An investigation into European design management capability assessment

Abstract

This thesis investigates factors which promote design management success and considers how design management capabilities in businesses and organisations can be assessed. The investigation is based on exploration and identification of important factors for the successful use of design management. A review of the literature confirms the assimilation between the design process and NPD process success factor research, resulting in the development of the concept design management. A comprehensive list of the nine most frequently referenced NPD process success factors is derived from 64 research studies. A contextual review confirms the validity of the Design Management Staircase Model, the only known model to evaluate design management capabilities. The validity of the nine factors for promoting design management success is analysed based on a dataset gathered through the Design Management Europe (DME) Award. This validity is confirmed through an analysis of qualitative data gathered with DME Award entrants. The third part of the analysis builds the basis for a comparison between the Design Management Staircase Model and the NPD process success factors. This investigation provides insight into the design management capabilities of companies, identifying which factors are of greatest importance for design management capability assessment. Further, the analysis demonstrates that a complete process more important than any single factor. The PhD contributes to new knowledge regarding the importance of design management to business resourcing, a meta-analysis that reveals the nine most important factors for design management, the importance of a process driven approach to factor implementation, and a set of recommendations for the development of an improved design management capability assessment model. The underlying message of the results in this PhD thesis is that successful design management capabilities are highly dependent on the right expertise and building a complete process which consists of nine success factors.