How business designers can transform your organization.
Andre Fangueiro
Head of Design @ Tietoevry | Founder @ Human-lab.eu | Guest Lecturer & Speaker
Ever since I started working as a business design, I get contacted by a lot of people asking what exactly business design is and why they should use it in their companies.
I usually answer these questions by sending over my traditional business innovation presentation, but in some cases this still doesn`t lead to a clearer picture. Follow-up questions often include:
Is Business Design a Product Management Job?
Is Business Design the same as Service Design?
Is Business Design a profit formula?
The answer to all of the above: NO!
I have talked with several leaders who either fixate their eyes solely on economic growth or technological development. Often in discussions over a project I find myself digging for information around desirability, feasibility and viability of the solution. An example of one of those conversations:
Me: "Have you talked to your costumers?"
Client: "Yes, They will love it!"
Me: "Nice, lets go and pre-sell the offering to them."
Client: "What do you mean by this? The solution is not ready and I don`t know how to sell it yet."
Me: "I can actually prototype your business and proposition and we can get pilot users in and start generating revenue today."
Client: "I never thought of doing it that way.... but I don`t have the processes in place yet to sell the solution..."
Me: "What processes are you missing?"
Client: I`m actually not sure..."
Business design is a relatively new discipline that lives between business and design. It was developed to complement the growing relevance of design methodologies in the business world.?
What designers must understand is that desirability is not enough...
If something is desirable it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is good for business. Designers tend to talk with costumers and define A,B,C,D features. The missing link is are we able to deliver does features and what cost?
Designers must own the responsibility to understand the consequences of their requests in business. We can't believe that someone else will solve the business constraints we are setting.
Companies today have started adding more pressure on design teams to align their work with a business context. So Design Managers, Design Directors and Heads of Design have started hiring business-minded designers who would help their teams think beyond desirability (and feasibility), adding the viability component.
Since business design has taken on a larger role in most organizations it is no longer just a complementary discipline. Business Designers are the future for the Design Discipline!
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Design Methodologies
Business design uses design methodologies and design thinking. The multidisciplinary approach which includes a highly iterative nature, use of abductive thinking, and customer-centricity is the formula to success.?
The most common mistake companies make when first utilizing design thinking is putting together a homogeneous team. If a project team is full of marketers, you can expect their lenses to completely dominate the result. Design thinking works best when we put together a team with multiple points of view working towards a common goal. For example, a designer, a product manager, an engineer and a business developer using design methodologies.
Design methodologies are customer-centric. The starting point of any challenge is customers. We start by talking to customers, learning about their challenges, goals, pains, and their life. This helps us design a solution that fits much better in the context of their life. Most companies behave as if their product is at the centre of a customer’s life.
Entrepreneurial Mindset
Business designers must have a entrepreneurial mindset. This is often overlooked but probably the most important ingredient in the whole recipe. The way one traditionally thinks about the problem predetermines the result.?
If we would only use design thinking, we would only explore a small subset of possibilities. It’s like solving a design puzzle, which leads to only one solution . However, as business designers we understand that although design thinking can support solving desirability, we must also focus on feasibility and viability.
I therefore don't use the Business Model Canvas to find the solution, but instead the canvas is a fixed moment in time where the team is and we use entrepreneurial experiments to learn, iterate, validate and disprove our assumptions.
Experiments and Prototyping Tools:
Even though business designers use design and business methodologies, the core value of a business design comes out of use experiments and prototypes to validate the business potential or the teams assumptions.
There is a very long list of tools to use, check out my article on this specific topic.
What is the role of a business designer on a project?
In simple words business design applies design and design thinking to business problems with the objective of bringing innovation to life.
Looking at a business designer’s background, they often have prior experience in innovation management, business consulting, strategy design, but also entrepreneurial driven roles in start-ups / venture capital firms.
The reason why product managers, marketers, business developers cant replace the need for a business designer, either they lack the ability to visualize and prototype the value proposition on a level of viability that a designer can.
Tasks of a Business Designer
What business design is not:
How do I sell business design services?
I believe that business design should not be sold as an independent service. Business design creates the most value when it is an integrated part of a larger multidisciplinary team working on a common task.?
As a business designer, you usually work as a bridge between more tangible design (Product, UI, Service) and a business sense. Nowadays, there is a disconnect between company strategy (business goals) and innovation/design initiatives. and therefore it is my goal to merge those two streams into one stream.
Might you be interested in discussing Business Model Innovation in your organization, or if you are considering becoming a coach or being coached in BMI, please feel free to contact me as I am always willing to share my experiences and in return learn from others.