Organizational sensemaking through enabling design services

Abstract

It is argued that the focus of design is becoming increasingly intangible. At the same time as design consultants are expanding their offerings with new services aimed at enhancing innovation and the strategic process in client firms, studies indicate that industrial design consultancies have a problem getting commissioned and paid for the intangible parts of their service. One possible explanation is that design is regarded as providing a relieving service that delivers aesthetic competence at the end of a product development process. This indicates a problem in communicating the contribution of enabling design services to client firms.The aim of this paper is to increase the understanding of enabling design services. This is done by comparing the characteristics of design thinking, its methods and processes with sensemaking theory as described by Weick (1995).