Alta Scuola Politecnica XVI Cycle | Design Methods & Processes
1. The challenge of innovating today
1.1 Background
Over the past years, the world has faced an unprecedented and overwhelming number of challenges of different natures: from social unrest to financial crises, from natural catastrophes to global health emergencies. We found ourselves facing a rapidly evolving landscape in which “decisions have to be made despite acting in a context of overwhelming pressure, complexity and uncertainty” (Christiansen and Bunt, 2012). In this environment, the rules of the game are constantly evolving.
More complex problems call for “a more rigorous and systematic way of working, multiple problem-solving strategies, and the use of a broader set of tools and methods” (Pontis and Van Der Waarde, 2020). Therefore, we can no longer base our action solely off past paradigms: we must innovate. We need to adapt by learning new skills and renewing our competencies continuously. The complex, interconnected and ever-changing issues that we are dealing with today can be defined as “wicked problems” according to the definition of Rittel and Webber (1973). Such problems can no longer be addressed individually: there is a need for multidisciplinarity and collaboration (Junginger, 2018; Pontis and Van Der Waarde, 2020).
1.2 Key role of education
Education plays a huge role in shaping the next generation of innovators. The huge changes that have taken place over the past years catalysed a transformation of the educational system that is trying to keep up. Re-shaping study programmes aims at enabling students to develop an agile and flexible mindset, in addition to the right set of hard and more importantly soft skills to face the situation. As previously mentioned, the ability to work in multidisciplinary teams and acquire multidisciplinary competencies is also something that must be taken into account.
Universities are trying to incorporate more of these elements into their curricula, and Politecnico is indeed one of them. This is no easy task when it comes to innovating the study programme of a bachelor’s or master’s degree that was established many years ago, because changing something that is already well-off and solid is quite hard. For this reason, newer programmes are more easily molded and reshaped to keep up to date and they can come across as generally more innovative and modern. In order to discuss this matter, I will analyse my own experience as a student at Politecnico di Milano.
2. Politecnico di Milano and innovation
2.1 Overview of my academic career
My academic career at Politecnico di Milano started in 2016 when I enrolled in the Interior Design study course. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in 2019 and decided to attend a Master in Product-Service System Design (PSSD). Despite being both part of the Design School of Politecnico, the two programmes are very different both in terms of organization and in terms of skills and knowledge that they provide to the students. Clearly they are a bachelor’s and master’s degree and therefore cannot be compared by putting them on an equal ground, but their differences are quite striking even as we keep this in mind.
The Interior Design programme was initially part of the Architecture School, and only became an independent study programme later on. I believe that it still suffers from a little bit of stiffness due to its origin: the courses are very strictly divided into theoretical and practical, the lab activities are purely related to studio classes and there are little to no curricular activities that stimulate the development of soft skills (the only one I can think of is group works).
On the other hand, the Product-Service System Design programme was established in 2005 and is consequently extremely new. It prides itself on providing innovative teaching, offering students an interdisciplinary and multicultural environment that fosters the development of both soft and hard skills (Politecnico di Milano, 2020). In my opinion, this study programme is an excellent example of a successful educational model that helps students develop the right skills that design for innovation requires.
2.2 Interior Design
As I previously mentioned, my bachelor’s degree in Interior Design used to be part of the Architecture department. Today, however, it is one of the four programmes in the Design School, along with Communication Design, Fashion Design and Product Design. They all last three years and are constructed in a similar way, with the same courses declined in different ways to better suit the specific programme.
The courses are divided into theoretical and practical, the first ones being mainly about scientific and artistic subjects, and the second ones being studio classes. Studios are typically very intense and demanding courses in which the students work in groups to develop a project with the help of the professors who do periodic reviews of the work. The final examination is typically an event in which all groups showcase their work. The theoretical exams, on the other hand, are courses in which students have to study from books or their notes and sometimes do assignments of different natures, such as experiments, reports or mini-projects, either individually or in groups.
The programme aims at making students acquire new hard skills, and in this sense we can say that it is knowledge-based. This is evident when taking a look at the educational objectives of the programme, that focus solely on practical aspects (Politecnico di Milano, 2018). The development of soft skills and the enhancement of innovation capabilities isn’t fostered nor purposefully encouraged but rather takes place as a “side effect” of teamwork and group projects. The students are in fact required to work as teams, but the improvement of their soft skills is more of a consequence than a planned outcome.
