There is no such thing as strategic design

Kees Dorst and Rodger Watson, TD School, University of Technology

Sydney, Australia

The notion of ‘strategic design’ has arisen in the past years as an umbrella term
for a set of evolving practices. Yet the literature is quite fuzzy as to what this
strategic design actually is and how it would lead to strategic impact. In this
paper we explore the issue afresh, bracketing the concept of strategic design,
and starting from the standpoint that “There is no such thing as strategic
design”. We use a longitudinal case study of a design intervention, following its
strategic impact as it unfolds over 10 years to critically consider the strategic
impact of design practices. The dynamics of strategic impact across this case
study is captured in a fledgling ‘Game Changers’ model.
Ó 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: strategic design, design practice, innovation, framing, case study

T
hinking about the connection between design and strategy has a long
history in the designing disciplines, and is very much integral to design
practice. To a degree, what designers can achieve is (pre)determined
by the starting point of the design project: the ambition that is laid down
in the brief, and the perceived freedom in the problem space (and in the so-
lution space). Therefore, the quality of the design briefing (‘the question’)
and its scope heavily influence the nature and quality of ‘the answers’ that
design can bring e as a consequence, design practitioners have naturally
sought to influence the formulation of these briefs. To achieve the up-front
influence they covet, designers have attempted to get involved in the strategic
decision processes in which design briefs are spawned in various ways (Paton
& Dorst, 2011).

The notion of strategic design as a separate discipline has arisen in the past
years as an umbrella term for a set of evolving practices that strive to (1) create
strategic impact for design, and/or (2) create strategies through the use of
design practices. For example, Julier and Kimbell (2019) point out that the
emerging profession of social design needs to develop methods that transcend
the tactical, moving the practice into the strategic space, and seek to outline the
practices that need to be added into the design mix to achieve outcomes on a
Corresponding author:
Kees Dorst strategic level. The promise of strategic design (in the second sense) is that
[Link]@[Link]. design interventions and design practices can contribute to strategy formula-
au tion and strategic impact.
[Link]/locate/destud
0142-694X Design Studies 86 (2023) 101185
[Link]
Ó 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1
Yet the literature is quite fuzzy as to what strategic design actually is, and how
strategic design leads to strategic impact. Establishing the inner workings of
strategic design is a foundational step on the road to establishing it as a field
of practice, distinct from design-as-we-know-it and strategy-development-as-
we-know-it, and perhaps as a discipline in its own right. In the conceptual
exploration of this paper we aim to approach this issue afresh by ‘bracketing’
the notion of strategic design for the moment. Bracketing is a technique from
philosophy where a central concept is suspended, not used for the moment, to
avoid the hidden assumptions its use might entail. The concept is then re-
introduced later, once insights have been developed. Effectively this means
that we begin this paper from the standpoint that ‘There is no such thing as
strategic design’. Instead we will map and critically consider the strategic
impact of design practices, and explore additional practices that might be
needed to (better) achieve strategic impact.

We will draw on an extended case study of design-driven innovation as a first

exploration into this space. The case description is based on participatory
observation of the original design intervention, and a document analysis of
its extended 10-year aftermath based on the rich trove of published material
(academic papers, media reports, professional reports, published government
strategies and announcements, and published meeting minutes).

Design interventions are often aimed at immediate success (‘a solution’), but to
see to what extent the design intervention ‘changed the game’ we need to
follow the twists and turns of strategic impact as it unfolds over time. This
gives us the chance to focus on the real strategic impact of the design interven-
tion (as opposed to the formulation of a strategy that may or may not be acted
upon (Micheli & Boardroom, 2014). This exploration of the dynamics of stra-
tegic impact across the case study is then captured in a first, fledgling model (or
perhaps better: a map) of strategic design, an exploration of practices that
should be added to fulfill its promise, and an agenda for further research.

