainly to buddy and business partner Erik Roscam Abbing especially on the case/model examples.
The problem with models and especially if you want to map several of them in a big overview and combine them with your own thinking is that it gets blurry even though it is pretty clear to you/me since you’ve invested some reasonable hours in it … you know that, right? ;-)
On the other hand I think a certain degree of blurriness is justified in case the topic hasn’t been reasonably illustrated so far. At least to my state of knowledge this is the case for ‘Design Strategy’ even though much has been written about it at various places. Still if you ask people what a ‘Design Strategy’ or ‘Strategic Design’ actually is/comprises they (including me) start by saying that “This is a broad field and …” Accordingly the chart has been an attempt to frame my/our ideas and give it a first visual representation.
Anyway it has been just yesterday where I’ve been pointed to a video done by Design Consultancy ‘Continuum’, Boston/MA on ‘design strategy’! Continuum next to IDEO are the publicly best known category leaders when it comes to applying Design/design in a process instead of product way. [This does not mean that there aren't quite a few small boutique consultancies out there like e.g. me/us who are doing an equally good job ;-)]
In particular the opening sequence of the movie finally triggered me to push our poster above to this blog and to a knowledgeable community like you. In a sense Continuum is nicely illustrating the basic idea of the poster in their own wording … and yes I felt sort of flattered since I do think they are leaders in their category ;-)
Accordingly I can appease my parents: I’m in good company! ;-)
