In addition to Jump authors Katherine Wakid, Conrad Wai, Adam Menter and Philip Hartley, this article was produced with contributions from Deborah Mrazek and Sam Lucente of Hewlett-Packard and Steve Sato of Sato+Partners.

Companies are looking to better measure and manage innovation, and they can.

Companies around the world are striving to become more innovative in order to better compete in today’s global, networked, and fast-moving society. As a result, innovation and design managers are working their way up the corporate ladder and into executive board rooms. But once these leaders arrive, many companies realize that both design and innovation are harder to nail down and quantify than sectors like procurement, operations, and finance. As a result the process of innovation is mysterious for many companies and designers are stymied by the limited impact they’re having on business decisions.

In fact, it is possible to more effectively manage and even measure the design and innovation process. HP and Jump have been collaborating on a philosophy and plan to help HP quantify, and therefore value, the business impact of design. Together, we have developed a system that straddles a flexible middle ground between strict performance measurement and the creative process. Central to our approach is considering not just the desired outcomes of such a system, but designing for the system’s use by product development teams.

While it’s long been difficult to measure design’s contribution, we are forging new territory at HP.  Measuring design’s impact on our business helps to clearly communicate design’s value throughout the organization and, as a result, successfully sets up design to be used as a strategic business tool.

Superior technology and operational efficiency are no longer enough.

Today, while companies continue to innovate through technology, it’s important that they innovate through other means as well. To ensure continued growth, HP is using design as a business tool to move beyond the high-speeds-low-price race, and into a new proposition that considers what truly matters to our customers.

Similarly, operational efficiency has become table stakes. Quality and process control are now a given. Tools like Six Sigma have been in widespread use for more than 20 years, and, while they help protect HP’s bottom line, are not enough to lead to the kind of innovation that sets HP apart from the competition.

We’re moving into the age of big D Design.

Industry is learning to see design as an engine for real differentiation and organic growth. The business press has begun to recognize and report the role which design has played in many corporate success stories. As major magazines and newspapers explore the positive financial impact of great design, they’re shedding light on the ways companies set their products apart through the strategic use of industrial design, experience design, design research, and planning. HP frames this as “Big D Design” because design is moving from being a styling job tacked on to the end of the product development cycle, to a strategic approach to product development that has impact at multiple business levels. As we move towards Big D Design, it’s evermore important to thoughtfully harness design and communicate its value in business relevant terms.

For example, in the last few years HP has leveraged design across its printer lines to not only produce a consistent look and feel for its printers, but to streamline the development process and address supply chain issues as well. This strategic use of design has saved millions of dollars in tooling, and cut the design phase of the development cycle by a third. As a result of initiatives like these, design is becoming a critical business tool at HP and an integral part of HP’s strategic conversations.

At HP, the development of a design measurement system is leading to increased confidence about the strategic use of design at the senior leadership level, by aligning design contributions with key business outcomes. At the project level, using a design metrics system enables teams to make better informed and timelier decisions throughout the project cycle. This suggests two main goals any effective design metrics system should strive to achieve.