1 Connecting design and strategy

1.1 Stepping back
Stepping away from strategic design as a thing in itself brings us back to the
question how design and strategy can be connected in the first place. Over
time, various approaches to linking design and strategy have been part of
the discussion in academia and in the design professions. This brings to
mind Frayling’s (1993) articulation of the potential relationships between
research and design: “FOR”, “THROUGH”, etc. All these adjectives can simi-
larly be used here. But the fact that these very different relationships are all
held under the umbrella notion of ‘strategic design’ means that what KIND
of strategic design is considered in a specific paper or piece of literature isn’t

Design Studies Vol 86 No. C May 2023

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 always clear. In this paper we approach the creation of the relationship be-
tween design and strategy simply as a ‘movement’, from one to the other. In
the next sections we will be considering three ways to connect design and strat-
egy, by (1) extending design, (2) creating a middle ground, or (3) using design
in the context of strategy development. Each of these will now be introduced
briefly, and then a case study (section 2) will be used as a basis for critical
reflection and mapping/modeling (in section 3). These three ‘movements’
will be used again (in section 4) to structure the discussion on design and stra-
tegic impact.

1.2 Extending design

Firstly, design could move into a strategic space by extending its remit. But this
comes with its own set of complications, because of course ‘design’ is not
endless. Extending design by positing that “everything is design”, or “everyone
designs” (Manzini, 2015), the word ‘design’ loses its meaning and the field of
design dissolves as a discipline, as a set of practices and a special kind of hu-
man endeavor (as a central part of the “Sciences of the Artificial” (Simon,
1996)). There is a point where enthusiasm for design practices and the hope
of what design can bring becomes an overstretch, which can turn into pretense
(Nussbaum, 2011). There are limits to design that need to be understood to
hold on to what design is, and what design can fruitfully bring to disciplines
and problem arenas that are beyond the boundaries of the original designing
disciplines.

Design must have some boundaries or limitations - but how could one deter-
mine where those are? In the formative days of the designing disciplines, def-
initions of design were created (e.g., the early definition by ICSID (https://
[Link]/about/definition/industrial-design-definition-history/), or the inter-
view with Charles Eames (in Neuhart et al., 1989) to ground the thinking
about the developing field. But our sense of what design can be has moved
on, and to define design as a way of thinking we need to work ‘from the inside
out’, as it were, looking at design as a (more or less coherent) set of practices
that are brought together in an overarching pattern or process. One could
argue that of these, that there are key or core elements that (always) need to
be represented for a practice to be validly called a designerly practice. As a
working definition for the purposes of this exploration, the elements we pro-
pose are:

- First and most fundamentally: the presence of an underlying abductive

logic (Dorst, 2011) e and hence the co-evolution of problem and solution
that characterizes how designers think (Dorst & Cross, 2001). However,
abduction in its various forms happens in all creating professions, not
just in design; see Roozenburg and Eekels (1995), originally extending
Peirce’s notion of abduction.

There is no such thing as strategic design

3
 - Secondly, on the level of actions, we can consider the presence of abilities,
skills and practices that are normally associated with design (a ‘designerly
way of thinking’, see Cross (1990). For instance, within the classic texts of
the ‘design thinking’ movement Brown (2008), Lewrick et al. (2018), three
core elements of what design can bring to other fields are named as (1)
creativity (2) human centredness, and (3) quick prototyping (iteration).
These three points in themselves are a weak claim to ‘design’: none of
them is exclusive to design, though it could be argued their combination
is typical for design practice - and the three practices combined imply
abduction, and a type of iteration that could imply co-evolution (please
note that the elements of practice that the ‘this is design’ claim is based
on would ideally be exclusive or ‘typical’ for design). Such a claim cannot
be based on peripheral practices or skills that are associated with the do-
ing of design, but that design has in common with many other fields (like
‘sketching’). If a weak conceptualization of ‘design’ is used, its introduc-
tion could in the end boil down to adding quite general practices (e.g. fu-
turing and visualization) to the repertoire of an organization, under the
flag of ‘design’).
- Thirdly: in terms of social dynamics, design is a set of professional fields
that develop through dialectic with their environment and through inter-
nal dialogue and discussion (as ever evolving communities of practice) -
we have earlier grappled with this issue in a paper (Dorst, 2015) that,
following Krauss (1979), positions design in an ‘expanded field’
(Titmarsh, 2017). This foregrounds ‘being part of the discussion’ as a cri-
terion for judging whether a praxis (a bundle of practices) should be
counted as part of the design family.

