DMI service design articles (free download)

Design Management Institute (DMI) dedicated the winter 2008 issue of the Design Management Review to service design; Designing for the Service Industry. DMI has made several of the articles available for free pdf download on the Service Design Network web. 

DMI is an international nonprofit organization that seeks to heighten awareness of design as an essential part of business strategy. Founded in 1975, DMI has become the leading resource and international authority on design management. DMI has earned a reputation worldwide as a multifaceted resource, providing invaluable know-how, tools and training through its conferences, seminars, membership program, and publications.

sdn – Service Design Conference

November 24 – 26, 2008 I attended a Service Design Conference in Amsterdam. Both the participants and the speakers were a good mix of people from academia, practitioners and clients. This mix made the discussions interesting by sharing different views and perspectives on service design. The conference was organized by The Service Design Network (sdn), which now has 31 full members. The first day was a “connect” day reserved for full members only. The second day was a “share” day with presentations from service designers and business partners (clients). The presentations covered the role of design within service innovation, within service organisations, and the way that design can initiate and enable innovation and change. The last day was an “enable” day with different workshops.

Conference and video presentations are now available. For an insight into service design, I think professor Birgit Mager’s video presentation offer a good overview.

Design Thinking in my PhD context

As this is a service design leadership and innovation PhD-blog, I’ll start my PhD blog life with an article from Harvard Business Review on Design Thinking by Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. I believe design thinking is a way of thinking that has a lot to offer business leaders that strive to develop a more innovation minded culture in order to create value for both users and businesses. In his article Tim Brown focus on design thinking’s role within business with his definition:

 ”Design Thinking is a discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity”. Tim Brown, IDEO. HBR June 2008

For part of the PhD, my approach will be to put on my business lenses to study what designerly ways of thinking and doing can bring to service innovation and how it differs (or not) from other ways of thinking within leadership and innovation. I shall also study  how design is permeating and may be changing business/organizational cultures and practice of leadership in the service industry. 

As a business thinking non-designer with a lot of experience working with design thinking designers, I have learned that the process and tools designers are using can efficiently be applied in businesses in team-based approaches to innovation. Therefore, I think it is most important that Design Thinking is being defined and explained in important business magazines such as Harvard Business Review. 

Design thinkers are not necessarily created only by design schools, according to Brown. His experience is that many people outside the professional design have a natural attitude for design thinking, which the right development and experience can unlock…..  Part of my research will be case studies on what working in teams with service designers can unlock of new ways of thinking in businesses and organizations.  In “A Design Thinkers Personality Profile” Brown points out some of the characteristics to look for in design thinkers; Empathy, integrative thinking, optimism, experimentalism and collaboration. 

As informed under “about”, my PhD is part of an ongoing research project: AT-ONE. The project aims to improve the early stages of service innovation, through the integration of design-thinking into a structured innovation process.  The project is a collaboration between academia (both within business and design) and the industry. It is financed by The Research Council of Norway together with the industry and headed by AHO.