The role of company boards in design leadership

Abstract

Managers need to understand better the demands of professional design management if design standards are to be raised significantly in industry. It is insufficient simply to promote a greater awareness of the importance of design to profitability or to encourage the use of better qualified designers — whether specialists in engineering or industrial design. Yet amid all the talk about design — orchestrated by the professional engineering and industrial design bodies together with various government agencies — there is precious little on design management. Moreover, the role of company boards in guiding, supporting and evaluating the design leadership of executive management is being ignored. This paper explores the varying perceptions of design in industry, how the design function can be brought into focus by means of comprehensive corporate design audits, and maps out the key topics encompassed by the emerging discipline of design management. The roles of design management and responsibility are differentiated as are styles of design leadership. Finally, a checklist of design responsibilities for company board members is proposed — responsibilities which complement those of executive colleagues and will enable boards to play a full part in taking their companies through the next decade of radical change and beyond.