Design as Strategy, Design as Execution  by Luke Wroblewski July
1, 2005  As more companies attempt to harness “design thinking”
to create strategic advantage, a potential dichotomy may emerge
within internal design departments.  Most corporations have
organized their design group in the context of their product
development process. What this amounts to is that the design
department is part of the company’s “assembly line”. Product
ideas come in; they’re scoped, designed, spec-ed, developed, and
shipped. Most often the strategy work has happened before the
design department gets involved.  Now as more companies
specifically look to design to create meaningful long-term
customer relationships and to differentiate their products (the
volume of product releases and cost cutting [the China price]
from competitors requires them to gain market advantage any way
they can), the assembly line positioning of the design
department becomes problematic. Designers in the midst of
production cycles (getting a product out to