I absolutely agree with all of this, as well as Peter's comments. If a design "manager" doesn't have some sense of responsibility (or at least interested awareness) of all of those pesky things you list below, there's almost no way that that the design team is coming up with appropriate solutions that solve real world problems within relevent business constraints and market opportunities.
To me, design is about bringing all of these things together in a creative way. Artifacts and outputs aside, it's just not that different than "good business." (By which, I do not mean, in any way, to devalue design.) -d > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Christopher Fahey > Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 10:01 AM > To: IxDA > Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Managers (was: d schools) > > I think we should distinguish between two types of management here. > There's managing a design group or team, and then there's > managing a business. These are different things, although > there is overlap. The difference is that managing a business > encompasses everything that managing a design team does, plus > a lot of other stuff: > * Marketing & Advertising > * Accounting and Taxes > * Infrastructure, Physical Plant, and Technology > * Business Development, Mergers and Aquisitions, > Strategic partnerships > * Sales and distribution, supply chain management > * Legal > * etc. > > This is what MBAs usually mean by "management". Managing a > design team is qualitatively narrower in scope than managing > a business. It just is. When business people talk about > management at a strategic level, they're not thinking about > majors and sergeants, they're thinking colonels and generals. > > What's more, I'm not sure that managing a design team > requires much "business-specific" education anyway. It takes > a lot of talent and the ability to do many things other than > hands-on design, of course. > But most designers, I think, can learn to manage designers > simply by working with other designers and having the genuine > desire to take responsibility for and take charge of people > and projects. > > Moving from designing stuff to managing a design team > requires that you adjust your priorities a little bit, and > take on new responsibilities and develop new skills. But > moving from managing a design team to managing a business of > any substantial size (50+) requires a profound and > fundamental change of focus, I think, a change that for > almost anyone who tries will putt hands-on design, and even > intimate design team management, far into the background. > Many designers are capable of this, but not as many as I > would like to see. Perhaps it is because, as Bruce Nussbaum > pointed out (in his response to my response to his response > to my response to his article), design is so much fun and > spiritually satisfying that so many of us hate to push it far > to the side in order to take on the kind of responsibilities > managing a business entails. > > -Cf > > Christopher Fahey > ____________________________ > Behavior > biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com > me: http://www.graphpaper.com > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe > ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List > Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List > Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://gamma.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://gamma.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://gamma.ixda.org/help