Various authors see the qualities that designerly practice can bring to achieve
strategic impact from different angles. For instance, Buchanan (2019) in a
recent extension of his ‘design ladder’ - in which the ‘four orders of design’
are about the creation of Signs, Things, Actions, and Thoughts - identifies
the latter as the strategic level, and draws on well established ‘strategic de-
signers’ to explore their practices. They have been engaged by their clients
to play a role within the development of strategy. In reflecting on their prac-
tice, Buchanan proposes that what they bring from design is the ability to
mediate/facilitate a dialectic that leads to the discovery of a ‘middle ground’
- the uncovering of an underlying shared value, that has not explicitly been
aired before. The job of the facilitator is to bring the participants to a discovery
of this shared value. The contribution of design to strategy is then to shape a
dialectic process (Schaminee, 2018). On the other hand, Verganti (2009) dem-
onstrates how Human Centred Design (HCD) practices can drive strategic
change. In the public sector, this take-up is sometimes embodied in the estab-
lishment of Design Labs (McGann et al., 2018) or teams that adopt a project
approach with HCD as the underpinning practice (van der BijleBrouwer,
2016). However, the very human centredness of these labs might lead to an

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 emphasis on finding better outcomes within the existing problem frame e
effectively achieving incremental, rather than strategic innovation and impact
(Norman & Verganti, 2014).

1.3 Creating a middle ground

A second way to connect design and strategy is by creating a middle ground
between the two e a hybrid praxis. In a recent study, Sobel and Schweitzer
have proposed just that, using an extensive literature review in the manage-
ment sciences and the design sciences to combine design-as-practice with
strategy-as-practice (Sobel & Schweitzer, 2022). They create a new composite
model of ‘Strategy As Practice’ (SAP), see Figure 1.

In creating this ‘combined practice’ they seem to be concentrating on more pe-

ripheral aspects of design praxis e deeper, key elements of design like

Figure 1 Potential roles of design practice for strategy practice (Sobel & Schweitzer, 2022). Adapted from ‘Understanding the Role of Design
as a Practice for Strategy Development’

There is no such thing as strategic design

5
Abduction are not explicitly covered in this model, although they might be
implied. In a similar vein, Liedtka et al. (2017) explore the strategic use of a
Design Thinking approach in organizations. To Liedtka the key elements of
why Design Thinking is successful in the strategic arena are that it is useful
in; (1) creating immersion in the context at hand, (2) instilling a flow from
research to implementation, (3) building in buy-in with team members and
stakeholders through them having a hand in the creation and development
of solutions, and (4) bringing a playfulness that facilitates emergence through
prototyping. In this version, the strategic impact of design is created by
bringing people along on a journey, moulding the problem situation and tak-
ing it away from the original discussion arena in a dialogical process. Design
practices are seen as providing a valuable contribution into an overall strategy
development processes.

1.4 Using design in the context of strategy development

This bring us to the third ‘movement’, directly harnessing design practices for
strategy development. Renowned strategic management scholar Gary Hamel
points to what he calls ‘strategy development’s dirty little secret’; that within
strategy development, there actually is no articulation of a creative process
that can lead to new strategies (Hamel, 1998).

Carlopio (2010) uses this quote as a springboard for building up an argument

for the need for design practices in strategy development. The classic strategy
development methodology generally consists of a version of this 5-step linear
process from Rea and Kerzner (1997): (1) Analyse external and internal envi-
ronments (2) Evaluate the information (3) Evaluate strategies (4) Select strate-
gies (5) Implement strategies. As Carlopio describes the practice: “.the vast
majority of strategy development texts, the way to formulate strategy is to
do extensive analyses of the external and internal environments, set your
mission, and vision, then position your organisation in relation to those find-
ings, create some scenarios to capture the outcomes, and incrementally adjust
your existing strategy accordingly. This practice doesn’t include a way of
creating new strategies” (Carlopio, 2010, p. 5). According to Carlopio
(2010), innovative strategies should contain a portfolio of actions and choices,
from incremental (changes to existing offerings) to intermediating (changes to
relationships) and radical (everything is up in the air). Nagji and Tuff use
similar concepts to describe an organization’s “innovation portfolio”: incre-
mental, adjacent and transformational. They observed a golden ratio of
high performing companies “Companies that allocated about 70% of their
innovation activity to incremental initiatives, 20% to adjacent ones, and
10% to transformational ones outperformed their peers” (Nagji & Tuff,
2012). For a strategic impact to occur then, a portfolio of actions and choices
is needed that spans from incremental to radical.

