Different types

Different types of design management depend on the type and strategic orientation of the business.

Product design managementedit

In product-focused companies, design management focuses mainly on product design management, including strong interactions with product design, product marketing, research and development, and new product development. This perspective of design management is mainly focused on the aesthetic, semiotic, and ergonomic aspects of the product to express the product's qualities and to manage diverse product groups and product design platforms and can be applied together with a user-centered design perspective.

Brand design managementedit

In market and brand focused companies, design management focuses mainly on brand design management, including corporate brand management and product brand management. Focusing on the brand as the core for design decisions results in a strong focus on the brand experience, customer touch points, reliability, recognition, and trust relations. The design is driven by the brand vision and strategy.

Corporate brand design management

Market and brand focused organizations are concerned with the expression and perception of the corporate brand. Corporate design management implements, develops, and maintains the corporate identity, or brand. This type of brand management is strongly anchored in the organization to control and influence corporate design activities. The design program plays the role of a quality program within many fields of the organization to achieve uniform internal branding. It is strongly linked to strategy, corporate culture, product development, marketing, organizational structure, and technological development. Achieving a consistent corporate brand requires the involvement of designers and a widespread design awareness among employees. A creative culture, knowledge sharing processes, determination, design leadership, and good work relations support the work of corporate brand management.

Product brand design management

The main focus of product brand management lies on the single product or product family. Product design management is linked to research and development, marketing, and brand management, and is present in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry. It is responsible for the visual expressions of the individual product brand, with its diverse customer–brand touch points and the execution of the brand through design.

Service design managementedit

Service design management deals with the newly emerging field of service design. It is the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication, and material components of a service. The aim is to improve the quality of the service, the interaction between the service provider and its customers, and the customer's experience. The increasing importance and size of the service sector in terms of people employed and economic importance requires that services should be well-designed in order to remain competitive and to continue to attract customers. Design management traditionally focuses in the design and development of manufactured products; service design managers can apply many of the same theoretical and methodological approaches. Systematic and strategic management of service design helps the business gain competitive advantages and conquer new markets. Companies that proactively identify the interests of their customers and use this information to develop services that create good experiences for the customer will open up new and profitable business opportunities.

Companies in the service sector innovate by addressing the intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability of service (the IHIP challenge):

• Services are intangible; they have no physical form and they cannot be seen before purchase or taken home.
• Services are heterogenous; unlike tangible products, no two service delivery experiences are alike.
• Services are inseparable; the act of supplying a service is inseparable from the customer's act of consuming it.
• Services are perishable; they can not be inventoried.

Service design management differs in several ways from product design management. For example, the application of international trading strategies of services is difficult because the evolution of service 'from a craftsmanship attitude to industrialization of services' requires the development of new tools, approaches, and policies. Whereas goods can be manufactured centrally and delivered around the globe, services have to be performed at the place of consumption, which makes it difficult to achieve global quality consistency and effective cost control.

Business design managementedit

Business design management deals with the newly emerging field of integrating design thinking into management. In organisation and management theory, design thinking forms part of the Architecture / Design / Anthropology (A/D/A) paradigm which characterizes innovative, human-centered enterprises. This paradigm focuses on a collaborative and iterative style of work and an adductive mode of thinking, compared to practices associated with the more traditional Mathematics / Economics / Psychology (M/E/P) management paradigm. Since 2006, the term Business Design is trademarked by the Rotman School of Management; they define business design as the application of design thinking principles to business practice. The designerly way of problem solving is an integrative way of thinking that is characterized by a deep understanding of the user, creative resolution of tensions, collaborative prototyping, and continuous modification and enhancement of ideas and solutions. This approach to problem solving can be applied to all components of business, and the management of the problem solving process forms the core of business design management activity. Universities other than the Rotman School of Management are offering similar academic education concepts, including the Aalto University in Finland, which initiated their International Design Business Management (IDBM) program in 1995.

Engineering design managementedit

Engineering Design Management is a knowledge area within engineering management. It represents the adaptation and application of customary management practices, with the intention of achieving a productive engineering design process. Engineering design management is primarily applied in the context of engineering design teams, whereby the activities, outputs and influences of design teams are planned, guided, monitored and controlled. The output of an engineering design process is ultimately a description of a technical system. That technical system may either be an artefact (technical object), production facility, a process plant or any infrastructure for the benefit of society. Therefore, the domain of engineering design management includes high volume, mass production as well as low-volume, infrastructure.

Urban design managementedit

Urban design management involves mediation among a range of self-interested stakeholders engaged in the production of the built environment. Such mediation can encourage a joint search for mutually beneficial outcomes or integrative development. Integrative development aims to produce sustainable solutions by increasing stakeholder satisfaction with the process and with the resulting urban development.

Conventional real estate development and urban planning activities are subject to conflicting interests and positional bargaining. The integrative negotiation approach emphasises mutual gains. The approach has been applied in land use planning and environmental management, but has not been used as a coordinated approach to real estate development, city design, and urban planning. Urban design management involves reordering the chain of events in the production of the built environment according to the principles of integrative negotiation. Such negotiation can be used in urban development and planning activities to reach more efficient agreements. This leads to integrative developments and more sustainable ways to produce the built environment.

Urban design management offers prescriptive advice for practitioners trying to organise city planning activities in a way that will increase sustainability by increasing satisfaction levels. Real estate development and urban planning often occur at very different decision-making levels. The practitioners involved may have diverse educational and professional backgrounds. They certainly have conflicting interests. Providing prescriptive advice for differing, possibly conflicting, groups requires construction of a framework that accommodates all of their daily activities and responsibilities. Urban design management provides a common framework to help bring together the conventional practices of urban and regional planning, real estate development, and urban design.

The work on Integrative Negotiation Consensus Building and the Mutual Gains Approach provide a helpful theoretical framework for developing the theory of urban design management. Negotiation theory provides a useful framework for merging the perspectives of urban planning, city design, and real estate project proposals regarding production of the built environment. Interests, a key construct in negotiation theory, is an important variable that will allow integrated development, as defined above, to occur. The path-breaking work of Roger Fisher and William Ury (1981), Getting to yes, advises negotiators to focus on interests and mutual gains instead of bargaining over positions.

Architectural managementedit

Architectural management can be defined as an ordered way of thinking which helps to realise a quality building for an acceptable cost or as a process function with the aim of delivering greater architectural value to the client and society. Research by Kiran Gandhi describes architectural management as a set of practical techniques for an architect to successfully operate his practice. The term architectural management has been in use since the 1960s. The evolution of the field of architectural management has not been a smooth affair. Architectural practice was merely considered a business until after the Second World War, and even then practitioners appeared to be concerned about the conflict between art and commerce, demonstrating indifference to management. There was apparent conflict between the image of an architect and the need for professional management of the architectural business. Reluctance to embrace management and business as an inherent part of architectural practice could also be seen in architectural education programmes and publications. It appears that the management of architectural design, as well as architectural management in general, is still not being given enough importance. Architectural management falls into two distinct parts: office or practice management and project management. Office management provides an overall framework within which many individual projects are commenced, managed, and completed. Architectural management extends between the management of the design process, construction, and project management, through to facilities management of buildings in use. It is a powerful tool that can be applied to the benefit of professional service firms and the total building processes, yet it continues to receive too little attention both in theory and in practice.