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The "future cone"-adapted from Hancock and Bezold (1993) The objective of Foresight is to consider different ways (alternative futures) in which the external environment may evolve over the next 5-15 years, or even longer (Dator, 2009; Slaughter, 2002; Voros, 2003). To illustrate its significance, innovation stakeholders ask, "what would the response to uncertainty have to be if a future were to unfold that was distinctively different from the one anticipated in the current strategic innovation plan"? Foresight methodologies express these types of inquiries in form of futures scenario statements that help prepare for, or actively shape the future (Bishop, Hines, & Collins, 2007). These methodologies are usually qualitative rather than quantitative in nature (Cuhls, 2003). The practice of Foresight is effective when decision-makers expand beyond subjective views of reality and consider more closely the relationship between objective reality (fact-based, measurable and observable) and possible futures (Mietzner & Reger, 2005). Thinking about different possibilities through futures scenario building allows decisionmakers at the strategic end of innovation to envisage different future possibilities and outcomes. Consequently, a systematic approach to futures thinking is based on futures scenarios that explore holistic, integrated, and alternative futures, that contain tangible images of how preferable and desirable futures might be shaped. Contrary to the conventional practice of extrapolating trends from the present, as in forecasting, futures scenarios are speculative images of preferable and desirable futures that form a necessary foundation of the scenario planning process (Slaughter, 2000; L. Wilkinson, 1997).
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In this conceptual paper, we review the literature spanning the Strategic Planning, Foresight and Design disciplines with the emphasis placed on how innovation stakeholders may engage with the future in order to explore the challenges to decision-making they highlight. From this review, and a series of facilitators identified by the authors in prev...
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Context 1
... (2002), in Voros (2003, positions foresight applied in business as a pragmatic approach to addressing the strategic questions of how to survive in an increasing competitive environment. Foresight methodologies use techniques such as macro trend analysis and expert knowledge to explore alternative futures ( Figure 2) and classify them into possible (might happen), plausible (could happen), probable (likely to happen), and preferable (wanting to happen) (Hancock & Bezold, 1993;Voros, 2001). (1993) The objective of Foresight is to consider different ways (alternative futures) in which the external environment may evolve over the next 5 -15 years, or even longer (Dator, 2009;Slaughter, 2002;Voros, 2003). ...
Context 2
... (2002), in Voros (2003, positions foresight applied in business as a pragmatic approach to addressing the strategic questions of how to survive in an increasing competitive environment. Foresight methodologies use techniques such as macro trend analysis and expert knowledge to explore alternative futures ( Figure 2) and classify them into possible (might happen), plausible (could happen), probable (likely to happen), and preferable (wanting to happen) (Hancock & Bezold, 1993;Voros, 2001). (1993) The objective of Foresight is to consider different ways (alternative futures) in which the external environment may evolve over the next 5 -15 years, or even longer (Dator, 2009;Slaughter, 2002;Voros, 2003). ...
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... As defined by Conway (2021), FSF is meant to create better organisational structures and processes to tackle rising uncertainties. While some design and FSF researchers and theorists tried to juxtapose FSF and design thinking as an integrated methodology (Hines & Zindato, 2016;Gordon et al., 2019;Bühring & Liedtka, 2018) and others reflected upon the critical co-creative potential of foresight methods (Wilkinson et al., 2014;Bourgeois et al., 2017;Miller, 2015), many FSF practitioners (Waverley Consultants, 2017;Dyrman et al, 2018;Smith & Ashby, 2020) noted the lack of human-centred perspectives within standard FSF practices. ...
This paper evaluates the human‐centric, systemic and near future‐driven components of Service Design to understand how they can work within a Future Studies and Foresight (FSF) framework. Expanding on empirical evidence gathered from a case study with renters and shareowners in Danish cooperative housing associations (Andelsboligforeningen), the paper looks at how the application of Service Design – within Future Studies and Foresight (FSF, hereafter) – can facilitate a fine‐grained and inclusive rebuilding of our socio‐technical systems in a way that allows end‐users to understand and engage with them more productively. The paper provides a theoretical reflection on the gestalt emerging from bridging Service Design and FSF and how this can inspire and establish strategic viewpoints on how to co‐design complex systems embedded in different socio‐technical dimensions.
