Design is the future: A reflection on a global innovation initiative
Background
When it comes to impressive moments of a career journey, nothing is better than working on an interesting and impactful project. I am very grateful to have this wonderful opportunity to be involved in a large global innovation program from 2021 to 2022 (almost 8 months) and collaborate with diverse teams around the world. Although our team encountered some complicated factors and was unable to support this initiative to the end, I was able to learn a lot from all my colleagues and clients from different backgrounds during this journey. However, I am so proud of the whole delivery team as we have already uncovered many valuable insights and achieved lots of meaningful outcomes at this point.
As a design strategist, I am always trying to reflect after wrapping up some key milestones, and I believe it is also worth documenting the lessons learned from this huge global investment. The true spirit of design is to continuously learn and improve on iterations, which helps me grow faster, embrace uncertainty, and stay resilient amid a rapidly changing world. Again, this reflection is an entirely personal view. If you are interested more in my perspectives on design leadership and design-led innovation topics, please make sure to check my previous two Medium articles:
How to embed “Design DNA” in your leadership team to create large transformations?
It is never an easy thing to run a large global innovation program. There were many conversations around various strategies, ways of working, tools, budget, timeline, legal and compliance requirements, etc. The key to success during this program is the consistency and efficiency of our teams across the region until the very end. In addition, the overall strategy and leadership vision impacted the delivery team. For this reflection, I would love to examine these three dimensions from a design management standpoint — plan, implementation, and capability. Hopefully, this standpoint will be a valuable reference for project or program leaders to better understand how to unlock the power of design and accelerate large innovation or transformation initiatives by design management.
Plan — Timeline & Team structure
This is particularly referring to the very beginning of the project or program planning, including timeline and team structure, before kick-off. For timeline or scope arrangement, bringing design or CX perspectives into early-stage program planning meetings is crucial to achieving better collaboration across functions later. This is because design experts clearly understand the innovation processes and what efforts might be required in a detailed view, which will create more reasonable arrangements of timeline and team structure by a holistic evaluation. For example, a rational schedule of development and design avoids rushing on jumping to a solution or putting too much pressure on a certain team. If possible, it would be even better to have a design/CX lead in the leadership team so that concrete advice can be captured and executed upon.
For the team structure, the point of view of design experts are also important for identifying clear roles and responsibilities in a design-led innovation program. Clear roles and responsibilities ensure that all expertise in the team are utilized at every point by considering practical situations because design experts are familiar with overall innovation processes. Moreover, other than clearer roles and responsibilities, a design team within the program team provides another way to structure the team to ensure consistency and fostering innovation. Peter Merholz, co-founder of Adaptive Path, (2022) proposes that “Agile” orthodoxy is harmful to the practice of design. In his new model, instead of embedding designers within product teams, designers are pulled out into their own team, working across set of product teams addressing some contiguous aspect of the user experience. Instead of needing each designer to be an identical unicorn, a team of designers can have a range of experience and a variety of skill sets.
In my experience so far, this approach especially helps a lot in maintaining consistency and boosting creativity across different products in global innovation. Also, it benefits the personal growth of designers by learning from each other more efficiently. However, most importantly, this design team needs to stay connected with the top leadership team so the overall energy of design can be unlocked.
Implementation — Ways of working & Decision-making
In the implementation of a large global innovation initiative, there are many issues around ways of working and decision-making. These two key obstacles are essential factors that cause global initiatives to fail by decreasing efficiency and transparency. For ways of working, top leadership and all product owners need to align on how teams work together in micro and macro views. For example, most global remote works are using collaborative tools like Invision board, Mural, Jira, and Confluence, etc. Related activities include the Kanban board, agile process, design thinking process, and Jira or CX backlog updates. Misalignment on the use of tools and activities could potentially produce friction during communication and collaboration, even affecting final deliverables. Therefore, aligning ways of working provides team members with a clear expectation on the ways of working/ approach, enabling the team to collaborate smoothly and efficiently. In design practices, the tools or approaches that are able to trigger more interactions and co-creations are more valuable, because those tools or approaches are indirectly fostering creativity and an innovative culture within the team.
