Different design consulting firms, different approaches
I wonder if design consulting firms use different approaches (e.g., different research methods, different ways of data usage, different ways of idea generation, etc.). If so, why and when different approaches are used? I believe this is an important question that needs to be answered because, for now, there is no guidance that (non-design) managers use when they look for which design consulting firms they need to contact initially. (IDEO may not always available, isn’t it? 
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Imagine that a hospital manager wants to make the experience of the patients better in his hospital. Then, the designers from a design consulting firm uses one type of market research (e.g., interview rather than survey), collect one type of data (e.g., “Parking lot is dirty” rather than “nurses are not friendly”), and suggest one type of solutions (e.g., “cleaning up the parking space” rather than “educating nurses”). This sequence of design activity shows that even before designers identify problems (data) and generate solutions (ideas), the initial moment of the design process (e.g., choice of research methods) determines the overall design process. Therefore, I believe, if the pattern of the design outcome of each design consulting firm, we might be able to tell which consulting firm fits which projects, which will be of great help to managers to find their right consultants!
Top 10 design consulting firms
After meeting with Dev Patnaik and Peter Mortensen from Jump Associates last weekend, I realized that there must be many many design/innovation consulting firms in the world. Managers probably want to know which firms they contact and work with when any consulting service is needed.
I used only one axis to categorize design/innovation consulting firms: how much emphasis goes on between business strategy and pure product design. Jump Associates and Design Works are far left at the “strategy,” Ziba Studio and Design Continuum are next, IDEO is in the middle, Gravity Tank is next, and then finally Frog design is far right at the “product design.”
Dev used three circles: design, business and culture. He embraces more players by forming a culture circle (e.g., Bruce Nussbaum and design research companies). Moreover, he places more firms in the overlap areas. Advertisement agencies are in the [design + business] overlap, insight-driven strategy firms (e.g., Innosight and Strateges) are in the [business + culture] overlap, and human-factors firms (e.g., Cheskin, Point Forward, and Gravity Tank) are in the [culture + design] overlap.
I just found that Jess McMullin also categorized design consulting firms in 2005 (a blog by Jess McMullin). He came up with his own framework and seemed to compare ‘design’ consulting firms and ‘traditional’ consulting firms.
Does anyone have any updated list? Or, if I am missing any firm, could you please leave a comment? I keep this post updated to make it a comprehensive list of design consulting firms rather than a top 10 list.
Designers need empathy
Dev Patnaik, Founder and Principal, Jump Associates talked about How Your Business Can Prosper When You Create Widespread Empathy at March 5, 2009 @ Rotman DesignWorks, Toronto.
Empathy is giving up a self-centered world and walking in others’ shoes. It is related to the concept of mirror neurons or reciprocal altruism: Neurons fire not only when we actually do (e.g., playing basketball) but also when we simply see (e.g., watching basketball game) or hear (e.g., hearing basketball sound) and further, people treat others as they want to be treated.
He proposes that empathy is important for designers. See Nike and Harley Davidson. If we apply empathy to business, we can even find which firms are highly empathic or not.
His talk was very interesting. In fact, I became curious about when empathy works and when not, how we know when it is does not benefit, and how to overcome the problem. For instance, B&O’s designers do not listen to their customers but focus on their own inner voices and successfully innovate their products. Dev suggested that to overcome the dark side of empathy, we should empathize not with a single person but with multiple groups of people. This is interesting. None of prior research on empathy or perspective taking has not considered multiple targets. Further, it opened up more important questions: when designers empathize with very different groups of people, which groups should be and actually be considered more importantly?
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