Handbook

Are you looking to increase the power of design in your organization? This handbook explains how to apply C‧AST, our method to build strategic capabilities in your design team. We regularly update the content to ensure C‧AST’s usability.

E-mail us if you have any questions, remarks, or suggestions.

Describe

Describe the current situation of your organization:

1. Describe its administrative organization (see, for instance, ProjectSuppliers for an explanation with examples).
   • Is there a plan? (If not, why not?)
   • If so, is the plan being executed? (If not, why not?)
   • If so, is the execution going according to plan? (If not, why not?)
2. Describe the environmental factors of your organization.
   • Macro-environmental factors (according to a PESTEL analysis; see, for instance, OnStrategy for an explanation with examples)
     • Political factors
     • Economic factors
     • Social factors
     • Technological factors
     • Environmental factors
     • Legal factors
   • Meso-environmental factors (according to a five-forces analysis; see, for instance, B2U for an explanation with examples)
     • Threat of new entrants
     • Threat of substitutes
     • Bargaining power of customers
     • Bargaining power of suppliers
     • Competitive rivalry
   • Micro-environmental factors (according to a SWOT analysis; see, for instance, IMD for an explanation with examples)
     • Strengths (i.e., characteristics that entail an advantage)
     • Weaknesses (i.e., characteristics that entail a disadvantage)
     • Opportunities (i.e., elements in the environment that could entail an advantage)
     • Threats (i.e., elements in the environment that could entail a disadvantage)
3. Describe challenges in your organization that you want to tackle with design.
   • Gaps (i.e., things your organization should start doing)
   • Defects (i.e., things your organization should do better)
   • Levers (i.e., things your organization should do more)

Formulate

State your ambition to increase the power of design:

1. Specify what you want design to strengthen to be able to tackle the described challenges.
   • Change power
     • Curiosity
     • Empathy
     • Courage
   • Creative power
     • Innovation
     • Adaptation
     • Transformation
   • Competitive power
     • Impact
       • Number of leads
       • Number of customers
       • Number of ambassadors
     • Value
       • Social value
       • Environmental value
       • Economic value
     • Performance
       • Scope
       • Quality
       • Benefit
       • Time
       • Cost
       • Risk
2. Define indicators that measure the fulfilment of your ambition. For example:
   • Number of new product categories in the assortment.
   • Costs of developing products, in an absolute sense or as a percentage of total project costs.
   • Revenue from the sales of products, in an absolute sense or as a percentage of total revenue.
3. Determine a target value range and the current value for each indicator.
   • Minimum
   • Optimum
   • Maximum

Estimate

Estimate whether your ambition can be fulfilled:

1. Assess any earlier initiatives.
2. Check the availability of required resources for the new initiative.
   • Personnel
   • Documentation
   • Data points
3. Analyze whether fulfilling your ambition is worthwhile.
   • Desirable
   • Feasible
   • Viable

Map

Discover and dissect the activities of your design team that involve various participants (such as commissioners, designers, customers, users, subject matter experts, contractors, and managers), with study models of business activity as a point of reference (see figure below).

• Action (according to a study model of purposeful action developed by Norman (2002); see figure below), consisting of:
  1. Motivation (i.e., setting a goal to achieve)
  2. Intention (i.e., committing to act to achieve a goal)
  3. Specification (i.e., translating an intention into moves)
  4. Execution (i.e., executing moves), consisting of:
     1. Initiation (i.e., starting a move)
     2. Iteration (i.e., repeating a move)
     3. Termination (i.e., finishing a move)
  5. Perception (i.e., sensing the world)
     • Sight
     • Hearing
     • Touch
     • Smell
     • Taste
     • Balance
     • Movement
  6. Interpretation (i.e., understanding a perception)
  7. Evaluation (i.e., comparing an interpretation and a motivation)
     • Association (i.e., inferring a dependency)
     • Correlation (i.e., inferring a trend relationship)
     • Causation (i.e., inferring a causal relationship)

• Transfer (between participants): (Sending: Action) × (Receiving: Action)
• Transaction (between participants), consisting of four transactions (based on the DEMO methodology, see figure below):
  1. Request (for something): Transfer.Sending × Transfer.Receiving
  2. Promise (something): Transfer.Sending × Transfer.Receiving
  3. Declaration (of something): Transfer.Sending × Transfer.Receiving
  4. Acceptance (of something): Transfer.Sending × Transfer.Receiving

• Exchange (between participants): Transaction × Transaction
• Interaction (between participants): Activity.Exchange
  • Communication
  • Cooperation
  • Coordination
  • Collaboration
• Administration (of an activity): Interaction
  • Direction (of an activity), consisting of:
    1. Determining objectives
    2. Establishing rules of play
    3. Allocating means
  • Management (of an activity), consisting of:
    1. Planning
    2. Monitoring
    3. Retrospection
  • Control (of an activity), consisting of:
    1. Setting target values
    2. Measuring actual values
    3. Emitting control signals

