What got us here will not get us there
The impact of design is growing and the demand for design talent is increasing. More designers are rising to leadership roles. Management consulting and research firms are showcasing the business value of design. However, reality shows a contrasting picture as there are hundreds of design teams at different levels of influence in their organizations.
We have to invest in our people. We must create opportunities for career growth to help designers progress. At the same time, we need to create conditions for emerging and established design leaders to succeed. We have to build a strong foundation of influence, strategy, and value to the customer, our peers, our teams and our organizations.
This presentation is focused on what we can do to pave the way for our design teams to amplify the impact of their work. The stories I share are primarily based on my leadership journey and are supplemented by interviews with design leaders from around the world.
What got us here will not get us there - FinTech Design Summit #FDSNTC
1. What got us here
Will not get us there
Jose Coronado
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
Business Embraces Design
2. Opinions are my *own*
The opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the author.
They do not represent current or previous client or employer views.
3. A short story…*
* Any similarities with reality is pure coincidence
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
4. Many companies don’t
know what they need
Look for a UX Researcher
Think of a UX Designer
Hire a Visual Designer
@LucasWxyz
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
5. We are Designers
Information Architect
User Experience Architect
Visual Designer
Design Strategist
UX Researcher
Content Strategist
Design Technologist
Product & Service Designer@jcoronado1
7. 50%
4/5
of organizations will have a CX
transformation program
CX executives predict their brand will
compete completely on CX
GARTNER
Customer Experience in Marketing Survey
By 2019 / 2020
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
8. 93%
30%
of executives cite improving
UX as a top strategic priority
of companies will see further decline
in CX Quality
FORRESTER
Customer Experience in Marketing Survey
Between 2017 and 2018
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
27. Org Design
for Design Orgs
By Merholz & Skinner
DESIGN
execution
at all
levels of
scale
STRATEGY
STRUCTURE
VISION
SURFACE
10,000 m
1,000 m
100 m
10 m
1 m
@jcoronado1 #DesignImpact
Disclaimer, this has nothing to do with current events…
Some companies look for a UX Researcher,
Change to UX Designer, and at the end, they hire a visual designer “want more focused on the visuals.”
WHO are you making “it” look good?
How is the visual w value of your product?
What problem is it solving?
How does the client know the solution is the right solution?
The level of specialization is growing and evolving.
We have all sort of roles for design.
From IA, to ID, to UXD/R and Strategy
Today we are all designers
Let’s set the stage – what is happening in the world around us
John Maeda’s Design In Tech Report
Forrester &
Gartner
& McKinsey
Gartner’s CX Survey, most Co.s expect to compete completely or near completely on CX
They also find that organizations have in place transformation programs focused on improving customer experience.
Gartner’s CX Survey, most Co.s expect to compete completely or near completely on CX
They also find that organizations have in place transformation programs focused on improving customer experience.
The largest study to-date and probably one of the most rigorous
5 years
Medical Technology, Consumer Goods, and Retail Banking
Katja mentioned this study in her talk yesterday
Good and Bad news
The good – Companies in the top Quartile of the MDI saw higher revenue and higher growth in shareholder returns
The Opportunities
More than 40% of the companies surveyed do not talk to customers during development
More than half of the companies in this study do not measure or assess the impact of their design teams.
Not surprisingly – only 5% of the companies surveyed came at the top
The opportunity – there are a lot of organizations that need our help
Even if there are not interested in becoming design visionaries
ONE, IC, Building, Growing or Transforming
There are some lessons here for you
It is important to acknowledge that these leaders are sharing their stories of Design Impact.
Their perspectives are reflected in many of the key aspects I highlight for you today.
Latin America, the US and Europe
John Maeda in his latest #DesignInTech briefing says: the art of partnering is the skill with the highest value by far for Design
Design System–
Started as a closed door project.