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 Carlopio posits that for radical innovation, a design-driven approach to strat-
egy development is crucial: “Designers engage in a non-linear, iterative dance,
constantly balancing opportunities with anticipated problems, creativity with
restrictions, conception with perception, and possibilities with budgets and
deadlines” (Carlopio, 2010, p. 10). In terms of the underlying logic, what he
describes is design abduction: multiple variables are bracketed (held as un-
known), and loosely populated through a creative process of co-evolution.
This is a valid and valuable tactical application of design practices for the
development of strategy, but this isn’t necessarily strategic design.

2 A curious night time incident

2.1 Tracing the impact of a design intervention
While these theories capture aspects of design practice that could be useful/
important in the strategic arena, they do not provide strong evidence that
would help us engage critically with the relationship between design and stra-
tegic impact. To sharpen our thinking we will need to turn to practice, and
reflect on the links between design and strategic impact as they arise there.
As a first investigation of the strengths and possible limitations of designerly
ways of thinking and doing to achieve strategic impact, we will now introduce
a case study of a radical design intervention, and a critical longitudinal anal-
ysis of its influence and strategic impact in the ten years since the original proj-
ect. Has this project led to strategic impact?

2.2 The case study

The design intervention-as it happened: In 2009, the Designing Out Crime
(DOC) research centre was approached by the City of Sydney (a local govern-
ment) to look into the problem of ‘alcohol related violence’ in Kings Cross, an
entertainment district that had a reputation as a significant crime hotspot. In
order to reduce crime, the state government applied the evidence-based crime
prevention approaches that fit their diagnosis. At the time, crime prevention
practice was heavily dominated by criminological frameworks (such as Crime
Prevention Through Environmental Design (Newman, 1972), Situational
Crime Prevention (Cornish & Clarke, 2003), and Problem Oriented Policing
(Scott & Kirby, 2012)) that leaned heavily on analysis and had very little space
for action outside of what was seen as the evidence (for an earlier exploration
of the nexus of design and crime prevention see Asquith et al., 2013). The DOC
designers reframed the issues of Kings Cross, proposing to look at the area as
if it were a music festival, and from that comparison generated a portfolio of
ideas for better placemaking and management of the entertainment district.
This portfolio of ideas was built on over a number of years and assisted in
the co-evolution of the City’s strategy (for a much more detailed description
of this project and its outcomes see Dorst (2011); Dorst (2015); Dorst et al.
(2016, pp: 14e19, 48e51, 162e181). By its very nature, the radical reframing

There is no such thing as strategic design

7
of Kings Cross (from ‘alcohol related violence’ to ‘a music festival’) is a ‘game
changer’: it cannot be implemented without having deep repercussions for the
key organisations involved. This implies a change agenda for the stakeholders
that have earlier framed the issue, defined the problem, organized themselves
around the response (and thereby possibly, inadvertently kept it in place).

Towards a new strategy: The City of Sydney quickly picked up on the possible
role that they could play within the ‘music festival’ frame, and recast their or-
ganization to become a ‘conductor’ of night-life in the Kings Cross area. From
this much more active, creative position they recalibrated their relations with a
wide group of stakeholders that could be involved in shaping the future of the
Kings Cross experience. They also went much further: the music festival frame
has obvious limitations: (1) many elements of the complex Kings Cross envi-
ronment cannot be captured within this frame (e.g. the experience of local res-
idents), (2) this frame only applies to Kings Cross, which is only a couple of
streets, and merely to a couple of nights per week, mostly in the summer
months. For the City of Sydney to become a true conductor of nightlife
throughout its local government area, it would need frames or development
agendas for all of its different neighbourhoods e some are local entertainment
oriented, others more tourist focused, and yet others are residential. These
would need to be based on evidence as to the current state of the night life
there, and of course involve the participation of citizen, local businesses and
other societal stakeholders. The City of Sydney commissioned research into
the night life (see City of Sydney, 2011) and consulted with residents and stake-
holders about appropriate ambitions and frames for various areas. This re-
sulted in a comprehensive Open Sydney strategy (see City of Sydney, 2013)
that captures the local ambitions and translates them in hundreds of action
points for the short, medium and longer term.

