Last night we went to Stanford to see Roger Martin from U of Toronto’s Rotman B-school talk about Business and Design. This seems to be the identical talk he’s been giving this year at other events, as many of the slides looked familiar just from blog browsing.
I took a lot of notes but I’m probably not going to type up a summary of the talk if others have done so. For now, I’ll point you to other summaries such as this one (scroll down to “The Highlight of Day One: Roger Martin—Designing in Hostile Territory”), here, and here. You can find his slides from a previous presentation here. Yesterday’s presentation included a final slide that talked about how businesses can become more creative and innovative, essentially by transitioning from a traditional firm to a design shop, at least in part. He identified several categories of change.
In the Flow of Work Life, move from ongoing tasks and permanent roles to projects with defined terms.
In the Style of Work, move from defined roles and waiting til its right to collaboration and iteration.
In the Mode of Thinking, move from deduction and induction to deduction, induction, and abduction (where you ask what might be)
In Status, move from managing big budgets and stuff to solving wicked problems.
In Attitude move from “only what we have budget for” and “constraints are the enemy” to “nothing can not be done” and “constraints increase challenge and excitement”
There wasn’t a ton of shocking new material in his presentation, but it’s a mostly clear framework that explains well. I was definitely reminded a great deal of the presentation that Tom Mulhern and I did back in 2004 at About, With, and For on Buttoned-Down Creativity.
It was a mostly-talking presentation, with a lot of big images that supported stories, so the slides are hardly stand-alone, but maybe worth a quick visit. I think Mulhern and I could have gone further and written an article or two; we still could, of course, because I think we had some good ideas and a more tactical and sympathetic approach than Martin is taking.
Tags: AWF, business, buttoned-down creativity, design, designing in hostile territory, roger martin, stanford, Tom Mulhern
but I have to accept it as a perspective that is no doubt shared by others. Indeed, another guy asked me last week to explain how we were different from “frog-and-IDEO” (say it in your head as one word). In the world of validity and reliability that Roger Martin talks about, crossing that gulf of believability with a client is a challenge all share. I’d love to hear any thoughts on this mess of topics that this post may spawn….
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design and business
Pingback by Business Model Design and Innovation 11.06.06 @ 9:35 pmSteve, thanks for another well formulated posting summarizing and sharing what has been allocated at various sites across the web. I will clearly use this posting as a reference when people ask me about the short story of “Design Thinking” in the future.
However as my background is from the “other” side I highly appreciate your “more tactical” presentation and the underlying understatement covered by Ernie & Bert.
After all in the course of overcoming paradoxes there is a good book from “my” side available to which I’ve referred to in this posting:
http://www.design-management.de/archive/2005/10/design-thinking-and-the-management-of-tensions/
Maybe this adds some value to the discussion? … and thanks for the new quickie feature on your blog
Comment by Ralf Beuker 11.04.06 @ 3:59 am[...] Diego asks for ideas for the next course he might teach (co-creation anyone?). If you’ve got ideas, add ‘em here or at his site (see previous link). I’d like to see a class about innovation and persuasion. As Roger Martin talks about there are some very different mental models (my phrase, not his) in the worlds of design and business. Indeed, some systems inside organizations serve as antibodies to hunt down and destroy intruders in order to keep the body healthy (oops, metaphor overload here)…rejecting processes and ideas that could be innovative. How does design thinking as a process begin to address that? The design challenge (as Martin sorta says) is not only the problem itself but the means to move the solution through the organization to where it’s championed and adopted. [...]
Pingback by All This ChittahChattah : Blog Archive : Innovation and Persuasion? 11.08.06 @ 10:39 amSteve, I just zoomed through your slideshow. I wish I could have heard you and Tom present it.
Your question: how do we make a difference if being different can be toxic? helps me understand the why it is that the work we are learning to do with clients is met with a wide range of reactions.
Again, I learn so much from your generous sharing…thanks.
Comment by Michael Wagner 11.08.06 @ 9:45 pm
[...] Today I read a blogpost by Steve Portigal on design and business and discovered a great new tool to upload, store and share powerpoint presentations on the web.I immediately used it to share a deck of slides I designed to outline the business model concept. The slides briefly outline my understanding of what a business model actually is and how the concept can be used as a business model design template to quickly design and describe the business logic of a company. The template can also be applied together with the business model innovation cycle which I described in an earlier post.The slides come under a creative commons license and I actively encourage their re-use – as long as the authors (alex osterwalder / arvetica) are mentioned and the license is respected. I’m also interested in your feedback if you’ve applied the template or plan to apply it (email me at my new company: alex(at)(at)arvetica.com). < Back to Mediatech News NewsServicesFAQCompanyRegisterNewsletter Copyright 2007 Your Business :: Terms of Use :: Privacy Policy [...]
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[...] Today I read a blogpost by Steve Portigal on design and business and discovered a great new tool to upload, store and share powerpoint presentations on the web.I immediately used it to share a deck of slides I designed to outline the business model concept. The slides briefly outline my understanding of what a business model actually is and how the concept can be used as a business model design template to quickly design and describe the business logic of a company. The template can also be applied together with the business model innovation cycle which I described in an earlier post.The slides come under a creative commons license and I actively encourage their re-use – as long as the authors (alex osterwalder / arvetica) are mentioned and the license is respected. I’m also interested in your feedback if you’ve applied the template or plan to apply it (email me at my new company: alex(at)@arvetica.com). Back to News HomeBlogFAQCalendarNewsletterRegisterBusiness ResourcesPartners [...]
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[...] All This ChittahChattah: Roger Martin and Design and Business Steve Portigal assembled an informative blog posting about a recent lecture of Roger Martin (one of the main protagonists of design thinking in the media). In contrast to Martin’s (still) abstract reasonings Steve shares a presentation titled “Buttoned-Do (tags: designthinking design business rogermartin Steve_Portigal steveportigal conferencenotes) [...]
Pingback by Vol. 2: design-management.de » links for 2006-11-07 07.29.07 @ 6:01 pm[...] Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage SP: Roger Martin gave his usual excellent talk (video of longer talk here, PDF of almost identical slides here, my writeup of the last time I saw him speak here). [...]
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[...] I read a blogpost by Steve Portigal on design and business and discovered a great new tool to upload, store and share powerpoint presentations on the web.I [...]
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[...] model of our book project on our book chunk platformToday I read a blogpost by Steve Portigal on design and business and discovered a great new tool to upload, store and share powerpoint presentations on the web.I [...]
Pingback by Business Model Design and Innovation: Business Model Template - designing your competitve edge 06.09.09 @ 3:38 am[...] I read a blogpost by Steve Portigal on design and business and discovered a great new tool to upload, store and share powerpoint presentations on the [...]
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