• Operation (based on the service quality gap model), consisting of:
  1. R&D (Research & Development), consisting of:
     1. Research (into something): Activity
     2. Definition (of something): Activity
     3. Specification (of something): Activity
  2. Promotion (based on the AIDA model for marketing), consisting of:
     1. Attention arousal (for something): Activity
     2. Interest arousal (in something): Activity
     3. Desire arousal (for something): Activity
     4. Action arousal (for something): Activity
  3. Delivery
     • Diagnosis (of a cause), consisting of:
       1. Hypothesizing (regarding a cause): Activity
       2. Testing (on a cause): Interaction
       3. Confirmation (of a cause): Activity
     • Design, consisting of:
       1. Framing (of elaborating towards a solution): Interaction
       2. Motion (i.e., elaborating towards a solution), consisting of:
          1. Exploration (for an elaboration): Interaction
          2. Ideation (of an elaboration): Activity
          3. Realization (of an elaboration): Activity
       3. Reflection (on elaborating towards a solution): Interaction
     • Decision-making, consisting of:
       1. Proposition (of options): Activity
       2. Comparison (of options): Interaction
       3. Selection (of options): Activity
     • Production (of something): Activity
       • Construction (of something)
       • Manufacturing (of something)
       • Servicing (of something)

Link

Determine the kind of impact of each activity on the objectives that make up your ambition.

Identify

For all activities positively impacting your ambition, explore capabilities that your design team needs for these activities by applying the following strategy:

Classify

Consult Shadbolt & Smart (2015) for methods, techniques, and tools to capture and disclose a capability as:

Compare

Rank identified capabilities on their contribution to each organizational aspect.

Calculate

Assess the degree of presence of each identified capability in your design team.

Acquire

Obtain identified capabilities that your design team does not have.

Convert

Process identified capabilities that are not rare or inimitable in the design market (using SCAMPER).

• Substitute
• Combine
• Adjust
• Modify
• Put to another use
• Eliminate
• Reverse

Anchor

Secure identified capabilities in the organization design of your design team (in line with the McKinsey 7S framework), consisting of:

• Strategy
• Structure
• System
• Specialisms
• Skills
• Shared values

Conclude

Conclude the outcomes of fulfilling your ambition.

• Successes (i.e., objectives achieved exactly to the extent intended)
• Windfalls (i.e., objectives achieved to a larger extent than intended)
• Setbacks (i.e., objectives not achieved to the extent intended)

Diagnose

Determine the causes that explain the outcomes of fulfilling your ambition.

1. Determine hypotheses
2. Test hypotheses
3. Confirm hypotheses

Propose

Propose the next move to fulfil your ambition.

• Renew if your ambition has been achieved
• Repeat if your ambition has not been achieved but still can be achieved
• Reformulate if your ambition cannot be achieved and needs to be adjusted

Delivery

Let people explore the future, get familiar with it, and work together to address the resistant factors. — Livework

Cultivate trust, give your people consistent support, and change up common routines every so often to create positive surprises. — User Experience

Delivery

Bring ideas to fruition through a build-measure-learn feedback loop (Lean Startup). — Eric Ries

Empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. — Stanford d.school

To produce an innovative outcome for a complex challenge, iteratively explore, define, develop, and deliver. — Design Council

R&D

Define quantified metrics, build a holistic metrics system, and define supporting operational metrics. — McKinsey Design

Turbocharge processes, speed up internal feedback loops, and improve handoffs. — Invision Inside Design

Set goals, determine ground rules, and provide facilities to acquire, create, and share knowledge. — UNStudio

Promotion

Represent design at the top level of the organization, improve employee experience with design, and spread design practices. — McKinsey Design

Build up your reputation, spot talent through your network, and establish a flexible talent pipeline. — Workable

Describe design work in terms of business goals, collect evidence of design results, and communicate the business value of design. — BoagWorld

Delivery

Form a cross-disciplinary team, further knowledge integration, and implement decision-making through consensus. — Purdue University

Demonstrate desired behaviours, provide motivators, and recognize and acknowledge displayed behaviours. — PositivePsychology

Combine scale with agility. — David Butler & Linda Tischler

Translate the corporate vision into tangible goals, center the customer, foster collaboration, and uphold operational excellence—all while expanding creative limits. — Aquent

Define a portfolio strategy, identify gaps and unmet or latent needs, and define segments for customers and users. — McKinsey Design

Explore user experiences, discover user motives, and define user requirements. — Interaction Design Foundation

Recognize and remove overly complex content, organize knowledge, and filter content. — UX Collective