Towards a new organizational structure: The original 2009 Kings Cross project
was done in collaboration with the ‘Safer Sydney’ unit of the City of Sydney as
the commissioning party. In the years after the project, this unit spun out the
‘Night-time Economy team’. This team takes a much more comprehensive and
inclusive view of the meaning, significance and the value of nightlife. The dol-
lar value of the economic transactions of the city at night also became part of
the bottom line, in 2019 Sydney’s night-time economy was $27 billion per an-
num (Deloitte, 2019). The Night-time Economy team set about implementing
many of the recommendations of the Kings Cross project. For example, the
Chill Out Zones designed in the context of the ‘music festival’ frame became
“Take Kare Safe Spaces”, the projected Kings Cross Guides became “Take
Kare Ambassadors”, portable urinals were implemented (Moore, 2011) as
well as portable dynamic signs and secure taxi ranks. The Take Kare Safe
Spaces had an immediate impact, and in the first three years of operation pro-
vided direct support to more than 50 000 people. In some cases this support
was lifesaving (Doran et al., 2018).

Design Studies Vol 86 No. C May 2023

8
 Towards sector-level change: The Kings Cross case study story has been im-
pactful, both in professional practice and in academia. It is seen as an early
example of social design, and a successful case of design contributing to public
sector innovation (Bason, 2010). The project has had direct influence on the
thinking about nightlife in cities like Vancouver, New York, London, Amster-
dam, Berlin, etc. With direct follow-ups in Seoul, Hong Kong, and many other
cities. The founding director of the Night-time Economy team won a Churchill
fellowship to study best practices around the world (Matthews, 2009). In par-
allel, the Night Mayors movement emerged to help cities think about the
importance and potential of the nightlife in a city. In 2019, this movement
had spread to 40 cities across the world (Seijas & Gelders, 2019) supported
by a series of ‘Global Cities after Dark’ conferences, sharing practices and les-
sons on the creation of a thriving night-time economy from around the world -
recognizing the various roles that the Night Mayors play in curating the night-
time as a space for ‘trust and identity building’ (Seijas & Gelders, 2019). The
Kings Cross project is one of the iconic examples that helped establish this new
paradigm and community of practice.

Tragedy strikes: But then in 2012 and 2014, two young men were killed in sepa-
rate unprovoked one-punch attacks in Kings Cross. These tragic deaths were
front-page news, putting pressure on politicians to clamp down on the
“alcohol related violence” in Kings Cross. In response, the state of New South
Wales introduced “Lockout Laws” (reducing trading hours, preventing people
from entering/re-entering a pub, caf
e or restaurant after a certain time and
limiting the service of alcohol). These laws served to make the King Cross
area very unattractive as an entertainment district. Restaurants, cafes, night-
clubs, pubs and shops left or went bankrupt. In total, 176 establishments
closed as a result of the lock-out laws (Taylor, 2018). The introduction of
the Lockout Laws also led to ongoing protest from the community and busi-
ness owners in the area. A political party (Keep Sydney Open) was created to
advocate for their repeal. This sparked an impassioned societal discussion on
what being an ‘international city’ actually means, what the role is of night
entertainment in the life of a city, and how a society can support young people
going through the confusing years when they are coming of age. The City of
Sydney actively facilitated these discussions through platforms like syd-
[Link], while advocating for ‘Sydney as a 24-h city’, commis-
sioning research on the state of the ‘night-time economy’ to benchmark with
other major cities around the world. The New South Wales Government
then also commissioned its own research into the matter. A public inquiry at-
tracted more than 200 submissions (see for instance City of Sydney (2019)) and
in the end, the Lockout Laws were largely repealed in 2019. The New South
Wales Government launched its 24-Hour Economy Strategy in 2020, and in
March 2021 the inaugural 24-Hour Economy Commissioner took his post
(Treasury NSW, 2020).

There is no such thing as strategic design

9
2.3 Reflection
In many ways, the original Kings Cross project originally unfolded as a best
case scenario, achieving strategic impact early on as it was taken up by the
City of Sydney - and it was widely published as a success, including within
this journal (Dorst, 2011). Yet in the longitudinal analysis we run up against
some limitations in the original design intervention. There are several sides
to the story: on the one hand, there is the emergence of a compelling frame
and the design of boundary objects that capture people’s imagination and
lead to success on project level e on the other hand, it proved difficult to create
real and lasting change.

