Strategic design: The integration of the two fields of Strategy and Design

Text Exploration

In this text, the author traces a history of the connection between strategy and design, showing how various movements and approaches have treated the connection between these ways of thinking. The author views these approaches in three ways: as a planning practice, as a learning practice, and as a design practice.

Strategy in design has a fairly long history. The author begins by describing the “classical design school” approach to design strategy that emerged in the 1960s. This way of thinking emphasized a logical, rigorous, methodical approach to addressing problems that required a strategic consideration. The approaches often assumed rational action by people and organizations, and methods like scenario planning and horizon scanning emerged as working tools.

An alternative form of strategy as design emerged at a similar time, considered as a form of organizational learning. The aim was not to propose top-down, assigned strategy to problems, but instead to understand where knowledge was created in organizations. Knowledge production was guided by organizational value, but was developed through sharing and collective learning.

A third way of thinking about strategy emerged under the umbrella of design thinking: an inclusive and open practice for working through complex problems. This emphasized storytelling and was grounded in user data, and often took the form of collaborative workshops.

These ways of thinking strategically began with strategy and worked their way towards design. However, some approaches worked the other way, beginning with design practice and proposing to embrace strategic ways of thinking as an extension of craft. Bauhaus approaches, under the leadership of Moholy-Nagy, attempted to systematize design practice to ensure it was viewed as strategically rigorous. The methods movement similarly focused on making design rational, attempting to remove the view of creativity as a magical art. A view of design as a strategic tool for working though wicked problems countered this, treating designers as systems thinkers who used the same ideas of design thinking to approach complex, social problems.

The author proposes a model that presents strategic design as a “collective need-finding and collaborative prototyping” approach, to “develop collective capabilities that produce tangible designs for a strategic intent.” This model proposes a next approach towards strategy in design, one that requires developing a strategic intent, grounding this in real need-finding, encouraging collaborative prototyping, and demanding “comprehensive design” that integrates various disciplines into an integrative whole.