Kevin G. Bethune - Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation

SIMPLICITY: DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS, LIFE

John Maeda, Editor

The Laws of Simplicity, John Maeda, 2006

The Plenitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff, Rich Gold, 2007

Simulation and Its Discontents, Sherry Turkle, 2009

Redesigning Leadership, John Maeda, 2011

Ill Have What Shes Having, Alex Bentley, Mark Earls, and Michael J. OBrien, 2011

The Storm of Creativity, Kyna Leski, 2015

The Acceleration of Cultural Change: From Ancestors to Algorithms, R. Alexander Bentley and Michael J. OBrien, 2017

Mismatch, Kat Holmes, 2018

The Importance of Small Decisions: How Culture Evolves, Michael J. OBrien, R. Alexander Bentley, and William A. Brock, 2019

Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, Kevin G. Bethune, 2022

REIMAGINING DESIGN

Unlocking Strategic Innovation

KEVIN BETHUNE

FOREWORD BY JOHN MAEDA

The MIT Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts

London, England

2022 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

The MIT Press would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers who provided comments on drafts of this book. The generous work of academic experts is essential for establishing the authority and quality of our publications. We acknowledge with gratitude the contributions of these otherwise uncredited readers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bethune, Kevin G., author.

Title: Reimagining design : unlocking strategic innovation / Kevin G. Bethune ; foreword by John Maeda

Description: Cambridge : The MIT Press, [2022] | Series: Simplicity: design, technology, business, life | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021005683 | ISBN 9780262046503 (hardcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Technological innovationsManagement. | Strategic planning. | Creative ability in business.

Classification: LCC HD45 .B424 2022 | DDC 658.4/063dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005683

d_r0

For Sefanit and Ezra.

You are the real heroes behind any story I bring to bear. Any success is directly tied to your sacrifices and belief in me. I thank God for you both, and for this journey in life together. There is no me without you. I love you.

Hebrews 11:1, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Nike Air Max 1, the first sneaker cushioning system with a visible air bag

A concept car at the General Motors World of Motion future mobility exhibit at EPCOT Center, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida

Working inside nuclear power plants with exceptional teams while leveraging mechanical engineering expertise to upgrade reactor mechanical systems

Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon

Nike Air Jordan Fusion 8 mid-top sneaker designed by Kevin Bethune, under the mentorship of Dr. DWayne Edwards and the Jordan brand

BCG Digital Ventures Innovation Center and World Headquarters in Manhattan Beach, California

ArtCenter College of Designs Hillside Campus in Pasadena, California

The Bauhaus schools integrated, multidisciplinary curriculum

Design represents itself in many facets in the marketplace, thanks in part to the acceleration of digital technology.

Multidisciplinary Venn diagram

Lens illustrative of future foresight, where the team sees the future through different vantage points: people, industry paradigms, trends, and exemplars

Mapping stakeholder value criteria

The Business Model Canvas (https://www.strategyzer.com) allows anyone to break down the components of any new or existing business and question its assumptions.

The Impact Canvas, a natural extension from Strategyzers Value Proposition Canvas to explore the ramifications of our decisions on our society and environment

An illustrative example of a curated list of STEEP trend vectors that can guide future foresight and imagination of future scenarios

Future probability funnel

Renewal curves represent the emergence of innovations over the course of time, with each industry experiencing a different frequency of renewal.

One of many potential future scenario explorations made by cross-pollinating a high-impact certain trend vector with another uncertain trend vector

The fuzzy front end, a period that lies just ahead of activating any innovation opportunity

Victory after waiting hours in line for the release of the Air Jordan XXIII

Dimensionalizing growth based on the nature of the revenue desired and the type of growth intervention required (i.e., horizontal or vertical growth)

Design thinking double diamond approach

Balancing quantitative and qualitative research to uncover complementary insights

Stakeholders journey map, illustrating the phases of their experiences

Scaling the steep hill up the renewal curve through the stages of innovation, incubation, and commercialization

A multidisciplinary team exhibiting breadth and depth based on the state of the team room on a given day

My mother was just under two years old when her family home was burned down (note the embers behind the family) by white supremacists in Tallahassee, Florida.

Illustrating T-shaped hybridity for different types of designers

Illustrating a design people model for nurturing design within a multidisciplinary organization

Different methods may be required for the different questions that arise within the innovation journey and the subsequent impact we hope to achieve.

A hexagonal venture room within a BCG Digital Ventures innovation studio environment. These rooms proved critical for fostering creative sparks.

LIST OF TABLE

Where are you on the spectrum between gatekeeping and servant leadership?

The September 2015 cover of Harvard Business Review sported the text, The evolution of design thinking: Its no longer just for products. Executives are using this approach to devise strategy and manage change. Yet five years later, although the phrase design thinking has become popular in many business circles today, its meaning is still not clearly understood. Perhaps the black mock turtleneck thats the featured artwork on that Harvard Business Review cover explains why its definition has remained ambiguous. Is it the symbol of the eponymous Steve Jobsthe undisputed heavyweight of transformative CEOs with a penchant for turning the business world upside down? Or is it the latest, or greatest, tastemaker appearing in a Gary Hustwitdirected design documentary that is declaring the latest element you need to recast your life of coolness? Its this nuanced definition of design in the business world as Jobs or not-Jobs that creates ambiguity around the design thinking movement, in which Jobs is known to be an unattainable being, and not-Jobs must equate to what can appear as the church of decoration. So in many cases design thinking has become like a stylized fire extinguisher of change that, like most fire extinguishers, sits silently behind protective glass as if on display. Kevin Bethunes book intends to break that glass and fully set it free in the business world.