2.3 Product-Service System Design
The Master I am currently enrolled in, Product-Service System Design, is a very peculiar study course. I briefly touched upon the fact that it was established as little as fifteen years ago, and this is indeed a tell-tale sign of its modernity. On top of that, the programme was carefully crafted with a very distinctive and innovative touch.
The study programme isn’t structured in the same way as the bachelor’s or the other Masters of the Design School, with the combination of theoretical and practical one-semester-long courses. In fact, the students attend intensive and shorter courses instead, focusing on one or two courses at a time, rather than having to divide their effort and attention between many more parallel courses that last the whole semester. The calendar is updated quite frequently, as professors usually give a general outline of the course at the beginning of the year and update it week by week. Professors work together to constantly improve both their courses and the programme and keep them up-to-date, and this really comes through.
In order to really understand this way of conceiving education and of delivering it to students, I want to briefly touch on the aims and manifesto of the PSSD master’s degree course. Quoting the official website, this Master “takes the design opportunities deriving from environmental and social demands” to respond “to the profound changes under way in every sphere and significantly in the educational context too” (Politecnico di Milano, 2020). In order to reach this goal, it is quite obviously necessary to keep in touch with reality and renew the offer continuously, which I find is very well done.
Moreover, as both the problem spaces and solutions of Today “tend to be made up of multiple, connected systems of concrete artifacts and more intangible experiences and services” (Pontis and Van Der Waalde, 2020), it is important to have a systemic perspective when designing. This is exactly the aim of the PSSD Master, as highlighted by the definition of Product-Service Systems of Politecnico, which specifically calls for a mix of “innovation management, entrepreneurship, design methodology and design tools” (Politecnico di Milano, 2020).
3. Activities that enhance innovation capabilities
3.1 PSSD as a case study
In order to better understand how education can foster and enhance students’ innovation capabilities I will analyse my master’s degree curriculum, which I consider as a successful example. In fact, as a second year PSSD student I feel that my Master has been allowing me to develop a wide set of skills and competencies through a variety of courses and modules. I will give some examples that I will cluster into four thematic areas: (a) teamwork, (b) design tools, © innovation management and (d) dealing with real-life cases.
- Teamwork: the Team-building module
Being able to operate well in multi-disciplinary teams is essential nowadays. That is why the Team-building module, which is made up by a series of meetings that take place at the very beginning of the first year, is aimed at supporting students in developing “teamwork, negotiation, conflict management and leadership skills” (Politecnico di Milano, 2020). The key takeaway of this course for me was becoming more aware of the importance of each single component of the group and of the value of a diversity: each member is valuable in their own way and for a different purpose. It taught me how to recognize the value of skills that I hadn’t deemed as important before, such as the ability to resolve conflicts and make the team get along. - Design tools: the Design Methods course
This intensive two-weeks course also takes place at the beginning of the first year. It provides students with a range of really useful and practical design tools that have proven to be essential in dealing with product-service systems. As previously mentioned, today’s problems are complex and therefore difficult not only to solve, but to frame as well. They “demand a more rigorous and systematic way of working, multiple problem-solving strategies, and the use of a broader set of tools and methods” (Pontis and Van Der Waalde, 2020), which is exactly what this course helps students acquire. - Innovation management: the Business Innovation course
Business Innovation is a course about innovation management. The reason why it is really valuable is quite self-explanatory: it teaches students how to understand and spark design driven innovation processes. The course makes a very good use of case studies, which I personally found really helpful to understand the concepts and put them into a realistic perspective, applying them to the real world. - Dealing with real-life cases: Design Studios
Design students attend one studio course per semester. Having graduated from Politecnico di Milano, I was quite familiar with this format already, but I noticed some differences with bachelor’s studios. The most striking one was the focus on real-life problems: we are given real problems that real stakeholders need to solve and therefore have the opportunity to work with real constraints and in a realistic context. A great example is the Final Synthesis Studio that I’m currently attending, which is part of the second year’s programme. In this class, each team of students is paired with a cultural organization and has to design solutions to help them deal with the “new normal” of the post-lockdown situation. Moreover, students always have a user-centered approach as it’s essential to design for the real needs of real people. Not doing so would result in utopic or unrealistic solutions.