There are a number of lessons that can be learned. In retrospect, there were
some weaknesses in the original Kings Cross project: (1) The designers had
not fully realized that responsibility for the area was shared between the
City of Sydney and several departments in the New South Wales Government.
(2) Secondly, the designers didn’t involve the media in the project, and hence
failed to influence the societal discussion on Kings Cross. When the two tragic
deaths happened, that societal discussion naturally restarted where it left off -
from the old frame of ‘alcohol related violence’. In the years since, the societal
discussion has moved on, and the NSW Government has been reflecting on the
appropriateness of the Lockout Laws as a response to the situation in Kings
Cross. There is now a much more resilient and robust societal discussion
and a better context to really change the situation in Kings Cross for good.

The case study above is unique in that it is well-documented over a period of 10

years post project e on the whole, descriptions of design in the literature tend
to focus on the project level, and miss the longitudinal strategic impact. Yet we
are convinced there is a pattern here: numerous authors have presented case
studies that run into similar difficulties, and commented on the difficulty of
achieving strategic change; Bason (2018), Stacey and Griffin (2007), Tromp
and Hekkert (2019), Willemsen and Watson (2018), Rijken et al. (2012).
Klitsie et al. (2019) even described this dramatically as a ‘Valley of Death’
that has to be overcome. Many design interventions have the potential to
lead to new practices, yet they rarely get to the full strategic impact. And chan-
ces are, the project outcomes then remain vulnerable, because the context of
the organization hasn’t shifted to a new state in which the new design is an
obvious ‘fit’ (Hekkert & van Dijk, 2011).

3 Game Changers
3.1 The dynamics of strategic transformation
What lessons can we draw from this initial case study? What does it tell us
about the link between design practices and strategic impact?

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 The Kings Cross example brings up the question of agency - to be truly ‘stra-
tegic’, design needs to move beyond the role in which it is conventionally cast.
For a new designed solution to ‘change the game’ it needs to exert influence
beyond the confines of the design project, it needs to impact the practices in
the organization(s) involved, the strategy of the organization, perhaps (in
the case of a radical innovation) the processes and structures of an organiza-
tion (to achieve a true ‘paradigm shift’ (Liedtka, 2015)). Figure 2 outlines a
bottom-up learning cycle, where the design projects have a learning cycle of
post project reflection that generates insights, to envisage new project ap-
proaches. This continuous learning loop then informs new organizational
practices, influences organizational strategy, in turn influencing the organiza-
tion’s structure.

Yet the achievement of strategic impact is not a foregone conclusion e de-

signers find it difficult to get heard, and report on this process as an uphill
struggle (see Schaminee (2018); Paton and Dorst (2011)). The problem could

Figure 2 A design project both creates its own learning loop (where reflection leads to insights and envisioning new initiatives/experiments) and
impact on the organization

There is no such thing as strategic design

11
 be that strategy is normally determined top-down (Bason, 2010): the sector or
organization reacts to what is sees as its relevant context (the ‘Field’, as in
‘playing field’ after Bourdieu, see (Grenfell, 2014)), and adapts its structures
and strategies accordingly (see Figure 3). In the case of Kings Cross, the
NSW Government reacted to the public pressure by reinforcing the old strate-
gies that the designer’s project had sought to dislodge. But the practices asso-
ciated with the new ‘music festival’ frame, while successful on the ground, were
just not part of the strategic discussion when the NSW Government reacted to
the two incidents at night time.

Then this creates a blockage between practices and strategy; project-based

design interventions (bottom-up) are kept from strategic impact by the top-
down approach to strategy formulation.

Figure 3 Project-based design interventions are blocked from strategic impact by the top-down approach to strategy formulation

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12
 But this barrier can be bypassed by using the insights that come from the pro-
jects to directly influence the Field (thereby changing the perception that an
organisation has of its relevant environment). This creates a new dynamic,
combining the two movements: as the insights that come from the projects
are used to create a new Field, the organisation adapts to this new Field by us-
ing its normal top-down adaptive processes, and meets the bottom-up move-
ment halfway (see Figure 4). As seen in the aftermath of the Kings Cross
project, the societal discussion that was sparked by the Lockout Laws (in
Figure 4: the shift in the ‘Field’, in this case the societal discussion) has finally
created the context for the outcomes of the initial Kings Cross project - and its
reframing of the Kings Cross situation as a ‘music festival’ - to be supported.