... De fato, para a construção de cenários, são necessárias competências diferentes, distribuídas difusamente na organização e, eventualmente, fora dela, detidas por stake-holders ou especialistas autônomos. No campo do design, o recurso a especialistas externos é recomendado por diversos autores e testemunhado pelo caso da Alessi (POLINORO, 1993a;MAURI, 1996;CELASCHI;DESERTI, 2007;MERONI, 2008;ZURLO, 2010;SELIN et al., 2015;FREIRE, 2017;BÜHRING;LIEDTKA, 2018). A colaboração resulta do diálogo entre os participantes e da articulação de seu trabalho, inclusive por meio de atividades de workshops. ...
... De fato, para a construção de cenários, são necessárias competências diferentes, distribuídas difusamente na organização e, eventualmente, fora dela, detidas por stake-holders ou especialistas autônomos. No campo do design, o recurso a especialistas externos é recomendado por diversos autores e testemunhado pelo caso da Alessi (POLINORO, 1993a;MAURI, 1996;CELASCHI;DESERTI, 2007;MERONI, 2008;ZURLO, 2010;SELIN et al., 2015;FREIRE, 2017;BÜHRING;LIEDTKA, 2018). A colaboração resulta do diálogo entre os participantes e da articulação de seu trabalho, inclusive por meio de atividades de workshops. ...
O design estratégico fez evoluir o processo de construção de cenários a partir das elaborações que ocorreram no planejamento estratégico. O artigo discute esse processo nos dois campos, para evidenciar as apropriações projetuais operadas pelo design estratégico, ao longo desse percurso, e valorizar seus diferenciais. Baseia-se na análise comparativa de dois modelos processuais já consolidados na literatura de cada campo disciplinar. O aprofundamento do modelo de design estratégico é suportado pela exposição de um processo projetual elaborado pela empresa Alessi. Por meio dessa análise, o artigo evidencia que, no design estratégico, a construção de cenários é eminentemente um processo orientado pela imaginação e para a inovação. Especificamente, é orientado à inovação dirigida pelo design, um tipo de inovação que trabalha com os significados dos artefatos e que, logo, insere-se nas dinâmicas de produção simbólica do meio sociocultural. Nessa direção, no design estratégico, a construção de cenários não é necessariamente de tipo previsional, mesmo que mantenha uma relação com o futuro. Por isso, o artigo diferencia os conceitos de previsão e de antecipação, dando preferência ao segundo.
... Most product managers intuitively recognize the role strategic design management plays for their organization's competitiveness and nancial performance (Buehring and Liedtka 2018;Buchanan 2015;Borja de Mozota 1998;2006;Chiva and Alegre 2009). The academic literature in business management has also come to acknowledge the benefits of design-based differentiation as a method to translate overall firm strategy into distinctive elements of a product's form that allow them to stand out from those of rivals. ...
... An ongoing shift in business research is to portray design's role within rms as a "managed process" (Bruce and Bessant 2002;Gruber, De Leon, George, and Thompson 2015) alongside other more traditional areas of organizational strategy such as nance, operations management, marketing and innovation (Buehring and Liedtka 2018;Micheli, Perks, Beverland 2018). Accordingly, the concept of Design Management, broadly defined as "… the organizational and managerial practices and skills that allow a company to attain good, effective design" (Chiva and Alegre 2009) has received increasing scholarly attention. ...
... Margaret Peteraf and Jay Barney (2003) argue that the resource-based view (RBV) of business strategy results from not simply the existence of critical resources but rather the ways that those resources are used in a superior way. The Nike Elite socks case study appears to provide a vivid example of the critical role strategic design management (Buehring and Liedtka 2018;Buchanan 2015; Borja de Mozota 1998) provides design-driven firms with a complex "bundle of resources" that provides a powerful source of competitive advantage based on their value, rarity, and inimitability (Barney 2001). In addition, this paper provides much-needed clarity around how design-driven firms are able to direct their design-based resources/capabilities to product offerings to performance by highlighting the concept of pricing power as a concrete means for capturing the singular design-based resources and capabilities that create perceptual and symbolic value (Lizou, Hinterhuber, Boland, and Perelli 2011). ...
