Org Design for Design Orgs Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

Highlights

Org Design for Design Orgs is for those business and design leaders. This is the book we wish we had as we began our careers building and managing design teams. Like so many others, we figured it out as we went along, stumbling toward a set of approaches that work pretty well. We share what we’ve learned not because we have it all figured out (far from it!), but because it’s time to elevate the dialogue around design operations and management.

▶ 0:07

Enterprise software design remained terrible for a few reasons: the person buying the software was usually not the person using it; the people using it had no alternative; a belief that bad design could be overcome through training; and a sense that work shouldn’t be fun or pleasant, and that software should reflect such seriousness.

▶ 0:33

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer—that the designers are handed this box and told, “Make it look good!” That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.[

▶ 0:53

We’re using the phrase “focused leadership” to mean one or two people are running design and are from within the design organization—these leaders are not also overseeing other functions. While design leaders must be attentive to issues of quality, a common mistake made by many companies is that they place in this role a design visionary, a creative director with big ideas and an obsessive attention to detail. A design organization is an entity that needs care, nurturing, diplomacy, and leadership. The skills that made someone a great designer or creative director are almost wholly unrelated to the skills that make them a great manager and team leader. Instead, this design leader’s primary responsibilities will prove organizational, working with other executives to clear the path for design, and serving as a manager, mentor, team builder, and operator for the team itself, creating both a figurative and literal space where design can thrive.

▶ 1:12

A design organization is ultimately judged by the quality of its output. What’s tricky is that there’s no universal definition of design quality. So while “high-quality engineering” is typically considered through quantifiable metrics such as reduction of bugs shipped, speed of performance, and service uptime, “high-quality design” is understood through subjective measures rooted in personal preference and taste. Sure, design solutions can have quantitative performance measures such as conversion rates and task completion, but they are insufficient in establishing quality. The ultimate assessment of quality often exists in the eyes of the beholders. To overcome this, the design organization must be empowered to define quality standards for their team and their organization. Those standards then must be externalized so that others know what is being upheld. The goal is to take as much subjectivity as possible out of the equation, shifting design critique from a stance of personal preferences (“I really love this shade of blue”) or a desire to stand out (the infamous “make the logo bigger”) to an agreed-upon set of principles and guidelines that explain the team’s definition of quality, supported by numerous examples of design work that demonstrate good quality with callouts as to why.

▶ 2:08

Once the design org has established such quality standards, they must hold themselves up to those standards, and not sacrifice. The rest of the organization will likely act in a way that unintentionally discourages quality. People outside of the design team don’t understand what it takes to maintain a high quality bar, and design teams are asked to do too many things with too few people in too little time.

▶ 3:24

A design organization is only as good as what it delivers, and if it is producing crap because it’s trying to do too many things, then the rest of the organization will associate design with crap. Design leaders need to wield the power of “No.” Design work should only be done when adequately prioritized and staffed, and when there is time to develop quality solutions. This should not mean excessively long schedules for rumination and exploration. Good leaders know that there are points where design practice realizes diminishing returns, where further effort no longer leads to improved results. What it does mean is empowering the design organization to uphold what it takes to deliver quality, and to decline work that doesn’t fit.

▶ 3:49

Many design organizations rely on process as a proxy for quality. This is a false connection. Critical thinking is essential for delivering great work, and an over-adherence to a methodology leads to teams making unthinking decisions.

▶ 4:34

Actualized design teams overcome such practices by treating team members as individuals, with all the messiness implied. They recognize job titles are imperfect, and two people with the same title may have different skills. That’s OK, though, because everyone knows those people’s strengths and weaknesses, and makes sure that they’re set up to succeed. Seniority levels are seen as guidelines, not strict containers. Reporting structures are there for communication and mentorship, and do not limit anyone’s ability to share ideas and have an impact.

▶ 4:49

While maintaining this individualistic perspective is challenging as the design organization grows, it’s worth the effort. Designers, perhaps more than other professionals, are a sensitive, empathetic, expressive, and quirky bunch. Reducing them to labels and levels removes their individuality, blunting their engagement and, in turn, their work. Instead, celebrate their individuality. Let their freak flags fly.

▶ 5:22

Overly long work weeks deliver a double whammy to designers—along with the obvious struggle with work/life balance, designers, as creative professionals, need to disconnect in order to recharge. Constant production and overlong hours stagnates work quality, as designers rely on what is basic and safe. Productivity can even go backward—poor decisions designers make while fatigued have to then be undone before the team can move on.

▶ 5:48

Every member of the team must demonstrate respect to every other member, or the openness required for successful collaboration will not emerge. Dismissiveness, insults, cattiness, and behind-the-back gossip lead to people feeling shamed and shut down, and cannot be tolerated. Instead, train the team to give authentic feedback and to deal with disagreements constructively. Earning one another’s respect is necessary in order for the team to “get real,” because frank and candid critique and feedback are essential for upholding the quality standards. Greatness comes from the tension and collision of different perspectives (a concept known as “creative abrasion”), addressed openly and honestly. Design teams that favor politeness over candor will rarely produce great work.

