“I am not sure that regulations will help design management to find a better position. The beauty of design is that it keeps its freedom and is aside of the rules. It does allow to ‘circulate’ in a professional world without having to go through different phases and only the value of the work is recognized.”

“Design evolves according to the environment and varies tremendously depending of the domain of application; therefore making rules even more difficult to set up.”

”Rules for design, yes, as it is important to define the scope. But management of design could avoid falling on set of parameters besides those in place in the companies for which you work.”

“Interesting idea – but I don’t agree with that we have nothing. Weren’t design awards originally supposed to serve as the before mentioned quality indicator or norm? And haven’t they failed to live up to this claim, in the way they have in many instances become- this is my impression – self-serving, profitable ‘pay-to-win’ businesses (2771 entries to 821 IF-Awards – in a single category?).”

“It’s important to rate the outcome, less the process = the design management itself. If environmental pollution can be internationally regulated, maybe design pollution can be too.”

“At this point in time we have some bigger nuts to crack and unnecessary bureaucracy will stifle the ability of the true design management innovators to lead the industry forward.”

“The theory makes sense, but I’ve seen too many failing attempts in small and large design companies.”

“It seems that many design departments/companies can’t cope with the fact that some real talented designers are ‘egos’ and difficult to work with. It seems to be difficult to find the right balance between ‘what’s good for the direct benefit for the company’ and ‘what’s good for the quality of the total design team (and for the company in the long run).”

“I would be very interested to see a draft of those six guidelines! If they can help nondesigners to understand how design adds value to business, to individuals, to society and to the environment then I will be a strong advocate.”

“In a semi-ideal world this would be the way forward. Let’s aim at that. People are still people and mistakes will be made – but we need a point to start from.”

“There is certainly a need for basic guidelines in design management. This would help making my managing life much safer and faster. Imagine guidelines or general knowledge about ‘job descriptions’, ‘salary’, ‘time planning tools’, ‘budget planning tools’, ‘ideal position within company structure’ and much more.”

“The whole power of the design message is weakened by individual interpretations, opinions and personal differences, so we will all benefit from a common platform for the communication and explanation of the underlying processes and activities.”

“This will help bringing back some time to focus on design work instead of all the other stuff we are not too sure about.”

“Quality is nothing but meeting expectations (also requiring managing them!). The software development business showed its well understanding of this when globally adopting the 5 level Capability Maturity Model (CMM, see e.g. Wikipedia), later on extended with Integration to CMMI.”

“Focus on the value stream through design is a way to classify which parts of the design process add most value and how individuals can maximize the value they add – then they can be more transparently rewarded.”

“Of course a selection of powerful and comprehensive rules must be published and opposed. But as in music practice, the aim is not to follow the score like a computer but to propose a clever interpretation beyond the written score. Rules must be written to be assimilated and to be transcended.”

can we read/trace some of your comments you’ve left at the above mentioned blogs, forums, etc. also as part of a conversation or dialogue these platforms are meant for? That would have generated trackbacks to your blog in return (maybe as part of a win-win mindset?).

Also some cross-links and other references might have been valuable in order to understand the basis of your criticism you are articulating here.

Good luck with the conference once it will take place!

However there is an insight that is very peculiar to India.

On one hand most organisations invest/spend tremendously in human resources, whereas on the other hand the psyche of most Indians is embedded with thrift and frugality that is inherent to our culture which makes us cost conscious as well as cost effective.

And a fine balance of the aforesaid traits, make India a lucrative bet for most business enterprises.

An other thought when I read your post: Is your website designed to convince or to entice?

But in my opinion one has to add the personal strength and believe in theirselves and in their ideas. You might call it courage or energy, but I believe that an innovative entrepreneur has to withstand a lot of critics and set backs.

If you lack stamina as an innovative entrepreneur, you might go no nowhere with all your innovation.

Polish companies are beginning to understand that applying design helps improve their sales profits, market share, brand recognition, competitive advantage. In view of the above, it seems logical to rely on design and design management, which can help make products more innovative and attractive. The past three years was a period of vibrant and continuous activity of business entities, designers, and institutions promoting design in Poland! In 2009 during 5 workshops focused on design management Pro Design trained in Poznań 700 people! (www.pro-design.com.pl)

Innovation is growing in importance – not just in the field of technology, but also processes, research, organisation and marketing. On February 5th, 2010 the award for the most innovative product in our region went to VOX for the MAMAMA project. This is a collection of multi-sensory children’s furniture, which has been developed on the basis of neurocognitive research!

Thanks for the tip. I checked it out and it indeed is a strong approach that is featured!

However, this is still a cooperation mainly method focused on companies.
In the case of http://www.policydesignthinking.com I was merely inspired by the way how to influence misty POLITICAL processes.

Best,

Tim