Nine top tips

Unsure of how to kick-start innovation within your company? Bettina von Stamm shows you how and where to begin

• Start with a 'design temperature check'
  Find out what people's attitude to and understanding of design in your organisation is. Have designers been used in the past? What were the results? Was the experience positive or negative, and why? If you consider trying to use designers more, you need to understand where your organisation is coming from - otherwise you may encounter unnecessary resistance.
• Identify prejudices against design within your organisation
  Create occasions where people can see, feel and understand the contributions of design to innovation. For instance, you could run two projects in parallel: one with a designer, one without. 
• Create a competition that requires a collaboration of design and business students One interesting way to find out about something and gain insight and knowledge is to set up a competition. Generally quite low in cost, it can produce some exciting results - show what is possible, generate great awareness internally, and as a spin-off can also generate some great external publicity. And of course it might give you some great marketable ideas. 
• Consider undertaking a design audit
  There are various tools available that can help you assess your design capability. For example, in their book Design Agenda (John Wiley and Sons, 1994), Rachel Cooper and Mike Press offer insights into how to approach an internal design audit.
• Visit a company that successfully employs designers to enhance its innovation capability
  To find out what design can contribute to the innovation process, and how to integrate design into your business you may want to visit a company that you believe has used designers successfully. Whatever academic and other writings may say, there is nothing like being able to talk to someone who has experienced something first hand.
• Invite a designer to become part of a project team
  If you are not sure about the value of using a designer, but are open enough to give it a try, invite a designer to become part of the project team and see what happens. However, note that unless the experiment is entered into with sincere commitment, the full benefits are not likely to be reaped. All you will achieve is the 'see, I told you so' effect.
• Involve a designer as non-executive director
  If you want someone who challenges assumptions and traditions - and as an organisation, you should want to do that - then inviting a designer to become a non-executive director on your company's board might be an interesting idea. Most likely, he or she will also be able to give you some insights into the latest trends and developments in the market.
• Commission or support some research
  If you would like to have some evidence of the benefits of integrating design into your innovation process, you may even want to consider commissioning some research that would give you some 'ammunition' to sell your ambition internally.
• Form a consortium or discussion group with other companies
  This could be done either within or, probably even more interestingly, across industries. You might want to create a forum in which experiences with using design can be discussed, and views exchanged.