Ways of working — It all starts with own experience for designers and why it matters
In large organization, It’s imperative for designers to work closely with different teams in business, product, product operations, engineering, data science, analytics etc… All these teams are driven by different leadership and goals to take organization to next level. Each function becomes better, mature and agile by appropriate process, technologies and tools for their best contribution. This is also driven by their nature of work. It’s essential as first step but not enough.
At organization level, It’s cohesiveness, collective contribution and ways of working from all functions that matters the most. Real value lies in how do all these functions work together with alignment towards common goals.
Organization as a System
Recently I learnt that System is not just sum of its parts but product of their interactions. In order for system to function effectively and efficiently, each part needs to function very well by own and also handover their contribution (by interactions) to connected parts.
I can resonate this with organization structure & functions, ways of working and contemplated where should designers fit in for larger impact. What else can help me to demystify this other than design thinking / double diamonds mindset!
For any organisation, It’s their customers who are driving their business. Delivering values to the customer is the most critical factor for an organisation’s success. What I meant business here is not business partners / stackholders / sponsors but precisely business metric / purpose. Organization cares about their customers by delivering values via products and services. This in turn makes their business better. It’s value exchange system.
Typically organization starts working on business problem to solve or with an idea. Based on business strategy, product strategy, they use specific frameworks like OKR / Business Scorecard to do prioritization and breakdown their strategy into plan in form of initiatives. That’s perfectly fine and role of designers is to solve that business problem or explore that idea in user centered ways. At core, role of product designer is not just limited to finding and solving users problem but influencing business metric / purpose with their design process, various design techniques and divergent & convergent mindset. Solving users problem should lead to solving business problem. This is essentially designing the business holistically.
Organization forms the team to solve the business problem. This team is called by different name like Product trio, 4 in a box, Experience team Or Squad etc… Problem / Idea is in form of initiatives (A). This is input, they target to solve it and move business niddle in positive direction (B). It’s a journey of going from A to B with a common goal. Having a common goal is very important as it unites everyone in cross functions, break the silos and biases.
Questions are
(1) Where should designers see themselves in this eco-system?
(2) Why should organization give designers, a needed space for bigger impact and better ways of workings?
(3) How can designers become positive change makers (with tools & processes) that is truly aligned with various teams and common goals?
Inspired by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I was able to conceptualize diagram for Experience hierarchy — Going from outputs to users outcomes → business impact.
This demonstrates experience needs of various teams aligned with customers. This makes teams effective, efficient and successful not only in their own function but as a whole team in ecosystem. True value lies at intersections of different organization functions that unlocks business agility towards common business vision & goals.
The big picture — Experience hierarchy
Customer experience is paramount and key differentiated factor for organization and business, Organization can (re)structure to deliver that value stream and keep that momentum. Let’s go deeper into each level…
1. Design team
Typically business, product, design, engineering are positioned at same level or top to bottom like business → product → design → engineering to solve the problem. Design team is kept at bottom of experience hierarchy. This is to drive the positive changes with empathy in organization. This also enables them to align their work, well with organization mission on customer experience.
Design team can drive 2 types of changes:
1.1 Make design function better horizontally with UX & UI design, principles, design thinking process, design system, accessibility etc…
1.2 Design team can improve experience of product team — business, product, engineering etc… — on every touch point of their interactions, process and communication for better ways of working as a whole.
2. Other teams — Business, Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics
Product team in turn makes experience tangible that is viable, desirable and feasible. They give life to design proposed by designers. It’s journey of going from outputs to outcomes for team working with customers directly (front stage) and indirectly (back stage).
3. Team working with customers on front stage and back stage
Better experience for team working with customers directly (front stage) and indirectly (back stage) ultimately improves customers experience.
4. Customers experience
Customers find values on what has been delivered to them and happily change their behaviours, perceptions and actions towards products, services and organization - This was intentionally designed and tested that way by designers - They becomes loyal customers & spend more and this drives the business impact by measurable metrics.
Vision : Experience hierarchy — With better Ways of working
I can envision organization structure in better ways of working. All product teams are working towards same User outcomes and Business impact. They work independently in own function and collaborate with other teams on this mission to deliver values. Each team is more aware about importance of other teams, their process and value their contribution — More awareness about why behind each activity starting from product discovery to product delivery.
We are not designing is isolation, we’re designing as part of a system of value, where our ideas and actions should always be in service of value creation.
It is about becoming a guide within own function and make customers hero with collective efforts and better ways of working.
Main Takeaways
- Being at bottom of experience hierarchy, designers can better deliver user outcomes and business impact with positive changes in ways of working. It’s not about being at top for command and control for product teams but leading the system from bottom.
- It’s very important for designers to be very vigilant for their own design process, all interactions and touch-points with product teams. Think about how can you make it better for you and product teams. Each touch point matters and that’s where you as designer make positive change.
- Organization should give, a needed space for designers to improve their own work experience that leads to better ways of working for all teams and improve their experience too. This can eventually help organization on shared business vision and goals. This demands psychological safety, experiments and desire to be learning organization.
- How well an experience is delivered externally depends on how well it’s understood and organised internally.
Here is part 2 of this story — Ways of working : Having common language is good but same interpretation is more important. Here is why and how
Stay tune for more insights, learning on this vision.
Feel free to share your point of view, observations, learning in comments. To learn more, follow me on Linkedin.
Disclaimer
This is my understanding out of my research, curiosity and learning from other professionals. This has nothing to do with my current and past employers.
