applying design skills to organization strategy and change

b&a article: Designing Customer-Centered Organizations

the authors argue that as designers we need to expand our role and contribute to executive decision making and defining business and product strategy.

If researching customers can help a company develop better products by clearly articulating the most important aspects to consider during product design, why can't researching a company's effectiveness at ongoing product development help a company develop a more robust corporate strategy? Product researchers and designers bring with them a unique set of skills that have potential to contribute to effective investment prioritization, capacity planning, and organizational decision making.

measurements:

• Are customer needs and opportunities a critical input to the development of each product?
• Have customer models been created across product lines and used for initiating new product development and prioritizing which products receive scarce resources?
• Have research and design practices migrated from product design to other key organizational strategy and planning areas, including future scenarios modeling, resource allocation, internal workflow modeling, and corporate culture change?