Opened doors, to technology
Created an internal open source global team
1000s of developers adopted the Design System across all strategic projects
As design leaders we need to build teams, pave the road for talent growth and development
Story about IC and Management career path
IC to Technical path
John Maeda mentioned in the Design In Tech Report:
Inclusive Design Is Good Business
Diversity and inclusion are fundamental to the success of design teams and the organizations
Diversity and Inclusion have many dimensions, and go beyond gender, orientation, race and also include educational background and levels of experience.
Find out what is their passion, let them pursue it… you may end up uncovering a whole new line of design services that your team can offer to the organization.
Interview w Hauser Global Head of Design Services and AppHaus Network
first Apphauss design in Heidelberg,
Empty, budget, buy & build furnished
the space was empty and Hauser gave his team a fixed budget to design it and furnish it in the way they wanted. They could buy a €500 or €5,000 couch if that made sense to them. There were no limits, except the given budget. The result was astonishing. Instead of coming up with an up-scale office design solution, the team opted for a mixed approach to create a functional environment that was attractive to them. They went to IKEA, second hand shops, and eBay to find what they wanted to use. They also built some stuff themselves. In the process, the space became their own; and the team became highly motivated and engaged.
Nicolas Jauregui’s presentation yesterday was about empathy.
We talk about empathy towards the people we design for…
However, many times we forget to have empathy towards the people with work with…
We need to determine what motivates them
As Design Leaders, we must listen,
ask questions, learn what motivates them
and what keeps them up at night. When we solve problems for them,
Short story – when I got to a new role leadership role in a large,
I made it a point to meet the executives I was going to work with,
Understand their key challenges and determine how design could help alleviate them.
As a result of these kinds of meetings, I have facilitated workshops for business partners in areas that don’t have anything to do with design. When you and your team help them, they realize that you are more that you are adding value to them.
Business embraces design when we have a
Strong design leadership foundation,
forge solid partnerships across the organization and
Foster a culture of diversity and inclusion
Define what DESIGN means to the organization and how it aligns to the overall corporate strategy
For all teams I have worked with, I’ve made sure to define our design strategy is Informed after speaking with leaders around the organization. Our team presentations to BU Leaders and Executives included 3 things. Corporate Strategy, how the design was contributing to achieving it, and progress or success stories relevant to the groups we were with
It is also important to work with the other executives of the organization to define what design means to them and to the organization. I see more often now than before, organizations that have their design credo, or their design principles published in posters around the organization, in cards and stickers in the back of their phones. And most importantly, all executives use it. Teams use that design credo to help them anchor their strategy, the roadmaps and their priorities
To increase our impact in the organization, we need to invite others to join forces with us in the design effort.
We need to communicate effectively and speak their language.
We bridge the gap with our business and technology counterparts.
I used to say that our role was to increase the design IQ of the organization.
Now. I strongly believe that It is our responsibility as design leaders to increase our team’s business and technology IQ.
We have to break the barriers across functions, foster cross disciplinary collaboration.
I have worked with clients where the TRIAD is the key product body with a Product lead, a Tech lead and a Design lead. Other organizations use pair design + dev.
Lean UX story – when Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden first published their Lean UX book, I asked Jeff. I you to train my design team to be more agile. His answer was pretty simple – it does not work that way. So instead, what we did was to get cross functional teams together to work together, from problem definition, to concept sketching ideation, to research and prototyping. At the end, we had over 200 people go through the training program.
There are more and more organizations that are recognizing the value design.
However, there are thousands more that are growing at different stages of maturity.
We have to be confident in our team’s ability but we have to check our ego at the door.
As much as we would like for every organization to become “Design-Driven,” let’s face it.
It’s not just about design,
It’s about the CUSTOMER
When we make it about them, we get the entire organization
Engaged in the customer experience.
Story about the need for a balanced approach
An unbalanced shift puts everything at risk.
Story – about the big shift of resources towards the strategic program…
It was a conscious decision, but it created a vacuum effect.
Specially with close partners and supporters of the design program
We need to create opportunities for our teams for professional development.
When I was leading a growing team, I had to work with HR and other functional leaders to create job families and identify equitable levels across different disciplines. Not surprisingly, Development was the more comprehensive of the job families and design was one of the least formed.