For decision-making issues, non-transparent or unreasonable decision-making processes deter the innovation process and indirectly creates an unsafe atmosphere within the team. Furthermore, in many cases, the concerns of the top leadership are not able to trickle down to the working level before they make the final decision, and vice versa. If there is no transparent two-way communication or a clear sense of how those decisions are being made, it will create chaos within the team, causing lots of hesitation during the innovation process. From the design management standpoint, creating transparent decision-making processes is vital, but including diverse perspectives in top leadership strategic meetings to make holistic decisions is also indispensable. This allows building a ‘consensus’ from top to down in the whole team across functions. Seth Goldstrom, global leader of McKinsey’s enterprise transformation work, (2019) points out that one of the reasons that transformations fail involves what we call the “and” versus the “or.” A lot of times, you’ll hear, “Well, we could cut the cost, but it’s going to sacrifice growth, or customer experience, or safety.” But companies that do this really well just say, “There’s no false trade-off here. We’re going to do everything well.” It’s not a trade-off. In my experience, this sacrifice story happens a lot in business when the business does not have a strong decision-making capability from enough experts to envision the future, and in many cases, democratizing decision-making also creates innovative energy in the team or organization.
In addition, in another similar case, changing scopes or strategies due to delivery issues or other business concerns is also common during the implementation process. In order to maximize the value of design in this circumstance, combining business strategy with UX strategy is one of the new methods to bring stronger design perspectives into decision-making. In a nutshell, how top leadership includes enough discipline perspectives equally in the strategic meetings, reduce politics and builds ‘consensus’ within the team rather than ‘consent’ is extremely important for large innovation success.
Capability — Design knowledge
Team capability determines how far the impact of innovation or transformation reaches and sustains in the market. Design has already become a tangible tool to drive changes in various sectors. Design leadership or design management is to the new catalyst to transformation. In one of the latest famous research books — Designing change: New opportunities for organizations, Anna and Petra et al., professors and researchers of Aalto University, (2022) assert that design builds transformation capacity. In recent decades, design has changed and expanded from the design of objects and products into more strategic approaches, with new foci on leadership, sustainable development, social innovation and societal transitions. They have also seen the emergence of new forms of value creation beyond profit, engaging leaders, industries and communities. In addition, in Aalto’s Transformative Sustainability Innovation (TSI) Strategy framework, the boundary between business transformation visions and societal transition visions is gradually blurry, as design as a discipline has been evolving to bring more empathetic and sustainable ambitions to business transformation programs in the society.
Therefore, in a large global innovation initiative, there is a risk of failing to survive in a rapidly changing environment in the market if design knowledge does not infuse in team capability across different functions or levels. It is a ‘must-have’ to equip design knowledge in the whole team, such as design thinking or design-led innovation process, so everyone is able to align understanding and know where the team is in the process and which direction the team is moving onward. To quickly recap, the term ‘Design Thinking’ is mainly created for non-designers. Nick Foster, Head of Design, X Development LLC (formerly Google X), (2022) proposes that Design Thinking is akin to Design viewed from the window of a fast moving car — a paltry simulacrum of a delicate and nuanced craft. The purpose of design thinking is to allow non-designers to learn how to think like a designer. However, the truth or tricky thing is that designers actually learn the power of design from ‘doing’ rather than ‘thinking’, such as deep research for empathizing with users, or prototyping for validating draft strategies or potential solutions. On the other hand, businesspeople, most of the time keep ‘Strategizing’ in a fancy room and talk to lots of people except for end-users.