With this model, we have a fledgling framework in which design and strategic
impact are related. In our practice, we have experimented with this “fledgling”
(Darke, 1979) Game Changers model through many projects, and in the
context of a professional Masters. It has proven to be useful for design and

Figure 4 The Game Changers model, capturing the dynamics of reframing and strategic transformation

There is no such thing as strategic design

13
innovation practitioners, both as a map and a help in finding new ways for-
ward towards strategic impact. But please note that this fledgling model is
based on a number of assumptions and simplifications: e.g., in reality, the pro-
cesses are not nearly as linear as they are portrayed. The arrows between the
layers go both ways, there is learning happening across them. In the case of
Kings Cross, this realignment has eventually occurred but it has taken ten
years, and two tragedies, and a government keen to kick-start the economy af-
ter a recession, to really change the game and shift the strategic thinking away
from crime prevention.

4 Discussion
4.1 The theoretical movements revisited
We will now briefly revisit the three theoretical ‘movements’ from section 2: (1)
extending design, (2) creating a middle ground and (3) design in the context of
strategy development, using them as a framework to structure the discussion
of the case study and model.

4.1.1 Extending design

The case study and the model from section 3 imply that for the outcome of the
design intervention to be taken on board, it may be necessary to first create a
context. For the City of Sydney, this apparently was not necessary: the stra-
tegic impact there was pretty much achieved bottom-up (see Figure 2), mostly
through the support of some remarkable individuals within the organization.
But the counter-example of the NSW Government has shown that this might
be vulnerable: strategic impact there was achieved not through a direct exten-
sion of design practices (from bottom-up to strategic impact), but it took a sec-
ond, very different, top-down process.

The model in Figure 4 introduces two new elements: (1) the notion of a ‘Field’
and (2) the arrow that bypasses the top-down/bottom-up blockage by connect-
ing the insights that are sparked by design projects directly to the Field. While
changing the perception on the Field level is not normally seen as a core attri-
bute of design practice, yet for strategic impact to occur, it can be crucial. This
is nothing new: in conventional (product) design practice this strategic influ-
ence might develop over time in the designereclient relationship, where the in-
fluence that a designer might have on the ‘Field’ increases as a trusted client
relationship grows over many projects. Then the designer will find themselves
in strategic discussions with the client, on a portfolio-level and beyond (see
Lawson & Dorst, 2013).

The case study does call into question the silent assumption within design
practice that if only the ideas and design concepts that result from a project
are good enough, they will more or less inevitably lead to greater impact

Design Studies Vol 86 No. C May 2023

14
 and strategic change within the organization. The model above serves to
contextualize that (rather na€ıve) optimism, showing that there is a structural
problem associated with the fact that design starts from the lived world, work-
ing bottom-up, while strategy is often determined top-down, and is therefore
bounded by the rationality that dominates the field.

4.1.2 Creating a middle ground

A middle ground, or a hybrid practice where strategy practitioners learn and
adapt approaches from design to their own context is potentially very fruitful.
This would be particularly useful in the middle of the Game Changers model
where the bottom-up and top-down can come into conflict. We see this conflict
play out in the Kings Cross case study, in the struggle between the City of Syd-
ney’s quite designerly human-centred approach in co-evolving their strategy
with key stakeholders, and the NSW Governments’ linear, top-down
approach to developing their strategy e very much following the Rea and
Kerzner (1997) linear model of strategy development and implementation.
The Strategy as Practice model proposed by Sobel and Schweitzer (2022)
sketches some elements of what this middle ground could be comprised of.

4.1.3 Using design in the context of strategy development

This then also opens up the possibility for the use of design practices in strat-
egy development, to support the top-down strategy development process in
ways that already integrate the insights of design interventions. This moves
beyond the tactical application of designerly approaches to strategy develop-
ment that Carlopio outlined, useful as they are. Again, reflecting on the case
study, it is interesting to compare the different approaches from the City of
Sydney and NSW Government e the latter driving a classic strategy develop-
ment process, ostensibly based on ‘evidence based approaches’. Though the
sad irony of the story is that the Lockout Laws would not have prevented
the two one-punch attacks, as those were both early in the evening and not
the result of late-night drinking. So the evidence was not even there.

This gives us pause for thought. Apparently, something else is at play, that we
haven’t considered yet.

4.2 The missing practices

What could explain the NSW Government’s behaviour in this case, and what
can we learn from this in terms of possible missing practices that design should
be adopting to achieve strategic impact?