At the end, this also helped me realized some of the pay equity gaps. I was able to get the design women in my team substantial pay increases for equal pay to their male counter parts. This was not just about compensation gaps in design, it was primarily between design roles and those comparable to other disciplines.
If your organization does not already have technical and management tracks, you have to get busy and start working on that.
As design leaders we need to be flexible in the way recognize people in our teams
Kate Dill, Head of Design for Lyft wrote a great article that provides a recognition framework. I acknowledge that I have fallen short in this area, by recognizing people in just a couple of dimensions. As I have grown in my career, I have done more.
Encouraging words – thank you and great job, sending an email recognizing their work, or in a group setting recognize their hard work
Tangible rewards – I just talked about the importance of the career development ladder. you could take the team to lunch after a big product release, or organize a team activity outside of work.
Focused time – 1:1 meetings, attending a speaking engagement outside of work, I actually work with some folks in my team to encourage them to write articles or propose presentations for meet-ups and conferences.
Autonomy – calling them experts. I had a person in my who I always referred to as our design system resident expert. In another case, I gave strategic, cross functional projects to a person in the team who was working towards the leadership track,
Visible impact – I always try to make the connection between their work and the overall strategy impact. Sharing or even better, defining metrics togehter
Business embraces design
When there is a shared understanding of what design means to the organization,
We focus on the customer experience; and
Designers speaks the language of business
How does your team or your organization measure design value?
For one of my clients, I conducted research interviews and uncover that
Designers don’t know what questions to ask about data
Some teams say they are drowning in data
While others say they don’t have any data
Designers were not sure when it was the right time to bring data questions
The recommendation was to start with simple questions: how do we know if we are successful, OKRs, Impact
Why are we doing _______
Where do we get the data needed to answer success
Product, Behavior and Experience
Quantitative and Qualitative Value
Interaction, Tasks, Customer Support, Engagement, Voice of the Customer, Performance
Each product and each organization need to identify what is important to them
News – Engagement
Payroll – time-in-and-out might be all you need 30” interactions every pay period
Partnership at stake
FinServ & Human Capital Mgt
There were problems, the partnership was going to end.
UX Designer and Researcher
Prod Mgrs realized problems from both sides
Negotiated how to address key issues.
Our Global CIO would present to other executives and say this why we are investing in design
We also could have the wrong outcome in mind –
where the team objective is to create more engaged and immersive experience
so that people spend more time in the app,
and our company get higher ad revenue.
HOOKED – How to create habit forming products.
We are also designing products and game that are creating addictive habits. The author of Hooked now argues that the intention of his work was never to create that addict-like behavior
Sheryl Cababa – design impact beyond metrics
Article – “Design for meaning” instead of how might we… ask why…
FACEBOOK news feed Is to make the experience immersive and engagement || vs. || prioritize distinct news content
So that people spend more time in the platform || vs. || people avoid unreliable news sources
So that Facebook collects more data and generate more ad money $$$ || vs || people be factually informed
Mike Monteiro says “Everyone who ever told you good work sells itself was a lying jerk.”
You have to toot your own horn and promote your team success.
Even better, we have to get the people we helped to promote those success stories.
MARC yesterday In his keynote, he got his clients to tell the story. And he got ys to co-create the takeaways of his talk.
If we helped the Sales team close a deal, get the Sales Exec to tell the story.
If we helped a client solve a problem with design, get the client to magnify our voice.
And remember, even Good design does not sell by itself
I want to make emphasis on the fact that we are responsible for the work we do.
We need to distinguish right from wrong.
We need to ask “why” more than “how.”
We have to guide our teams to design within the parameters of an ethical framework.
Business embraces design when
We clearly identify and measure impact to the customer and the organization
Business embraces design when we as design leaders and practitioners
Build a strong foundation of influence,
Focus our strategy on the customer experience; and
Deliver clear value within the parameters of an ethical behavior
We have to summon our inner chameleon and we have to evolve if we want from where we are to where we want to go.
THANK YOU!