How do I apply Business Design
I have more than 12 years of experience in business transformation & innovation initiatives.
Today, knowing a framework is not enough, we must understand the market, company, challenges & opportunities; and use different approaches and frameworks to be able to deliver better results.
The last 3 years I have been working with a Business Design approach, because I consider it a very complete solution.
Business Design is a combination of human centered methodologies, lean and agile frameworks & business tools applied to business challenges and opportunities.
I discovered Business Design and when I was doing some research on how to combine Design Thinking + Lean + Agile like Gartner and others were suggesting:
During my investigation, I found how Business Design started …the concept was first introduced by Stanford psychologist-engineer John Arnold in the late 1950s, then further contextualized by management strategist Roger Martin in 2009 at the Rotman School of Management.
The history of Business Design dates back to the early 2000s, when A.G. Lafley (CEO of P&G) identified innovation as key to the future success of the company. He appointed Claudia Kotchka, vice-president of design, innovation and strategy, to develop this new capability with the help of Roger Martin, then dean of the Rotman School.
Kotcha & Martin, in collaboration with David Kelley, and Patrick Whitney developed a structured approach to innovation that could be used by both business people and designers.
After a fair amount of investigation, I understood that Business Design is a holistic approach, which is also inspired by Design Thinking & Lean Start-up; it is based on articulating assumptions, testing with prototypes, iteration and fast learning. Usually following these three steps:
1.Understand the market, its players, constituents and forces; translate cross-industry best practices and articulate assumptions.
2.Develop a business model prototype, evaluate it, and identify the most critical assumptions.
3.Test your model, learn, and iterate.
Once you have had tested your hypothesis, you can build the right things with Agile.
This end-to-end focus delivers impact because it helps companies to think and act more strategically and innovatively.
With this approach I have addressed solutions for:
- Innovation Management
- Tech & digital developments / implementations (including end-to-end)
- Business & Digital strategies
- Experiments/Pilots, Hypothesis & business validation
- Organizational design & change management
- Physical spaces
Design Thinking is embedded in Business Design, so the method I usually work with is the following:
Certainly, nor Design Thinking, or Business Design are linear processes. You can read my article regarding Continuous Innovation .
Depending on the challenge/opportunity, in Business Design you need to perform different activities, for me it is important to:
•Empathize with users & customers & prototype to create design-led innovation through DESIGN THINKING
•Validate assumptions and prototype new product/service/venture through LEAN START-UP
•Once you realized what works, build it through AGILE, and then …. optimize it and SCALE IT
•Once the solutions/initiatives and the teams are mature enough build through DevOps
•Plan for growth through BUSINESS PLANNING
•Identify sustainable Business Models through BUSINESS MODEL GENERATION
•Manage Innovation pipeline & implement ideas through INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
•Anticipate trends & future-proofing through STRATEGIC FORESIGHT
•Make meaning & build relationships through BRANDING
•Consolidate through SYSTEMS THINKING
At the end, each solution/organization/area/user/customer needs different approaches and activities.
You can apply Business Design in a broad-spectrum and for more focused purposes (for example: to plan whole company’s strategies, or to lead a program of projects, or just one project)
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