3 Big Lessons on Organizational Design Maturity
On June 13, 2019, Animoto hosted a roundtable discussion about organizational design maturity. This term was introduced in a 2018 InVision report called “The New Design Frontier”, and it refers to how thoroughly a company has committed to industry-recognized design practices, where design thinking is integrated and valued at the highest levels of the organization.
This article provides a quick summary of the report, a recap of the event, and 3 big lessons that emerged from our discussion.
Report summary
If you haven’t read it yet, you should. I’ve spent years of my design career advocating for companies to invest in strong design practices — and this is one of the most effective and well structured arguments I’ve encountered.
InVision generated the report from a survey of designers in 2,200+ organizations to explore how companies can create better business outcomes with design. It states that “companies with high design maturity see cost savings, revenue gains, and brand and market position improvements as a result of their design efforts.”
This finding remained true regardless of industry, location, and company size. Yet, of the organizations surveyed, “just 5% are empowering design for the greatest benefits, and 41% have significant room to grow”.
The report identified 5 levels of design maturity. At level 1, design is reduced to the way things look. Progressing up the ladder, design is increasingly viewed as the approach by which we can deliver value and delight our users. This culminates at level 5, where design becomes equivalent to strategy — great customer experience is critical to achieve great business results.
This framework provides an easy reference point for companies to evaluate their current state, and think about how they might advance.
Event overview
The purpose of the event was to discuss organizational design maturity among designers from a diverse group of companies, and understand how the concepts apply within various industries, company sizes, and design orgs.
I moderated the discussion — I’m Kristen Connor, Head of Design at Animoto. Attendees included product and user experience (UX) designers from top New York companies, such as:
- Animoto
- Designation (now WeWork)
- Dropbox
- Equinox
- Perch
- Warner Bros. Digital Labs
- ZocDoc
We broke the discussion into 3 major sections, each with a handful of sub-questions:
- Do the five levels resonate with your experience working in design orgs?
- What design organizations do you admire for their design maturity?
- Have you been a part of an org that has raised its design maturity?
3 big lessons
Our discussion was really engaging and fun, and I learned a lot. I’m grateful to the designers who spent a rainy morning in June with us at Animoto, lending their insights and experiences.
After letting it all sink in, I came away with 3 big lessons I think could be valuable to other design organizations.
1. The levels aren’t precise, but offer a valuable yardstick
It’s common for companies to exhibit characteristics of multiple levels within the framework.
For example, at a level-1 org (where design is viewed as what happens on screens) — the team may start to advance its design maturity by introducing such practices as collaborative design sessions with stakeholders (which is a trait of level 2), or even start to document some guidelines (typical of level 3).
A level-3 company (which has a well established, documented design system), might be stretching into some level-4 behaviors (e.g., establishing strong testing methods). And it also might be lagging behind in some areas, like having a lack of structure in capturing stakeholder input (which is common to level 2).
Even the most advanced companies represented at our roundtable (levels 4 and 5) indicated there are pockets of level 1 thinking in their companies. Designers must provide constant education about the value of design maturity.
How to apply this lesson
While identifying an exact “score” isn’t realistic or particularly useful, the levels can serve as a yardstick that everyone can understand. Use the yardstick to assess current-state design maturity. Discuss the practices identified at each level to identify strengths and areas of improvement in your org. You can also use this yardstick to chart a path to greater design maturity by identifying initiatives that will help achieve higher levels.
2. Executive support is required to achieve level 5
Consistent with the Invision report, our participants agreed that organizations with level-5 design maturity are extremely rare. But such companies do exist, and level 5 is attainable IF (big IF) executive leadership not only understands design as strategy, but actively expects all employees to play a role in delivering a great customer experience.
We discussed companies we admire for their emphasis on design and customer experience — for example, Apple, Amazon, and Zappos. In each of these companies, the founders (Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Tony Hsieh respectively), were/are ardent evangelists for great customer experience.
Here are a few quotes:
- “You’ve got to start with customer experience and work backward to the technology.”
