Just Jump In: How to Scale Design Practices

The best way to begin scaling design practices across complex organizations is to deliver outcomes first and grow from there.

When we talk about enterprise design adoption with our clients — often the first question we get is, “where do we start?” Spreading a message across an organization is one thing, but truly changing people’s behaviors in a culture where “we’ve always done it this way” is a completely different animal. We lean on IBM’s design adoption framework to break down this complex ask into three key focus phases: strategy, execution and enablement.

Every client has a different appetite for how much they can tackle at once, or where they are with their own journey to scaling design. Building off of the learnings from our own IBM transformation, over the past five years, IBM iX has advised numerous clients on this exact journey. Our experience has shown that an organization must tackle all three areas (strategy, execution and enablement), but not necessarily all at once, and definitely not in isolation. We’ve learned that the first step is critical to setting the path forward, so we always encourage showing, not telling.

Execution: Proving the Value of New Ways of Working

As they say — the proof is always in the pudding — and Design Thinking is no exception. In our experience the fastest way to leadership buy-in and setting the wheels of change in motion, is to show the value of working and delivering outcomes in a user-centered, iterative fashion. Our recommendation for clients is always to start with a pilot project where our Design Thinking coaches can help guide teams through the process and come out the other side with something tangible. Leaders are always impressed with how quickly we can move from a problem space to outcomes — they often say what we help them produce in 8–12 weeks would have traditionally taken them 6–8 months, or more. Even if it’s small, this is the best way to win over skeptical leadership and create a baseline understanding for those doing the work.

By starting off getting their hands dirty, clients learn valuable lessons about how best to tailor the methodology to their organization — which is hugely valuable for informing a full adoption strategy, which will outline goals and processes to measure the success of design. Trying out the process first means you have a blueprint to start from and adjust — just as you’d try on a pair of shoes before committing to walking all day in them.

The added benefit to this approach is you can quickly identify who, within the organizational ranks, will be the Design Thinking champions — the Coaches and Advocates who make practicing design thinking on teams possible. In choosing a cross-functional team to participate in a pilot project not only are you exposing everyone to this new way of thinking, but you have the opportunity to see who really gets it, embracing the empathy, ambiguity and speed. Fair warning — it’s often not who you think it would be! This sets the stage for continued education and enablement and building a pipeline of Design Thinking leaders at all levels.

Strategy: Creating a Repeatable, Measurable Approach

Once organizations have been able to see the Design Thinking process in action, and understand how to apply it to every day problems, they can start to build on the strategic framework set by their initial experience. While personas, wireframes and workshops are all pieces to the puzzle, a business needs to understand the intentions, and benefits, behind these activities and realize the longer term benefit. Having a solid strategic framework defines the goals and the overall operating model so that the organization can measure and govern the user and business impact of design. By setting strategic targets, such as employee engagement, client satisfaction, or speed to market, codifying processes and adopting a programmatic approach, we can turn “design” into something the business cares about. Not only does the task of scaling then become more digestible, but it also becomes more tangible.

We tell our clients that no two design adoption strategies are ever the same — and that’s because every organization we work with has different priorities, support mechanisms and areas of focus. But the way we approach thinking about strategy is always the same:

• People: The roles and responsibilities that are helping drive design (both craft design and design thinking) and adoption at various levels
• Practices: The unifying methodologies or approaches that the entire organization will embrace (often focused on research, design and development)
• Places: The physical and virtual spaces, collaboration tools and processes that help foster a design culture

Within each of those buckets, the specifics are customizable to each organization’s culture and goals. Having delivered an initial pilot project, the organization also has one cycle under their belts to iterate and improve upon so it fits their needs. We define success metrics, team structures and cement the language and approach for continued delivery. Moving into more projects it’s important that teams are able to quickly work together and rally around a common understanding and goal and have the appropriate infrastructure in place to deliver successful outcomes.

At a consumer facing bank we partnered with, they started with a purely strategic approach. The team conducted a design adoption strategy workshop and used those outputs to create the bank’s Design Adoption Playbook. As the team dug into the playbook we encountered many difficult decision points, i.e. if this happens, then what? The client team did not have project work experience to reference to help create the playbook guidance. If they had a simultaneous pilot project, they would have been able to use it to test and understand exactly what those best practices are for them specifically. The end result was a complete playbook that imagined a multitude of scenarios, but lacked the grounding that would have come from project feedback.

Having a well-built strategy, grounded in experience, doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, but it does provide the foundation required to continue scaling.

Enablement: Cultivating Like-Minded Champions

By starting with a pilot execution project, you allow the organization to get a taste of the Design Thinking magic. Everyone has witnessed the speed at which outcomes can be delivered, and some have exercised and observed, the foundational principles of the Design Thinking methodology. This sets the stage for a tiered educational strategy based on organizational priorities.

One thing we always highlight with an organizational enablement plan is the importance of having design thinkers at all levels: executive and stakeholder level champions who can fund projects and create the conditions for success (Leaders and Advocates) all the way down to the “worker bees” (Practitioners) who participate in teams and do work at the direction of a Coach, who leads the charge.

While a widespread general education program may seem like a good starting point, we see organizations run into issues when practitioners don’t have the structures (or strategy) in place to exercise the skills they’ve learned in their day-to-day.

Another financial services client went with an enablement-only approach. They hoped that the practices would become “sticky” if they trained a small group really well. They had four practitioners commit to a 6-month, highly intensive program to help accelerate their path to Enterprise Design Thinking Coach. This group however was missing the other two pillars of the Design Adoption Framework, strategy and execution. The participants were not strategically selected from key business units or attached to high impact initiatives. Their top-down support was inconsistent and they did not have project work lined up to put their newly learned skills to the test. The result was a short-lived spark that had nowhere to grow and eventually scale.

Enablement needs to be bolstered with leadership support and a focused goal in order to gain traction, without those pieces in place, it’s just another training.

A Formula for Success

The poster child for successful design adoption engagements was our work with an investment advisory firm. They followed our phased approach to the letter and have seen the biggest success of any company we’ve engaged with. The organization was very new to design as a discipline within their IT area when we first started working with them. We kicked off our partnership with a large pilot project — one of the firm’s top priority projects for the year. Based on the execution of that project, we were able to bring along executive stakeholders and make the case for widespread adoption of the methodology. In tandem with our execution projects, we had a small dedicated team crafting a strategic playbook that outlined the roadmap for scaling the work over the next 2–3 years.

Once this strategy and plan was in place they focused their efforts on implementing all of the outlined recommendations, including training their own design thinking coaches, hiring more design talent and implementing new processes. One of the keys to their quick success was top-down executive support for the initiative which cleared the way for iteration and doing things in a new way. After working with our team for a year, they have now become self-sufficient in their design thinking practice — with a centralized Design Thinking Center of Excellence and four of their own badged Design Thinking Coaches spearheading initiatives across the organization.

Go Ahead — Jump In!

It may seem risky to jump into the deep end without your water wings on, and before knowing the depth of the water or even how to swim, so we would only advocate for this approach teamed with a strong, seasoned Design Thinking Coach who won’t let you drown. The lessons learned starting with one engagement can set the stage for exponential traction, support and growth within an organization. We’ve seen the best results from clients who follow this phased approach but also understand the need for hitting all three areas: execution, strategy and enablement. Without all three, the conditions for real adoption success are much harder to foster. Not to get too metaphorical — but it’s the adage of the three-legged stool — without one leg, the stool will eventually collapse.

— Written by Nicole Raine & Kate Sullivan

Nicole Raine and Kate Sullivan are Design Thinking Coaches at IBM, based remotely. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.