Building Blocks for Effective Strategic Design

In this article, we discuss an emerging professional design field: strategic design. We define strategic design as a professional field in which designers use their design practices to co-determine strategy formulation and implementation towards innovative outcomes that benefit people and organizations alike. Based on research that is codified in our recent book (Strategic Design: Eight Essential Practices Every Strategic Designer Must Master), we explain core elements of strategic design: that is strategic design being co-created, consisting of effective practices and having impact on multiple stakeholders. In our article, we also describe essential characteristics of strategic designers, in particular their ability to balance diverging and often contrasting goals and to engage in strategizing while operating in multidisciplinary teams. Furthermore, we provide suggestions on how to structure a strategic design project in three core phases: preparing the ground, co-creating the outcome and embedding the outcome. Finally, we indicate future research directions that would result in much needed knowledge on effective strategic design.