Master in Strategic Design

The Specializing Master combines for learning purposes the methodologies of a classic MBA with those typical of a design school oriented towards innovation.

Strategic Design is a design activity that concerns the Product Service System, i.e. the integrated body of products, services, and communication strategies that either an actor or a network of actors (companies, institutions, nonprofit organizations, etc.) generate and develop to create value. It is often claimed that technological innovation, cultural and economic globalization, and the transition to environmental sustainability generate problems and opportunities. It is also repeatedly stated that the possibility to avoid the former and to exploit the latter requires the development of three core skills: visioning, sensing innovation, creating solutions embedded in new business models. It calls for the ability to design products and services whose success today anticipates what will be or may have to be, the norm of tomorrow.

The social demand for a new generation of products and services, coherent with current socio-cultural transformations, and their sustainable development becomes an opportunity for companies able to operate in the context of this new design mindset. This unique meeting of design and company strategy: strategic design.

Title Released

At the end of the program, once the final examination has been passed, the 1st level Specializing Master Strategic Design. Building new businesses and strategies through design diploma will be issued, with the related achievement of 61 CFU/ECTS.

The program aims to build the foundations of a specific and expert competence relating to the issues surrounding strategic design and to innovation and design of the product system. The Specializing Master aims to produce experts and consultants capable of carrying out a design and management role in the innovation process of the product system. In particular, the program proposes training on the integration of product, services, and communication components and developing specific skills aimed at improving the overall process quality (that is, production methods and contexts) and that of the results (that is, that of the actual and perceived quality) that set the cultural identity characteristics, sensoriality sustainability of the designed solutions.

This solution thereby distinguishes themselves for their ability to combine product quality with that of their environment and the social forms that create them.

The objective is therefore to instil in participants a design capacity (problem setting and problem solving), an ability to envisage and generate ideas, produce and communicate images, initiative in terms of being able to identify the methods, resources and partners to reach a pre-established objective, an aptitude for managing complexity by integrating resources and actors in an innovative design process and, in turn, knowing how to integrate with them, vision as an ability to select information, and ability to identify trends, build a personal point of view and produce scenarios, acquire the tools needed to understand and recognise the “range of possibilities” within which to operate and the related innovative factors; acquire the skills needed to design and manage innovation of the various product-system components; acquire multimedia tools to present personal ideas and designs with the help of various communication support; develop and improve the skills to take on and innovate the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of the cultural identity of product systems.

The program aims to build the foundations of a specific and expert competence relating to the issues surrounding strategic design and to innovation and design of the product system.

The placement identifies two main macro-professional profiles: “innovation and design specialists” (marketing directors, R&D managers, industrial designers, and product engineers, services and multimedia solutions designers) and “integrators of innovative and design processes” (design managers, design directors, project managers, product managers, retail managers, brand managers, consultants for product-system innovation).

Didactic Plan

The Specializing Master is structured in theoretical modules, projects, and laboratories. The Master concludes with a curricular internship lasting 475 hours.

Didactic Modules

These modules explore different topics and draw upon several kinds of expertise needed to work on open-ended problems and take an active stance in the problem formulation.

• Strategic design: These modules transfer tools and perspectives about the product-service system design and how design becomes a source of competitive advantage in organizations.
• Service design: The present modules transfer the design tools related to the development and the innovation of service. Deep attention is dedicated to the service ‘tangibilization’.
• Design tools: These modules explore, through applicative project and business cases, the design thinking tools supporting the design research and the conceptualization phases.
• Product service system design: A deep investigation on how design becomes strategic tying the brand identity with the product features and the distributive strategy.
• Design culture: A complete overview of the cultural roots of Italian design showing how different traits are nowadays current and updated (spirit of entrepreneurship, the innovation as a cultural act, the product innovation related to the change of meaning, the observation of user-context).

Management Modules

A range of integrated modules that address the requirements of strategic management, enabling students to appraise the factors which impact innovation and its development.

• Strategic and operative marketing: The present modules transfer the main concepts about the marketing process, marketing organization, and marketing analytical tools. Particular attention is dedicated to the 4P orchestration and to the innovation perspective based on the marketing paradigm.
• Project management: The present modules transfer the basics related to project management as a process of resource allocation and goal setting. Specific attention is dedicated to the differences in project management in big and medium companies and in environments characterized by low or high innovation pace.
• Entrepreneurship: The present modules transfer the concepts related to the roots of entrepreneurial activity, the personal traits of the entrepreneur, the startup genesis, the lean start-up.
• Corporate strategy: The present modules transfer the main concepts related to strategic planning and to the pillars of strategic thinking. Deep attention is addressed to how the strategic pillars (mission, vision, SBU, competitive advantages) affect the innovation and design process.

Intersection Modules

These modules explore different topics at the overlapping between design and management where the former shapes the old managerial science toward new paradigms of innovation, the latter augments the grounding and systemic capability of the design.

• Design strategy: An intensive introduction to the design-driven strategic options. Great attention is dedicated to the interplay between design and technology evolution.
• Innovation management: Innovation is a way to achieve a competitive advantage. Specifically, great attention is addressed to the barriers to innovation, to the set of advantages/disadvantages pertaining to innovation, and to closed/open innovation paradigms. A specific focus is centered on design-driven innovation.
• Design intensive entrepreneurship: The present modules – based on updated research streams – show design-intensive entrepreneurship as a complementary perspective with respect to high-tech-based entrepreneurship.
• Design management: Focusing on the engaging and the management of the array of designers. Specifically, the modules show the main tradeoffs related to divergent design management options.
• New service design management: A series of modules transfer the main principles underpinning the design and the development of new service. The service paradigm is also used to explain some intangible innovations related to products and tangible objects.

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• 4th in Europe
• 8th in the World

Politecnico di Milano - QS Ranking 2023 in Art&Design category