The belief that strategic design leads to improved firm competitiveness is broadly recognised in contemporary research. However, much less is understood about the precise , concrete mechanisms by which organizations translate their design-based resources and capabilities into higher performance. This paper provides context to this relationship by introducing the variable of pricing power as a potential element of unobserved "dark matter" that clarifies how design-based differentiation results in product performance. Pricing power is described by Stephan Liozu (2019) as "the ability to increase prices without losing demand". Remarkably, nowhere in the vast literature on pricing is design mentioned, while in parallel pricing has not appeared to be of particular interest to strategic design researchers. In an effort to spur further interest in this variable a case study is provided, illustrating the process footwear and apparel brand Nike employed to leverage design-based differentiation to support the pricing power of a new offering.
... Bell (1996) Thinking is a methodology meant to explore and develop creativity for a post-anthropocentric context. Since technological advancements and innovations can modify and reshape social, environmental and economic dynamics, it becomes paramount for decision makers to increase their awareness on such implications and try to foresee, control and manage them efficiently in order to move strategically towards their preferred future (Bühring & Liedtka, 2018). Indeed, companies should find creative and original ways to respond to these ongoing technological transformations to succeed in the future. ...
The post-Anthropocene era profoundly influences human beings, who need to develop new competencies and skills, among which creativity is one of the most important. Creativity, as the ability to generate a new and original outcome, is required to face complex social and sustainability challenges specific for an uncertain future; it can also help move towards a just and inclusive digital and green transformation. However, along with digital advancement, creativity transforms as well, acquiring new forms, and through design future methods can be channelled to play the role of a guiding value. We should start to ask ourselves how to expand the definition of creativity to make it more inclusive to non-human agents and rethink the values and ethics involved in its process. What new skills, methods and approaches do we need today to design for a more-than-human world? This chapter presents a framework that redefines creativity in the post-Anthropocene era from the authors’ perspectives, and foregrounds four relevant dimensions to keep in a dynamic balance: Regenerative Creativity, Digital Creativity, Ethics and Futures Thinking.KeywordsPost-anthropocentric creativityDigital and sustainable transformationEthicsFutures thinkingDigital Creativity
... TF is often conflated with 'future(s) thinking' or 'horizon scanning', but they are distinct concepts [145,146]. The former is more of a mindset whereas the latter is often used as a method within the more process-oriented TF [147]. TA and TF are together referred to as TAF for the remainder of this text. ...
Industry is adopting artificial intelligence (AI) at a rapid pace and a growing number of countries have declared national AI strategies. However, several spectacular AI failures have led to ethical concerns about responsibility in AI development and use, which gave rise to the emerging field of responsible AI (RAI). The field of responsible innovation (RI) has a longer history and evolved toward a framework for the entire research, development, and innovation life cycle. However, this research demonstrates that the uptake of RI by RAI has been slow. RAI has been developing independently, with three times the number of publications than RI. The objective and knowledge contribution of this research was to understand how RAI has been developing independently from RI and contribute to how RI could be leveraged toward the progression of RAI in a causal loop diagram. It is concluded that stakeholder engagement of citizens from diverse cultures across the Global North and South is a policy leverage point for moving the RI adoption by RAI toward global best practice. A role-specific recommendation for policy makers is made to deploy modes of engaging with the Global South with more urgency to avoid the risk of harming vulnerable populations. As an additional methodological contribution, this study employs a novel method, systematic science mapping, which combines systematic literature reviews with science mapping. This new method enabled the discovery of an emerging ‘axis of adoption’ of RI by RAI around the thematic areas of ethics, governance, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability. 828 Scopus articles were mapped for RI and 2489 articles were mapped for RAI. The research presented here is by any measure the largest systematic literature review of both fields to date and the only crossdisciplinary review from a methodological perspective.