4. Redesigning my Master
4.1 Importance of design for innovation
The world seems to have started realizing the importance of design and the key role that it plays in innovation. Designers are able to frame complex problems and work in multidisciplinary teams to design the appropriate solutions and purposefully address the users’ needs. Different studies have shown the value of design for companies by proving the great competitive advantage that design-led companies have maintained over the 2005–2015 period, outperforming traditional companies by an incredible 211% (Rae, 2016). Out of the Fortune 500 companies, however, only 10–20 have chief design officers, which only makes up 2 to 4% (Meyer and Norman, 2020).
Meyer and Norman raise a good point: “perhaps the fault lies with the design profession itself: how many designers are capable of being a C-level executive at one of the world’s largest companies?” (Meyer and Norman, 2020). In my opinion, designers and in particular product-service system designers have a great set of hard and soft skills that make them suitable for designing innovation, but they lack the ability to take executive positions within companies. Implementing this would allow them to have a much greater impact by coordinating and using their skills to make companies move forward in a more aware and effective manner, just like the extremely successful design-driven companies are already doing.
4.2 Improving the PSSD study programme
In my opinion, the Product-Service System Master is already a ground-breaking programme, but it could be improved. As Pontis and Van Der Waalde point out, “design skills are often used to help other professionals better understand the meaning of situations, for instance by mapping complexity, drawing meaning from data, and visualizing perspectives” (Pontis and Van Der Waalde, 2020). A thorough study programme should give design students the confidence and skills needed to take matters in their own hands rather than simply using their skills to fill in gaps in other people’s skill sets. It should enable young designers to use their valuable competencies to lead change and take innovation in their own hands, becoming real game-changers. In order for this to happen, more attention needs to be given to the development of managerial and leadership skills.
5. Conclusions
5.1 The future of education
To conclude, the future rests on the shoulders of the new generations that will have to face the increasingly complex challenges that await. Universities play a key role in the education of the innovators of tomorrow. Therefore, they have a huge responsibility to help students develop not only an adequate set of skills and competencies, but also the right mindset and attitude. Educational institutions are taking this task very seriously and starting to re-shape their programmes accordingly. In order to highlight the difference between past and future paradigms, I analysed my own career as a design student at Politecnico di Milano and compared my Interior Design bachelor’s degree programme and my Product-Service System Design master’s degree programme. This analysis highlighted how up-to-date and innovative my master’s degree curriculum. By going more into depth and focusing on specific educational activities, I showed how the programme targets the development of specific skills and competencies that design for innovation requires. On the other hand, some weak points emerged, underlining the need to make some slight changes and implement the curriculum to enable the designers of Tomorrow to be real game-changers.
6. Bibliography
Christiansen, J., & Bunt, L. (2012). Innovation in policy: allowing for creativity, social complexity and uncertainty in public governance. Retrieved from https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/innovation_in_policy_RgbLJKC.pdf
Cross, N. (2011). Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work. Oxford: Berg/Bloomsbury, 3.
Junginger, S. (2018). Design Research and Practice for the Public Good: A Reflection. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 3(4), 290–302. DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2018.02.005
Meyer, M. W. and Norman, D. (2020). Changing Design Education for the 21st Century. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 6(1), 13–49. DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2019.12.002
Politecnico di Milano (2018). Scuola del Design: Laurea di 1° Livello. Retrieved from https://www.interiordesign.polimi.it/laurea-di-primo-livello/
Politecnico di Milano (2020). Product-Service System Design: Aims & Manifesto. Retrieved from https://www.pssd.polimi.it/aimsandmanifesto/
Politecnico di Milano (2020). Product-Service System Design: Portfolio. Retrieved from https://www.pssd.polimi.it/portfolio/
Pontis, S. and Van Der Waarde, K. (2020). Looking for Alternatives: Challenging Assumptions in Design Education. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 6(2), 228–253. DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2020.05.005
Rae, J. (2016). The Power & Value of Design Continues to Grow across the S&P 500. DMI, 27(4), 1–11. Retrieved from https://www.dmi.org/page/2015DVIandOTW/
Rittel, H. W. and Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. DOI: 10.1007/BF01405730
Weil, D. and Mayfield, M. (2020). Tomorrow’s Critical Design Competencies: Building a Course System for 21st Century Designers. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 6(2), 157–169. DOI: 10.1016/j.sheji.2020.03.001
