DESIGN FOR BUSINESS

to improve the contribution of design to business

by increasing its effectiveness & efficiency without losing creative power
with a series of related tools & processes including coaching & implementation
for management team, development teams and designers

CONTEXT
In 2004 the LEGO Group started its
seven-year strategy Shared Vision
aiming to rebuild the company and
revitalise the LEGO brand as a
synonym for creative building fun and
role play. Shared Vision underlines the
continued importance of focusing on
building a profitable and sustainable
business platform for the Group’s
future development.

OBJECTIVE
Based on Shared Vision the LEGO Product Embedded in LEGO’s overall
Marketing Department (PMD) needed development process, the
to define a more holistic approach to objective of Design for Business
innovation. This necessitated moving away (D4B) is to ensure that all project
from a predominantly product focused & design activities are supported
approach while maintaining a design by a real business case.
focus. This serves to professionalise the Proposed solutions should be
department, leading to more efficient use of assessed for financial feasibility
project & design resources and increased before being adopted.
effect of the offerings in the market.

D4B TOOLS & PROCESSES

GENERICALLY INNOVATION RELATED SPECIFICALLY DESIGN RELATED

specifically
INNOVATION MODEL relevant for

The LEGO Innovation Model is a tool LEGO

(in the form of a brochure) to facilitate
LEGO-wide discussion about
innovation.
It facilitates the dialogue up-front in
order to set clear innovation
objectives. This assists in anticipating DE
DESIGN STRATEGY
the approriate resources &
The LEGO design strategy is a tool
competences required and enables
to specify how design can answer the
the results to be assessed afterwards
corporate strategy ‘Shared Vision’.
in relation to the set objectives.
It helps to set a clear scope for
FOUNDATION PROCESS LEGO play experience & visual identity,
both on generic directions and
The LEGO Foundation specified per product line.
Process is a tool (in the form
of a poster) to visualize the specifically
innovation
LEGO development process. relevant for
It helps PMD to oversee the
categories
from innovation entire process and manage PMD
model are used expectations at each gate.
in foundation
It helps core teams to provide
the appropriate deliverables
at each gate.
DNA profiles
changes in DNA are documented
in the foundation documents
are part of the
design strategy DESIGN PROCESS
The LEGO Design Process
is a tool to improve the
understanding of the design
FOUNDATION DOCUMENT process for non-designers.
It helps to split up the
foundation The LEGO Foundation Document is a tool
innovation model
document
is backbone
(in the form of a series of closely related DNA PROFILE apparently chaotic design
process in understandable
is used as
PowerPoint templates) in order to create the
of foundation The LEGO DNA profile is a tasks and deliverables.
innovation profile overview
foundation for each gate.
tool to manage the long-term specifically
at P1 foundation It helps core teams (formed by a creative
document characteristics of a product relevant for
lead, marketing lead & project lead) to
group. These characteristics
connect all their work in an essential and
easy-to-understand format.
are translated into concrete CORE TEAMS
design guidelines.
CHALLENGE SESSIONS It helps core teams and
designers to differentiate
The LEGO Challenge Sessions
between product groups on
are project-specific sessions with
several dimensions.
an external facilitator taking place
directly after a gate.
It helps the core teams to sharpen its
objectives, tasks and deliverables. design process design process
foundation document steps are used steps are used in
forms basis for roadmap in roadmap design practice
(including one-liner &
roadmap is
recommendations)
same innovation
categories and
integral part
of foundation ROADMAP
overview
levels from The LEGO Roadmap is a tool (in the form of a specifically
innovation model poster & Excel-sheet) in order to synchronize relevant for
are used in roadmap
together how to reach the next gate.
It helps the core teams to align objectives, DEVELOPMENT
tasks and deliverables. It also improves
communication towards the rest of the team, DESIGN PRACTICE TEAMS
including designers.
The LEGO Design Practice &
is a tool (in the form of a
continuously expanding set DESIGNERS
of cards) to collect, share
design practice and discuss everyday design
helps to define
design tasks & practices amongst designers.
deliverables It helps designers to be more
efficient and effective in their
daily work.

