Vol. 15, No. 3, Summer 2004

Chris Conley, Associate Professor and Track Lead, Product Design, Institute of Design

Though design is recognized more and more often as having a distinct effect on the success of products and services, there is still a barrier that exists between "design" and "business." It's a barrier that is evident whether one is a design consultant or an in-house designer, and it is the basis of design's long-standing call to be used more strategically.

Is it just a matter of designers learning business skills? Well, of course the traditional financial, operational, and marketing know-how is a necessity. But Chris Conley maintains that design expertise can also play a definitive role in business management. But what do we mean when we talk about "design expertise"?

A professor and director of the product design graduate school at the Institute of Design in Chicago, as well as a founding principal of Gravity Tank Inc., a consulting firm that works with companies to define and develop new offerings, Conley has distilled seven "competencies" he believes are at the core of design. They are:

-The ability to understand the context or circumstances of a design problem and frame them in an insightful way
- The ability to work at a level of abstraction appropriate to the situation at hand
-The ability to model and visualize solutions even with imperfect information
- An approach to problem solving that involves the simultaneous creation and evaluation of multiple alternatives
- An ability to add or maintain value as pieces are integrated into a whole
- An ability to establish purposeful relationships among elements of a solution and between the solution and its context
- An ability to use form to embody ideas and to communicate their value

These skills, Conley feels, add value to a wide range of business initiatives, "even when there isn't anything in particular yet to design." Design professionals who learn to apply them to issues and problems beyond those normally considered design projects, he believes, will be able to break down the barrier that has existed between doing design and creating and running a successful business.

Conley offers a trio of examples to bolster his case: a project for Brunswick New Technologies to assess which advanced technologies Brunswick should acquire for their boating business; a profile of an industrial designer who now works in one of Motorola's business groups; and a new product platform for Zebra Technologies that managed to bridge the gap between engineering and marketing. All three examples are far from "typical design projects"; yet all three were accomplished with the application of the design competencies listed above.

"The core competencies of design," Conley concludes, "have to do with specific and tangible ways of engaging with and addressing problems.... But [to use them], designers will need to feel confident in leaving the label 'designer' behind as they become a 'business manager.'"

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