▶ 6:16

Great design work takes space—places to collaborate, whiteboards for sketching and ideation, walls to show work. And those spaces should be permanent, places where the team works and sees their work all around them. Not only does this encourage continual engagement from the team itself, such spaces enable people outside the team to quickly connect with the work. It literally demonstrates openness and transparency. And instead of having occasional big share-outs (that require preparation that takes time away from productivity), these spaces support frequent lightweight check-ins. This keeps the work on track, because if it begins to veer off-course, it is quickly corrected.

▶ 7:06

The most underappreciated aspect of running a design organization is the importance of smooth operations (cue Sade). Just because design is “creative,” it shouldn’t get a pass in terms of running effectively. Much of what causes designers to stress in their work is the result of flawed operations. Symptoms include: Trouble coordinating internally, particularly around process, communications, and file management Difficulty collaborating with other parts of the organization Inappropriate staffing on projects and programs Lack of visibility into related workstreams or duplicate efforts Non-existent measurement

▶ 7:45

The gravest issue for designers is that they find themselves fundamentally disempowered. By the time designers are brought in to the project, the important decisions have already been made. Their concerns about assumptions underlying a brief are easily dismissed, because those designers will be gone when their part of the work is over. It’s the people in the business who are held accountable, and with that accountability comes authority.

▶ 8:25

When a company realizes that its centralized, function-based organization is leading to delays, subpar work, and unsatisfying outcomes, a common solution is to reorganize into wholly staffed, independent teams, with all the capabilities necessary for delivery. This reduces overhead by giving these teams autonomy to make decisions that benefit themselves, with the expectation that if everyone is looking out for their best interests, that will bubble up and serve the interests of the company as a whole. Design teams follow suit. Instead of a single design organization, designers embed within these decentralized teams.

▶ 8:51

This disempowerment leads to designers developing an “us versus them” attitude. They become disenchanted, nodding during meetings, but rolling their eyes afterward at the requirements they’ve been handed. They put in the bare minimum to get the work done, because their effort isn’t going to be appreciated. And such attitude and behavior only reinforces the business’s treatment of designers, leading to a vicious cycle of diminished expectations. The business units requesting design get frustrated because they have no real control over this function. They have pressing and important needs, but they have to wait for the design organization to be able to staff a team. Other projects are given priority, and they don’t understand why. When they finally do get design resources, the deadlines are such that there’s not enough time for any creativity. They have to wait for internal design team reviews before work gets approved. And so the business feels that they had to wait a long time, only to get substandard work.

▶ 9:30

Because these decentralized business and product teams have been wholly staffed, they have freedom and speed that they couldn’t achieve before. They no longer have to sit in someone else’s queue. They no longer have to wait for approvals. They are in control of their own destiny, and design is part of that. For the designers, instead of being brought in only after all the important decisions are made, they are now full team members. They participate throughout the product lifecycle, including the agenda-setting requirements development. They contribute to the strategy, and their perspective helps ensure superior product delivery.

▶ 10:24

Teams range in size from 2 to 7 members. Seven people can take on a large program—consider a generous designer-to-developer ratio of 1 to 5, we’re talking about a program that requires 35 engineers! If it seems the team should be bigger than 7, it’s likely its mandate has gotten too big. Split the team into two, each with a sharper focus.

▶ 11:01

This role can get confused for another such connection, the Frontend Developer. While frontend developers work closely with design and can be quite design savvy, the role is fundamentally an engineering role oriented on delivery. The Creative Technologist is less concerned about delivery than possibility. They can be fast and loose with their code in a way that frontend developers cannot. Frontend developers ultimately serve the purpose of the engineering team, focused on performance matters of stability, speed, and working-as-it-should at scale. Creative technologists align with the mission of the design organization, using engineering as a tool to uncover opportunities for a clear, coherent, and satisfying user experience.

▶ 11:25

Head of Design focuses on: Recruiting and hiring There may be nothing more important in the organization than identifying talent and getting them to join the team. Living the culture Addressed in depth in Chapter 8, the culture of a design team is essential to its long-term success. A Head of Design not only establishes the team’s cultural values, but demonstrates them every day through his or her actions. Process and practices Working with Design Managers and Creative Directors, establish a methodological toolkit, and make sure it is shared, understood, and used throughout the team. Vision Developing a “north star” for the company is not a one-time act, but an ongoing process of refinement and evolution. Represent design for the organization The Head is the primary voice of design inside and outside the company, sharing its work, evangelizing its success, and articulating its vision. Sometimes this representation means fighting for design in the face of policies, procedures, and bureaucracy that limits the team’s potential.

▶ 12:08

DESIGN TESTS? A topic of some controversy within product design circles is whether candidate interviews should involve some kind of design test or challenge akin to what happens in engineering interviews. Our firm, resolute response to this is “no.” Design tests set up an unhealthy power dynamic in the interview environment, when instead you should be fostering collegiality. The context in which the challenge is given (typically narrowly time-boxed and with only a little information and little support) is wholly artificial—and so whether a candidate succeeds or fails is not a meaningful indicator of actual practice. There is nothing you will find out in such a test that you couldn’t better learn through probing the candidate about their portfolio.

▶ 13:12