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18th March 2026 Below is the 2nd part in our series on Business Design Engineering BDE: Diffusion to Coherence Introduction The case for Business Design Engineering (BDE)  begins with a problem that is widespread, costly, and often misdiagnosed. In many organisations, business change is broken into adjacent but weakly integrated functions. One group shapes the value proposition. Another defines structure. Another translates the work into delivery artefacts. Another implements

This article is the first in a series on Business Design Engineering (BDE) : a discipline concerned with preserving coherence between business intent and business execution. The series explores what BDE is, why it matters, how it differs from adjacent roles, and where it creates the greatest value in complex change environments. This opening piece introduces the core problem BDE is designed to address: the loss of clarity, continuity, and value that often occurs as ideas move

Design thinking is not confined to a single profession, discipline, or industry. Rather, it is a broadly applicable mode of inquiry and problem-solving that can be adopted across contexts. As Deutsch (2020) suggests in Think Like an Architect , this way of thinking should be understood as foundational rather than specialised. It is relevant not only to architects, but also to executives, designers, artists, analysts, and decision-makers across a wide range of fields. In that

Divergent thinking is a cognitive process characterised by the generation of a broad range of creative, varied, and often unconventional ideas in response to a problem or challenge. It stands in contrast to convergent thinking, which focuses on narrowing possibilities in order to identify the single most appropriate solution. Divergent thinking is closely associated with creativity, ideation, and the capacity to move beyond familiar assumptions and established patterns of rea

* (Ball, 2022) Design thinking is rarely a simple exercise when approached from a standing start. The creative process often emerges gradually: in response to a problem, an opportunity, or a need for re-framing and renewed perspective. For this reason, effective design thinking often requires a period of cognitive preparation before meaningful insight can occur. A useful way to begin is by considering how a problem or opportunity might be approached in structured stages. The

Within corporate environments, design and delivery work often spans the full lifecycle of a problem or opportunity: from identification and framing through to solution design, implementation, and eventual retirement. Across this landscape, one recurring challenge is the tendency of organisations to pursue “silver bullet” solutions or adopt the latest management and delivery trend—whether ITIL, UML, RUP, Agile, or otherwise—without fully understanding the intent, discipline, o

Introduction to design thinking Design thinking often begins long before it is formally named. At its foundation is a recurring human impulse: the desire to imagine, shape, improve, and build. This impulse is visible wherever curiosity leads to experimentation, where existing objects are examined for how they work, and where materials, systems, or ideas are reconfigured in the pursuit of something better. In its earliest form, this process is rarely neat or linear. It frequen