For this, we need to turn to the field of Change Management. As a quick intro-
duction we will use the meta-analysis by Vermaak and de Caluwe (2018),
captured succinctly in their ‘Colors of Change’ model. To capture the dy-
namics (or lack thereof) of organizational change, they have created a meta-

There is no such thing as strategic design

15
 model of change paradigms that sheds light on the challenges/forces at play
when working with organizational structures and the various cultures around
change that exist there. In the context of this paper we cannot do justice to the
extensive body of literature on Change Management in general, or on this
model in particular (and the many case studies that elucidate its application).
To just skim the surface, Figure 5 contains quotes to explain what the Colors
of Change stand for.

Please note that all of these change paradigms are equally valid and useful e
one could argue that for an organization to be resilient, it probably would need
elements of most or all of these.

On reflection, Design’s most natural way to influence change most closely

aligns with the colors Green (learning), Red (motivational) and possibly White
(motion). This is exactly why ‘Design Thinking’ and design-driven innovation
are so attractive to some people in hierarchical ‘command and control’ orga-
nisations: designerly approaches then hold the promise of moving away from
the often dominant Yellow (power) and Blue (planning and control) styles of
thinking, and broaden out the repertoire of practices for achieving change
(Sangiori, 2011).

Figure 5 The colors of change model, Vermaak and de Caluwe (2018). The change mechanisms are labelled as ‘colors’ to avoid naming or
labelling them in ways would always read tendentious to some people

Design Studies Vol 86 No. C May 2023

16
 Yet design’s concentration on learning comes with its own set of assumptions
about the capability of the organization to support learning as a change strat-
egy (Argyris, 2000). And this is where a design approach to strategic change
becomes quite vulnerable: when we take all of these five change strategies to
be omnipresent in most organizations, then it is precisely the ones design
does not engage with that become blockers. This is what we have seen this
in the Kings Cross example: the intervention from the NSW state government
(‘yellow’) through the lockout laws (‘blue’) is what held back the progress in
the area for many years. It was only when the societal discussion moved
away from polarization to more of a learning dialogue that the results of
the design intervention could become embedded in new ways of working
and a new strategies for the NSW Government. Only then could the design
intervention achieve a lasting strategic impact.

5 Concluding remarks
5.1 There is no such thing as strategic design
Our provocative paper title “There is no such thing as Strategic Design” is
based on more than just semantics. The authors are concerned about Design’s
readiness to hold a space in the strategic landscape. While the field is still
shaping up and the discussion on strategic design in the literature is confused
by the rich variety of connections one might propose, strategic design courses
are created that hold the promise of strategic impact.

Looking at the case we can see the many complex relationships between design
and strategic impact come alive, simultaneously. The impression is that there is
not one kind of strategic design, but that there are at least two that will often
need to work in parallel: to be effective, there needs to be a synchronized mo-
tion of top down and bottomeup processes that are based on quite different
design modus operandi, capabilities and practices. And the designers need
to learn how to deal with the issues of organizational change in a much
more sophisticated manner. Bottom-up design may be tone-deaf to the voices
of power and planning, top-down strategy making could be blind to the op-
portunities that come from reframing and learning. Yet for real change to
occur, they need to work in concert.

This conceptual exploration is just the beginning, building a first understand-

ing of the ’what’ and ’how’ of strategic impact of design practices. The empir-
ical basis for this work needs to be extended and strengthened, enriching the
picture through insights from many more empirical (case) studies. We hope
to have convinced the reader that the longitudinal impact of design interven-
tions is an interesting and important object of study e for the establishment of
strategic design as a field, and for the maturity of design research (as its

There is no such thing as strategic design

17
ultimate measure of quality and success should be grounded in a firm grasp of
the impact of a design project/intervention).

In this paper, the Game Changers model seeks to map some of the dynamics of
how design interventions lead to strategic impact. Through the Colors of
Change model, we have seen that to create strategic impact practitioners might
need to adopt, adapt or develop practices to navigate organizational blockers
to change. And in doing this we have to consider the different types of strategy
that make up a healthy strategic portfolio for an organization (across incre-
mental, adjacent and transformational change), as they are bound to require
quite different (design) interventions. The intersections between these three
models start to more fully describe the complex, multi-dimensional landscape
of strategic design.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or
personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported
in this paper.

Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the staff and students of the Designing Out
Crime research Centre, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the
University of Technology Sydney who contributed to the Kings Cross case
study project, and the NSW Department of Justice who provided funding to
UTS for the work of the Designing Out Crime Research Centre.

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