- Steve Jobs - “If there’s one reason we have done better than our peers…, it is because we have focused like a laser on customer experience.”
- Jeff Bezos - “We decided a long time ago that we didn’t want our brand to be just about shoes… we wanted our brand to be about the very best customer experience.”
- Tony Hsieh
At our roundtable discussion, one of our participants was representing a well known, publicly traded, level-5 company. When we discussed how the organization reached the highest level of design maturity, this participant noted the founders had studied design as part of their computer science education, and actively expected strong design thinking.
This raised a question: If a company didn’t start out with customer experience at its core, is it even possible to achieve level 5? I believe the answer is yes — if executive leadership grows to embrace the value of design thinking, and works to change the culture. Over time, leadership must set increasing expectations that everyone in the company should play a role in creating a great customer experience.
Here’s one last quote, from Animoto’s co-founder and CEO, Brad Jefferson:
- “User experience isn’t only a design-team thing, it’s an every-team thing.”
- Brad Jefferson
How to apply this lesson
If you work for a company whose founders and/or executive leaders fully embrace design as strategy, you’re in great shape. Share the organizational design maturity framework with them. Seek their help in charting a path to reach (or maintain) level 5. They will likely be willing to sponsor initiatives that seek to achieve the business benefits that come along with level-5 maturity.
If you work for a company whose founders and/or executive leaders are not yet on board, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Focus on making the case to your exec team for investing in organizational design maturity. (More on how to make the case in lesson 3.) Persistence and resilience will be required, but the effort is worthwhile, as executive support is a key to achieving level 5.
3. The business case is critical
To earn the support of executive leaders (and other colleagues), it’s critical to make a results-focused, measurable business case for investing in design maturity. That’s part of what makes “The New Design Frontier” so effective. As noted, the study found that “companies with high design maturity see cost savings, revenue gains, and brand and market position improvements as a result of their design efforts.” It breaks this down in the Analysis section of the report.
Other studies support this finding. For example, McKinsey tracked the design practices of 300 public companies over a five-year period. The results were published in an October 2018 article called “The business value of design”.
The report states:
- There is a strong correlation between strong design practices and superior business performance.
- Business performance of companies with the strongest design practices (top quartile) was disproportionately greater than the other three quartiles.
- The results held true across companies producing physical goods, digital products, services, or some combination of these.
These studies from reputable sources can be effective tools to make the business case for design maturity. They are even more effective when combined with internal practices to measure and communicate the impact of design within your organization.
How to apply this lesson
Every company’s culture is different. Some companies adopt new ideas by way of reading and discussing outside, reputable sources of information. Other companies are more practically oriented, and prefer to rely on results produced by real projects within their organizations.
Most often it’s a combination of both tactics that drives new ways of thinking. To start to make the case for the business value of design, why not share reports like the “The New Design Frontier” and “The business value of design” with company leaders? Invite them to have lunch, and discuss the articles. Talk about how the concepts apply to your organization.
Meanwhile, start implementing practices within the design team at your company that can lead to a greater understanding of design’s impact on business results. Here are a few examples, ranging from simple to complex — make sure designers present work at end-of-sprint demos; whenever designers communicate to stakeholders, connect the dots between design decisions and success metrics; implement a structured framework for assessing the impact of new features on the user experience; and when establishing KRs/KPIs (or whatever tool your company uses), include measurements of the impact on customer experience.
Let’s continue the discussion
We are so thankful to the designers from Designation (now WeWork), Dropbox, Equinox, Perch, Warner Bros. Digital Labs, and ZocDoc for joining us at the roundtable discussion about organizational design maturity.
I took away many new ideas about how we can continue to improve our design maturity at Animoto, where we make tools for small business owners to create professional marketing videos that stand out on social media. The InVision framework has been a great tool in guiding our internal discussions and I’m excited to get to work on some of these new ideas.
I’d love to know how other designers are making progress within their own organizations. Are there are reference articles, books, or other materials that are helping you raise the profile of design in your company? Have you had any great successes that can help other design orgs improve? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
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