... Mozuni and Jonas (2017) argue that the Delphi technique combined with a morphological analysis could help designers to integrate SF into their design process. Different terms have been coined to describe these combinations of DT and SF, including "Foresight by Design" (Buehring & Liedtka, 2018), "Strategic Design" (Buehring & Bishop, 2020), "Design-Led Strategy" (Knight et al., 2020), "Anticipatory Design" (Celi & Colombi, 2020), and "Design for the Speculative Future" (Dong et al., 2020). Given the attention to this field in both theory and practice, we intend to extend respective knowledge. ...
... In Table 1, we summarize our findings with respect to the methods mentioned in the context of DT and design research to deal with the future. As a consequence for our future-focused study we concentrate on the prevalent methods identified by Popper (2008) deliberately excluding ex-post oriented literature reviews and enhance this set of methods by innate futurist methods of intuition and experience or knowledge of the future as well as science fiction novels and movies that occurred frequently in the scientific discussion (e.g., Bleecker, 2009;Coulton et al., 2016;Micheli et al., 2019;Buehring & Liedtka, 2018). ...
... The notion can be found in the literature on DT (Beckman & Barry, 2007;Buehring & Liedtka, 2018, 2011Lewrick et al., 2018Lewrick et al., , 2015Micheli et al., 2019), that the intuition and experience or knowledge of those involved in projects concerning trends and the future play a role. We refer here to individuals who either have experience working with trends or who are particularly skilled at detecting trends. ...
Many organizations use design thinking (DT) to develop future products and services. DT is often used for its ability to serve as a common “language” and platform to enable market-facing departments and technology-oriented units to cocreate innovations. DT has been shown to be a powerful tool for helping to identify and connect the needs of average customers (personas) with technical solutions that form the basis for winning products. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which DT professionals already use strategic foresight (SF) methods that anticipate future customer needs and highlight emerging technologies to expand classical DT and anchor their projects in the future. Using survey data on 302 DT projects, we report on the extent to which SF methods are used in DT projects, the overriding types of SF methods in DT projects, and their impact on project success.
... Design developments at scale drive change for business and Design leaders, requiring them to become more foresighted, and to nurture a firm's strategic and creative capabilities, which must positively impact the performance, and sustainability, of the business over the long-term (Banerjee and Duflo 2019;Buehring and Liedtka 2018;Sardar 2020;Rohrbeck et al. 2015). In response to the many challenges ahead, global industry leaders no longer can afford to operate in today's hyper-connected economy in 'business as usual' modes (Gelles and Yaffe-Bellany 2019). ...
... Borja de Mozota 1998) have noticed the strategic value of bridging Design and business functions in support of decision-making. This produced wide evidence of Design's strategic value for its linkages with business concepts as the purpose of any strategy: including issues of foresight, competitive advantage, and Design as a core competency (Buehring and Liedtka 2018;Meroni 2008;Holland and Lam 2014). But if the models exist among academia, both Design practitioners and business practitioners are not looking into these models as a universal whole. ...
... Then, the circular compass of Doughnut economics is similar to the circular presentation of Design research (Borja de Mozota and Wolff 2019), and the designers change of position in business from an operational, tactical, to the emerging strategic responsibilities (Buehring and Liedtka 2018). We suggest the word "design omics" for this representation of the Design industry divided into three domains: Design leadership, Design management, and Design, where the safe space for humanity (all life) is in the middle circle. ...
The world is changing, so are the demands on the Design industry, from businesses, and society as a whole. Design fundamentally is about change as it responds to the external environment to identify opportunities to create new design activities and outcomes. Consequently, design (in theory and practice) tends to elevate its role as a catalyst for change, influencing strategic decisions, producing clear visions, shared beliefs, and values, and the models, methods, and tools to innovate with an emphasis on a systemic, whole-system interpretation of sustainable development. Why is it that Design professionals and Design academics don't exchange their knowledge for the common good? In this paper, therefore, a central objective is to build an argument for why the value of Design in business, and its economics thinking and approach in management, need a common purpose system view to tackle this century's technological, ethical, social, and ecological challenges. In the end, Design is seen as complex, while designers advocate for specific capabilities to innovate by making things simple and better. To achieve a common ground, we refer to Donella Meadows’ definition of a system and to the literature on the Design industry. We use her model to draw a simple form that brings together all parts of design activity, practice, or theory in order to develop a collective vision and help the understanding of the Design industry's purpose, ethics, and responsibility for a life-centred future.KeywordsDesign industryDoughnut economicsSystems theoryDesign valueDesign in businessStrategic design
... The author's previous research was focused on the analysis of the common ground between systemic uncertainty, future, and knowledge [20,21], referring to, among others, the idea of cones of "future, uncertainty, plausibility, possibilities and everything" [22][23][24][25][26][27]. The idea of future cone has been promoted most strongly by J. Voros [15,[28][29][30][31][32], whose prototype can be found in the works of Amara [33], and Hancock and Bezold [34]. ...
