Strategic designer’s assets
What capabilities should an individual equip to become a strategic designer? There is no definite answer, but educators, design and business leaders have listed some fundamental qualities for this role.
Since the U.S. Army War College introduced the term VUCA (Who First Originated the Term VUCA, 2021), it has described the environment a strategic designer is involved in, which is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The Helsinki Design Lab reinforced that it requires strategic designers to have the ability to see the "whole of the problem" in this complex system ("What is strategic design", n.d.) with a high-level vision. Sarah Brooks recommended that a practitioner should utilise system thinking to architect the problem, thus, grasp the "big picture" from Chaos (Brooks, 2016). With greater power comes greater responsibility: It was suggested that this role should tackle the world's most prime problems, that is, setting the scope in the areas of human health, planetary health, sustainability and security, which includes human conflict and natural disasters (Tomitsch et al., 2020).
Designers think the "process of doing" is values more than the result or outcome. This is the agreement almost shared through all disciplines. Robert T. Schwartz indicates the significance of using "design-thinking tools" with the "The magic of science and empathy" to lead breakthroughs for problem solvers (Schwartz, 2016). To be mentioned, visualisation is a powerful technique for strategic designers that can significantly leverage productivity during the design process (Tripp, 2016).
Regardless, all the human-centred design approaches and methodologies help sustain creation and innovation through countless iterations, and validations with co-creators in the process.
Nevertheless, delivering long-lasting results validates the value of a "game changer" in business. While a strategic designer brings creativity and new perspectives to the organisation, one needs to drive collaboration across departments internally and externally to make things happen. In other words, whether implementing the solutions to land the project successful or not is also impacted by the social assets, addressed by Michelle Miller. She believes the quality of the "network" matters in a value creation process with various stakeholders, from the CEO to regular staff in a project team (Miller, 2016). Furthermore, The Helsinki Design Lab stated that excellent stewardship ensures implementation success when designers are working across various fields of expertise ("What is strategic design", n.d.).
The strategic design drives organisational transformation, innovation, or disruption with future-oriented design principles. Joe Smiley commented that "strategic design is the future of business" when he reviewed how the company Apple successfully applied it and disrupted the industry (Smiley, 2018). Indeed, many leading organisations started to invest more in design research, set up internal development departments and outsourced designing thinkers, especially in the post-pandemic period (Tomitsch & Nusem, 2022). The demands for implementing strategic design are ever-increasing.
To find about more: I have explored more about the role of a Strategic Designer in my recent research project: The Future of Strategic Design Education. 