My first disagreement is with the claim that design as a practice and design firms as a manifestation of that practice are so unique, and so radically different from standard corporate operations, that a corporation must undergo a radical and fundamental change to include design.

This claim implies 1) that there is some standard way corporations operate, 2) that design firms operate different from this standard, and 3) these two different ways are incompatible.

I think all three of these implications are utterly absurd. Both corporations and design firms operate in wildly varying ways. Some design firms act more like accounting firms, and some corporations act more like frat houses. In other words there are no standards, and as a result it is impossible to claim any inherent incompatibility between such non-existent standards.

My second disagreement is with the characterization of corporate workflow consisting of static permanent roles, and of design firm workflow consisting of projects with defined terms. I’m not sure how these are incompatible as the article suggests, but let’s assume they are.

Just as corporations have directors, AVPs, VPs, so many design firms have traffic managers, art directors, creative directors, account managers, etc. Each role has well circumscribes responsibilities, and exists in a hierarchical relation to each other. Sure not all design firms have these roles, but not all corporations have AVPs either.

And yes design firm operations are centered on projects. But so are corporate ops (hence the corporate ubiquity of project managers and program managers). Indeed the internal flow of capital within many corporations is usually tied to projects, with teams members billing their time against specific project budget codes—projects with start dates, end dates, resources and budgets. My experience working in big corporate America is that outside of manufacturing and customer support, nearly everything is project based.

So the author’s characterization of the organization and activities of both corporate and design firms is so wrong that I have to wonder if he has any personal experience working within either corporations or design firms.

And my third disagreement is with the implication that corporations *should* change to be more like design firms. Corporate America may be full of dyfunction, but anyone who has worked in a design firm can tell you the design is every bit as dysfunctional–and two dysfunctions don’t fix the problem.