Discovery Friday: Decision-making tool and Design Genomes
In my world of organization design and strategy, I am constantly looking for and finding a lot of really great resources on how teams or companies are run. This week, I came across two tools that I have spent quite a bit of time with and would highly recommend anyone who is interested in how they make decisions with their team or to learn about what powers great design.
A decision-making tool for teams
Decision-making is one of the fundamental ways of how we navigate our personal and professional lives. We make decisions as leaders, team members, individual contributors, but yet, one may not have taken a close look at the how of deciding. This tool is simple, intuitive and quick to use, matching one’s need against a small criteria set alongside some tactical implementation tips on the model of choice. I love it because it draws much needed intentionality around a decision making process and it shows the strengths of one model comparatively to another.
The Design Genome Project
InVision recently released a new resource after spending a year of studying great design teams and to uncover what powers great design. They studied 15 teams but have released five so far — Netflix, Slack, Shopify, Capital One, and Pinterest. Aarron Walter, VP of Design Education at InVision sums up some top patterns they found in this study. The one that stood out to me the most is that some teams had a golden ratio of product managers (1) to designers (3) to engineers (5) or 1:3:5.
On the resource itself, I love the detailing of the process for each company, how they varied but yet, had married it with a structure that complements the way the organization builds products. I can see this tool being tremendously useful for system architects, Head of Products/ Design — anyone that thinks about the how of putting together a team. I would love to see how this picture of the process, tools and structure of an organization changes over time or if there was a retrospective look (i.e., is there a picture for Google when it was a 100 person company vs. a 1000 company vs. now? What does this evolutionary journey look like?).
I would love to hear any reflections or AHAs that folks might have after playing with these resources. Happy exploring!