CONCEPT LAB NEW BUSINESS GROUP CONCEPT CENTER

ADAPTIONS optimised their processes to become more
transparent for their stakeholders.
The D4B approach of making a creative
Concept Lab deep-dived their current processes to:
development process more effective and - improve the front-end process to make the best use of their
creativity
- create a common language for concept lab team & line
efficient inspired other areas of the LEGO management
- identify their true flexibility (and visually mapping it out)
- understand the integration into the LEGO development
organisation. Several departments outside process & D4B within PMD
- be more transparent to stakeholders & LEGO business units
the Product Groups adapted for them Herefore, they made their focus areas explicit, structurised
their green house process, defined deliverables per phase,
visualised stakeholders interactions and selected key tools
relevant parts of D4B to finetune their per phase.
For Concept Lab the main benefits of this approach are:
own processes or to ensure an optimal - a working process that is easier to communicate
* to new employees
* to externals (freelancers, design agencies)
alignment with PMD. * within LEGO & specifically to management
- a more structurised and explicit working process as a
backbone for applying creativity
created a customised business growth system to
facilitate & manage individual businesses.
New Business Group acts as a facilitator
for growing new business based on
LEGO’s core platforms and capabilities.
At the start of NBG the LBgS platform
has been developed; a LEGO
customised investors process inspired
by the principles of a stage-gate process
to allow for cautionary investments.
LBgS clearly describes which tasks
are necessary per phase and which
deliverables have to be presented at a
gate. A foundation document has to be
filled in at each gate and is combined
with different investment sums.
The LBgS platform helped NBG to:
- manage the large portfolio of projects
spread over the different phases
- manage the role of NBG per project
set up a dedicated project approach to handle its
many customers and their needs.
Concept Center consults on supply chain issues for
a large group of customers: Global Supply Chain,
Markets & Products and Community, Education & Direct.
This results in various types of projects with different
deliverables:
- facilitating small batch & test production
- enabling materials, effects and decorations
- conceptualizing new materials, effects and decorations
- reconfiguring production architecture
- redefining supply chain processes & architectures
To be able to manage this effective and efficient
Concept Center started to visualise their different
customers with their deliverables, set up a customised
development process showing various project intakes
& deliverables per phase and developed a project
summary poster (‘project view’). They also used the
innovation model to show their focus.
This approach helped Concept Center to:
- differentiate in tasks & communication towards their
different customers
- split internal work from external face
- better manage own portfolio of projects

INTERNAL BENEFITS EXTERNAL SUCCESS

Today, the D4B process and tools describe the LEGO cross-functional design director: After internal success external acknowledgement emerged…
“The objective of D4B was to align our
core of the development process. Essentially D4B
activities and focus them around the
helped to create within LEGO: development of strong propositions
Winner Innovation Cup 2009:
where collaboration between functions “LEGO work on innovation is marked by
- a shared vocabulary on innovation became better; the D4B methods and an impressively methodical approach
- better defined objectives upfront tools have helped to leverage this.”
which seems to have struck the difficult
- the right deliverables at the right moments balance between creating structured
- alignment of foundation documents framework for innovation processes,
- more synergy between marketing, design LEGO creative director: while allowing room for creativity and
& project management “I think it allows us to be more user involvement.”
- better alignment of tasks & deliverables in creative, because now our designers
don’t have to think about how they
core teams
are going to structure a new project
- better understanding of design process as a design manager, they don’t have Design Council case study:
for (non-)designers to spend time and suffer pain trying “Read our in-depth case-study about
to reinvent things that somebody
- better understanding & alignment of long- LEGO on how design is managed to
has already done. Through this we
term characteristics of product lines become more efficient and effective find out how design is being used for
- collecting & sharing of design practices as a design team.” business success.”