Impact by Rapid Design

Timeframe: 2019-2022

Rapid design-led interventions have emerged in recent years as a means to support enterprises that are resource-limited or lack design maturity as they seek to grapple with increasingly complex, networked and dynamic change. Amongst these is Northumbria University’s Get Ready to Innovate (GRTI) innovation readiness programme, implemented in the North East of England, in Armenia & and in Birmingham, Alabama, US. Building upon the GRTI experience, this PhD study is aiming to understand how organisations recognise the effectiveness of rapid design-led interventions and how they develop their own measures of their impact, if at all. This doctoral research is being conducted using a qualitative research and a constructivist grounded theory methodological approach. Due to the lack of knowledge around this area of research and a limited number of organisations using rapid design-led interventions, the study will engage with a wide variety of private and public sector organisations, from micro-SMEs to large organisations. By gathering this evidence and establishing a theoretical model for effectiveness and effectiveness-measurement, this study will be beneficial to organisations directing their limited resources towards rapid design-led interventions to validate the usefulness of such activities, understand where value is generated within their organisation and direct future resources accordingly.