Design Thinking: still a futuristic notion in business?

Design thinking brings creative techniques to business. 

The only problem? No one can agree on how to teach its methods.

While there is no consensus on how to teach it, there is agreement from some schools that creative thinking should be fostered into master's programs to integrate design, technology, and business.

It may be the latest trendy term to sweep the business world, but it is a technique that designers and executives alike hope may provide a solution to some of the world's serious challenges.

According to Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and one of the early supporters of the discipline, "Every corporation needs a design-thinking type."

Martin's interest in design thinking started when he worked with a small design firm, Hambly and Woolley, in Toronto. He says, "Just by osmosis I got interested in the way they (designers) would think about problems."

So, what is design thinking in relation to management?

Designers are passionate about their work. They are energized by constraints and think differently in the face of impossible challenges, and so do great business leaders.

"Today's business people don't need to understand designers better, they need to become designers" says Martin.

Although the idea of applying design approaches to management is new and, yet, largely undeveloped. As the world's business landscape evolves, some universities are attempting to keep up.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, some of the world's best design schools are found in Japan, China and India, but universities in the U.S. also have substantial offerings.

For instance, at the Art Center College of Design/INSEAD with locations in Pasadena, Calif., Fontainebleau, France or Singapore students can apply to take MBA courses for four months to study with the design students in the eight-week "Strategies for Product and Service Development" elective, offered through the 10-month MBA program.

Corporations such Disney, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola have business partnerships in the INSEAD Master's of Industrial Design/MBA program.

Similarly, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, launched a "Management by Designing" initiative in 2002. As a part of their MBA curriculum students take a two-semester course in either "Managing Design Opportunities" or in "Sustainable Value."

Universities build on their unique strengths to formulate these new design programs, so varied results have emerged, but despite the different approaches, the programs have a similar aim: to merge design, business, and technology.

As the world's business landscape continues to evolve, some universities are attempting to keep up by teaching "design thinking" to a new generation of global leaders.