Tourism policy implementation in developing countries

While they cannot claim a monopoly on creativity, designers are well practised in applying creative methods to complex problems framed in real-world constraints. These distinctive methods have an important potential to address complex challenges, as has been recogn-ised and investigated, first by those striving to understand the design process, and the ways individual designers “think” their way through it [Friedman, 2007], and more re-cently by a wider group in industry and academia. They look to design thinking as a tool to help understand and face the complex challenges where analytical approaches have proved insufficient.

The origins of many modern theories of the design process may be attributed largely to Schön [1983], who argued that design is a thought paradigm in its own right. This was dir-ectly contesting those theorists, such as Buckminster Fuller [1969] and Simon [1969], who sought to apply ‘scientific’ standards of objectivity to the design process. Schön preferred to account for the “artistic, intuitive processes… [applied] to situations of uncertainty, in-stability, uniqueness, and value conflict” where objective approaches had been inadequate

Literature of Strategy and Design | Design’s rising profile

[Cross, 2001]. Buchanan [1992] built on this, (re)introducing the design research reader-ship to Rittel’s concept ofwicked problems in systems and planning theory [Rittel, 1972;

Rittel & Webber, 1973].

i. Wicked Problems

Wicked problems are not only complex but, in contrast to ‘tame’ problems which may be addressed through positivist reasoning, they have no single ‘correct’ solution, only ‘good’

(or perhaps more commonly, ‘better than…’). They have no stopping rules to define when a solution has been reached – one can always aim for better – and there is no definitive test of a solution, it can only be assessed against its own formulation (the problem state-ment) and against other possible solutions¹. Rittel, Webber and Buchanan persuasively ar-gue that many design problems are wicked. If design methods and tools are well suited to addressing wicked design problems then these methods and tools may be useful for wicked problems outside the traditional design domain. This fits well with the broader view of designing, that it encompasses many activities and professions. “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”

[Simon, 1969: 111]. It is this element of design practice that is, when separated from the crafting of artefacts and applied to intangible problems, often termed design thinking.

ii. Design Thinking

Now reaching a wider audience, many articles about design thinking have appeared in the popular news and business media, and there is much discussion of its potential. It has become such a hot topic in recent years [Martin, 2005] there are concerns that its overuse is causing suspicion and denigration as a cynical bandwagon for designers, or as “another management fad” [reader comments on Brown, 2008b]. “Whether we like it or not, the buzzword of design thinking is everywhere.” [Rigau, 2008]

1. Rittel’s 11 characteristics of wicked problems are: (1) Wicked problems have no definitive formulation (2) Every formulation of the wicked problem corresponds to a statement of the solution, understanding the problem is the same as solving it. (3) Wicked problems have no stopping rules. (4) Solutions to wicked problems cannot be true or false, only good or bad. (5) In solving wicked problems there is no exhaustive list of admissible operations. (6) For every wicked problem there is always more than one possible explanation, with explanations depending on the world view of the designer. (7) Every wicked problem is a symptom of another, “higher level,” problem. (8) No formulation and solution of a wicked problem has a Literature of Strategy and Design | Design’s rising profile

One web article , in somewhat hyperbolic tones, describes design thinking as a “proven and repeatable problem-solving protocol that any business or profession can employ to achieve extraordinary results… employing unique and creative techniques which yield guaranteed results — usually results that exceed initial expectations. Extraordinary res-ults that leapfrog the expected” [Dziersk, 2008]. Despite the high claims, the essence of design thinking is reduced here to four steps: defining the problem, creating many op-tions, refining selected direcop-tions, and picking a winner for execution.

A New York Times article of similar style and depth [Rae-Dupree, 2008] quotes practi-tioners (such as Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO) and again, a few simple steps of a cycle: field research and observation, idea generation, analysis and filtration, rapid prototyping and testing. Notably, the practitioners are referred to as “design thinkers”, not designers, per-haps to move away from the idea of the designer as merely a graphic visualiser, or indeed to emphasise that neither creativity nor design thinking rest solely in the domain of the designers.

Neither article clearly articulates the distinction between designing and design thinking;

both merely describe what is commonly accepted as the design process. Brown discusses the New York Times article on his blog, recognising it is perhaps over-simplified, and also that care should be taken not to claim design thinking “as the perfect and only approach to all problems [Brown, 2008b].” He mentions his own earlier article in the Harvard Busi-ness Review which goes into more depth².

Designers are well trained and practised in applying creative methods to complex prob-lems framed in real-world constraints, but design firms and teams are increasingly staffed with diverse interdisciplinary teams (see e.g Design Council, 2007) and academic institu-tions are providing interdisciplinary design/business graduate programs [Business Week, 2005, 2007].³ Stanford University’s Institute of Design attracts graduates from back-grounds as diverse as geology, medical science, engineering, business and fine art [Stan-ford Institute of Design, 2007].

2. Brown’s eight tips for incorporating design thinking: involve design thinkers at the start; take a human centred approach; experiment and prototype early and often; look to co-create with consumers and customers, exploit web 2.0 networks; manage a portfolio of both smaller, incremental projects and longer-term revolutionary ones; don’t constrain the speed of innovation to budgeting cycles; look for talent in other disciplines; plan the process so design thinkers experience all the innovation cycle [Brown, 2008a].

3. Business Week [2007] listed a ‘top 60’ of such institutions, of which 42 identified themselves as Art and/or Design schools, 11 as Business and/or Engineering.

Literature of Strategy and Design | Design’s rising profile

Those already in the working world are urged to master the design approach themselves.

Management school alumni are advised to be “more widely participative, more dialogue-based, issue-rather-than-calendar-driven, conflict-using rather than conflict-avoiding, all aimed at invention and learning, rather than control… [To] involve more members of the organization in two-way strategic conversations… View the process as one of iteration and experimentation, and pay sequential attention to idea generation and evaluation in a way that attends first to possibilities before moving onto constraints” [Liedtka, 2004].

We see then that design thinking is not only considered the preserve of those qualified or practised in design. It is seen by some as a transferable skill to be acquired and added to the arsenal of thinking tools. The focus of this study is the service provided by designers, so although the concept of design thinking is in a grey area, it needs not be resolved at this point. It is enough that the concept is identified so that it may be discussed more if appro-priate in the next phases of the research.

This section has attempted to outline a shift in recognition of design’s relevance and po-tential at strategic level. There are long-term benefits from the deeper integration of design into the firm, and from the wider application of design methods and tools, to con-ceive, shape and improve all areas of a firm’s activity, even its strategy itself. Having ex-plored design’s strategic benefits according to design management literature, the next sec-tion examines how design services relate to theories and practice of strategy, and how this relationship has strengthened in recent years.

2.3 Strategy implementation from the design