Integrating the “Design Thinking” Approach into Project Management

Abstract

Design has the ability to provide new meanings and facts, which is an important driver of value creation. As a result, the integration of design as a business skill in project management and business organizations in general is increasingly being studied and put into practice nowadays. This article provides a brief overview of the existing literature on design management – generally and specifically – in that of projects. Based on it, aspects regarding the possibilities of integrating “design thinking” into the management activities of project organizations have been discovered and deduced. Separately, some more important results of an author’s survey conducted among managers of Bulgarian project-oriented business organizations are provided, regarding the tools they use from the “design thinking” methodology in their usual business and project activities. The study helps establish the existing design practices in our country and reveals opportunities for integrating the method in the management of projects as well.