BUILDING INSIGHTS: The power of strategic thinking in design

There are “traditional” designers and there are “strategic thinking” designers. Traditional designers often follow strict guidelines and do not think beyond the assigned tasks and the impact they could have with their work.

Designers are often underutilized and assigned mundane, trivial and minor problem-solving tasks. This approach wastes valuable talent and potential positive impacts on and with the final project. The professional training and expertise of most designers allow for a wider set of fundamental problem-solving skills that can have significant positive impacts on business outcomes.

What differentiates strategic thinking design and traditional design?

Traditional designers are often trained to use tools and techniques oriented toward solving a broadly defined problem like repairing the façade, rather than looking at the situation holistically to understand and question the fundamental issue. Designers often do not have an opportunity to question a design brief, which prevents a strategic framing of the problem at the beginning of a project that could be critical to the outcome.

Strategic thinking designers apply the principles of traditional design to big picture systemic challenges such as healthcare, education, and the environment. For example: An architect, hired to redesign an overcrowded school, reordered the bell schedule and staggered the dismissal of classes rather than proposing a new building. He saved the school millions of dollars by looking at the problem differently.

The architect in the case above lost the opportunity to charge for a lucrative contract by looking more deeply, asking smart questions, and coming up with a clever solution. This is a classic example that illustrates that it is the duty of the designer to offer a truly honest solution, especially if it means avoiding the significant cost of an entirely new building.

Strategic thinking designers need to see the difference between the design of the project and its delivery to users in the real-world and recognize that this is an opportunity to extend their value.

The strategic thinking designer acts as a steward that accepts the reality and its associated conditions and leads clients with a sure hand throughout the project. The traditional designer when isolated from the real-world users may expect their project to perform exceptionally well, but ultimately, they can find themselves unprepared for unexpected obstacles, or new constraints encountered on the path to project delivery.

The strategic designer needs to possess the ability to confidently pivot in times of flux or uncertainty to help avoid the potential collapse of a project and also open new design opportunities for innovative problem-solving.

Strategic thinking design must start at the initiation of a project when key decisions are made to facilitate wider and more comprehensive inputs to help frame the problem accurately. The strategic thinking design provides a more valuable asset to any project with a more substantial impact on all-inclusive systemic challenges.

Closing Thought

“Design thinking is the search for a magical balance between business and art, structure and chaos, intuition and logic, concept and execution, playfulness and formality, and control and empowerment.”— Idris Mootee, co-founder & CEO, Urbancoollab

Glenn Ebersole is a registered professional engineer and is the Director of Business Development at JL Architects, a West Chester-based architectural firm serving clients locally, regionally and nationally. He can be reached at gebersole@jlarchs.com or 717-575-8572.