LEGO has developed a new design system, called Design for Business (D4B), by which its whole innovation process is run.
Key elements of the LEGO Design For Business process include:
- The alignment between corporate objectives and design strategy
- Strengthening the collaboration in core project teams containing a design, a marketing and product manager
- Challenge sessions for the team during this process, run by colleagues and D4B members
- The development of a standard sequence of activities for product development, with frequent evaluations and decision gates
- The development of standard processes for presenting the outputs of design phases to allow straightforward comparison of different projects and options.
LEGO’s design function includes 120 designers of 15 nationalities, based in Billund, Denmark. A further 15 designers work from Slough in the UK, and other satellite offices operate in several key markets and regions, either developing ideas for local market tastes or acting as a monitor of trends and new technologies (which is particularly the case with the Japanese unit).
For individual design projects, LEGO operates a matrix organisation containing core teams. Each core team involves a marketer, a project leader and a design manager. Part of the objective of this structure, says Torsten Bjørn, Creative Director, was to 'align our activities and focus them around the development of strong propositions where collaboration between functions became better, the D4B methods and tools have helped to leverage this'.
In more depth Find out how other companies in our study hire designers who demonstrate a
wider skill set including: multi-disciplinary working, business acumen and strategic thinking.
Traditionally, LEGO has rated the ability to model creatively with its system as the key criterion for its designers, leading to the recruitment of staff from a tremendously wide range of educational and career backgrounds. More recently, there has been an increasing uptake of ‘professional’ designers, namely those who have received more conventional academic training in design disciplines.
Today, according to Smith-Meyer, the company is placing renewed importance on its designers’ enthusiasm for LEGO itself and is employing new members of the design team who are passionate and excited about designing for LEGO.