Overall, various discipline experts have worked together on diverse detailed topics in a global innovation program. However, in my experience, design knowledge or the value of design is still not being highlighted and is even overlooked at many points, although it has already been attracting a lot of attention from many industry leaders. As the term ‘Design-led Innovation’ is being advocated, design knowledge has not been well-adapted or well-integrated in the correct way. Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Technologies, (2003) states that “Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people or find a different room.” In an uncertain world, design-led innovation is accelerating next-generation transformation.
Summary
While corporations are looking for disruptive innovations to stay ahead of industry changes, global innovation initiatives or large transformations fail in many different ways. In this reflection, I combine what our team has done well and what our team has learned from challenges during our process. Again, this is solely from my perspective with my design knowledge. My observations are mainly from various collaborations and unintended situations during the processes. I also encourage everyone to see things from different angles. Hopefully, this article can help people who want to further understand the design management point of view.
Overall, design is playing a crucial role in large transformation programs. Unlocking the power of design at different dimensions throughout the processes is key to success in the end. Except for product development, more people are applying design knowledge to various business projects, such as designing changes, transformations, culture, leadership, operating model and process optimization, etc. Moreover, the role of design experts has started to be promoted to C-level positions like Chief Design Officer (CDO) or Design Executive Officer (DEO). In a well-known IxDF video (2021), Don Norman, the legend in the design field, also claims that the way we design today is wrong. Designers have to be in a position of authority to be able to make positive innovations happen as design education evolves. Therefore, design is the future, and it is a completely a different language and angle from the traditional business project management perspective.
In a rapidly changing world, only using traditional project management has already been hard for corporations to keep the same pace as creative startups and unicorn companies. It is time to leverage and unlock the power of design to accelerate large innovation or transformation programs to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. The core responsibility of top executives is to balance the perspectives between business, design, and technology in organizations, which is also the mission of design leadership and one of the criteria to review a qualified Chief Design Officer or Design Executive Officer. In one of the latest Mckinsey Design reports, Redesigning the Design Department, David and Asuka et al., (2022) also point out that business people used to tell the designers what to do, now designers are showing business people what is possible — and it’s so much better. It would be much more valuable to let designers design the business, not just the product. Designers might add as much value redesigning a company as a product.
In addition, in one of the latest seminars ‘Vessel 2022’ in Savannah College of Art and Design, six speakers including professors and industry leaders have shared their thoughts on ‘Systems Thinking’ which is one of the hot topics in the design field right now. As design experts have already moved their eyes beyond human-centered design, this new way of thinking enables people to see problems in a larger picture by considering the circular economy, biology, and anthropology views. The new responsibility of designers is not only to identify root issues due to disconnections in the systems we are living in, but also to develop methods to fix those disconnections or gaps and balance various conflicting goals. For example, the Systems Thinking Iceberg model, Social Design Pathways matrix, or STEEP/PESTE framework helps innovations achieve long-term success in our society and whole ecosystem by truly reviewing all relevant factors in the system. Furthermore, UK Design Council has also launched a Systemic Design framework in their publication in April 2021, Beyond Net Zero: A Systemic Approach. This has been developed to help designers who are working on major complex challenges that involve people across different disciplines and sectors.
To sum up, as a design strategist, our ultimate goal is to create a positive impact on our society or whole ecosystem with a more empathetic mindset. One of the exciting examples is Design for Good launched in April 2022. This independent, global alliance aims to be the most ambitious and impactful design non-profit including General Mills, Logitech, Nedbank, Nestlé, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Philips and Royal College of Art. Thousands of leading designers will work together across the alliance, to design new products and services to make direct progress against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Design not only helps businesses seize the next waves of industry changes but also creates a resilient and sustainable future for all human beings. In addition, one of the key design attitudes I learned from many design experts is to humbly keep exploring the ‘unknown unknown’ and building multidisciplinary collaborations, that is why design as a discipline continues evolving to become a better tool to reinvent businesses, revive organizations, and tackle more uncertainties in our society in the future.
The opinions and thoughts shared are solely my own, and do not reflect EY’s views on any of the issues.
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