A wide methodological spectrum regarding future research is offered by anticipation studies, with a special role of foresight studies. Many studies of this type focus on generating the desired future, taking into account the fact that it is accompanied by uncertainty. The author of this publication postulates treating uncertainty as an equivalent-in relation to the future-research object. This approach allows us to formulate general assumptions for a model of the anticipatory management of systemic uncertainty in IoT networks. The goal of such a model will not be to eliminate or even minimize uncertainty, but to regulate it to a desired level. Such an action can bring many more benefits than trying to zero out uncertainty. On the general side, uncertainty can be studied in two ways: (1) as an abstract idea, or (2) as a feature of a particular structure, also with elements of research on its abstract component. In this paper the attention is focused on the second approach. The main research area is the IoT network in its broadest sense, with a particular role of the social construct, in the context of the study of systemic uncertainty in relation to selected anticipatory actions. The overarching goal is to define a desired state, or to determine what such a desired state is, of anticipatory IoT uncertainty.
... Previous research has been attentive towards how components of design can support organizations in their strategizing practices (Buehring & Liedtka, 2018;Liedtka & Mintzberg, 2006), e.g. researchers have proposed that design can play a significant role in how organizations plan, decide and act to influence and take a more emergent approach to the future (Buehring & Bishop, 2020). ...
... researchers have proposed that design can play a significant role in how organizations plan, decide and act to influence and take a more emergent approach to the future (Buehring & Bishop, 2020). Specifically, design tools have been proposed as approaches to help frame relevant issues and favour the emergence of creative possibilities to address these issues; the fact that the processes tend to rely on prototyping and other design representations give organizations the possibility to engage and experiment with an array of possible and desirable futures (Buehring & Liedtka, 2018;Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018). ...
... aware of their feelings and needs (Dzombak & Beckman, 2020, p. 576). Buehring and Liedtka (2018) observed that novices and also experienced team members thrive with supportive tools like the job-tobe-done framework (Klement, 2018) or journey mapping (Brandão & Wolfram, 2018) to get a better feel of the needs and behaviours of the affected people (Buehring & Liedtka, 2018, p. 142). But even simple observation must be learned. ...
This thesis documents a research endeavour into the cognitive processes in Design Thinking. The goal was to identify the optimal way to think in the various phases of a Design Thinking project.
The research draws on the findings in design, positive psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience to analyse the Design Thinking process and to map and match thinking modes with the phases of the process.
The fundamental literature review covers three topics:
The research into Design Thinking provides a comprehensive insight into the method and its scientific fundament. Then, creativity as a social product and the cognitive processes relevant to creativity are documented. Thirdly, emotion and its relation to creativity and the Limbic® Map approach are presented. Finally, automatic emotion recognition with deep learning based artificial intelligence algorithms are introduced.
The first stages of empirical research revealed that emotions and other affective states are unworkable for reliable research results. Similarly, it could be shown that “mindset” has no scientifically approved definition, making the concept unsuitable for robust research.
Further research identified five pairs of cognitive functions needed in Design Thinking. Three pairs address information processing (Acquisition of Data, Alignment of Perception, and Assessment of Information and Ideas), and two address flow control of cognition (Attention to a specific task and Awareness of the Cognitive Process). The research further investigated methods to activate and guide the cognitive functions in a project.
Moreover, the importance of including creative professionals in a Design Thinking process was revealed. Research in neuroscience indicates specific abilities of creative people identifiable in the very brain network connections.
The research also discovered new insights into the “Groan Zone”. The findings indicate that a change in the attitude and approach to the “Groan Zone” could considerably change the outcome of a Design Thinking project.
