The 3 ways to re-design your organisation by design to design.

Changing organisations to be design-led is all the rage. Every major startup to succeed has some claim at being design-led. Therefore, often out of fear of being disrupted or missing out on growth, nearly every large organisation is giving it a crack. But how do you do it?

Obviously it’s extremely complex. But I see 3 broad strategies that companies are using, usually in some combination. It’s a very basic framework but I’ve found it helpful.

Way 1 – The sprinkle

Designers of one form or other are sprinkled throughout the organisation. The idea is that their designer dust will rub off on those around them, which is a little true

… but it’s a bottom-up strategy and would be difficult to build momentum to serious and sustainable change.

Way 2 – The Carve

A special new area of the organisation is carved off that will operate in a totally ideal way. A carve is normally given a name cool name like ‘lab’ or ‘garage'. This works pretty well as a beacon for the rest of the organisation

… but it’s usually a little distant from the core. So it can’t change the whole organisation unless it grows drastically. Which is as unrealistic as it sounds.

Way 3 – The Shade

Current business areas are adjusted and retrained in subtle but specific ways to make them more design-like if not exactly design-led. Changes are incrementally built-up gradually leading to widespread change

… but if you go too thick and fast change will be too drastic to be absorbed. If you go slow, as you should, it takes patience and commitment to stay the course.

Why is this useful?

Obviously this over-simplifies a design-led transformation. Changes in structure, funding and culture play massive roles.

That said, I have found that when looking at an organisation or project a good first question to ask is “are they trying a sprinkle, carve or shade?”. It helps me understand immediately some strengths and limitations of the approach.

Where to start?

For an organisation of any significant size to be design-led all three stratagies are obviously required. However, I do have an opinion on the best way to start. Go with a strategically focused carve, a light shade with immediate impact in specific areas and mostly save the sprinkles for later.