Businesspeople are from Mars and designers are from Venus
Can you measure design’s value? In a recent BusinessWeek
article, The Design Management Institute’s (DMI) Conference sought
to explore how to measure design's role in the business world. One
answer: educate management
It's a question
that continues to stump designers and big business alike: How do you
measure innovation? (See BusinessWeek.com, 9/25/06, Metrics
Madness). The conclusion, according to attendees at the
conference is that you can't, or at least not in any standardized
way.
The one thing
attendees did agree on is that designers need to do a better job
communicating their value to business. Design and innovation are hot
management buzz words now, however, if the design industry is to
capitalize on its newfound popularity it needs to explain what it
does and what it is worth in terms management
understands.
It's obviously
frustrating for all involved. Designers see themselves more as
strategic visionaries or problem solvers, not spreadsheet analysts
or bean counters. Yet management finds it hard to value something it
can't quantify.
Read the
complete article to learn more about designing a
strategy.
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