Connecting the Dots Between Design and Business Impact
How to define goals and communicate the value of your design contributions
I’ve held a variety of marketing, advertising, and product design roles over the past ten or so years. I’ve spent time in traditional and digital agencies, co-founded a design studio, and even worked within a private equity firm. When my career pivoted away from consulting and into an in-house product design role, I really started to think deeply about this question: How do I know if my design work is making an impact?
For a long time, I thought the answer could be found in the mythical “design process.” You know the one. It looks something like a perfect circle of infinite researching, designing, gathering feedback, and continuously iterating on user experience until it’s perfect. Well, as it turns out, the design process rarely flows that flawlessly or undisturbed. What I’ve come to realize is that design contributions are informed by business objectives and, subsequently, drive business outcomes. It’s impossible to measure design impact without speaking to the business side of things.
With that in mind, I’d like to offer an equation that I use to connect my design work and contributions to business objectives, and how I measure and communicate those contributions.
The Impact Equation: X + Y + Z = 🏆
It’s kind of strange to think about measuring impact as an equation at first, but trust me on this. It’s a simple way to organize and communicate what you’ve contributed and why it matters. Here’s what the variables in the equation map to:
X = Accomplishments (the goals we set for ourselves)
Y = Measurements, results, and outcomes (how we know it worked)
Z = Personal contributions (what you personally did to make this happen)
Ultimately this equation provides you with a flexible format for sharing what you achieved and why it matters. Something like this:
- “I achieved X, as measured by Y, by doing Z.”
- “I contributed Z, which resulted in Y, and that led to X.”
You should be able to use this equation to tell someone that doesn’t know you, or anything about design, what you’ve worked on and how it impacts them or their business.
Write Simple Goals by Starting With: What, When, and Why
X = Accomplishments (the goals we set for ourselves)
Writing goals is tricky. Honestly, it’s more of an art than a science, and there are plenty of opinions out there on what makes a “good” goal. If this is new to you, go easy on yourself, and use these simple tips to get started.
There are other frameworks for defining and writing goals. S.M.A.R.T. goals are commonly referenced as a standard, and Google is known for their OKR framework. However, if you’re not quite sure how to start writing goals, these frameworks can be a bit daunting.
At the end of the day, you want the goals of your work to be clear and easy to understand.
My suggestion is to start simple, and make sure you cover these three things in your goals:
- What: define what you are specifically going to deliver (e.g., “designs for a new feature” or “an updated organizational process”)
- When: provide a very specific point in time by which you’ll complete the goal (e.g., “end of Q2” or ”end of client engagement”)
- Why: clearly state why this is important to your team, organization, or company (e.g., “improve customer ROI by $X” or “increase total addressable market X%”)
Connect Your Contributions to Business Impact
Y = Measurements, Results, and Outcomes (how we know it worked)
So let’s jump ahead now. This is where the real magic happens. You’ve written your goals. You’ve worked your tail off, and, of course, you nailed it! But…now what?
This is where follow through is really important. If you’ve gone through the trouble of writing great goals and executing against them, you should absolutely be able to communicate your contributions and their impact!
There are a ton of ways to measure your impact. You might not be 100% comfortable with this at first, but open your mind and get a little bit creative. Not dishonest…just creative.
It’s fine if you don’t have numerical data. Find ways of surfacing relevant qualitative data instead.
If you’re able to tie your contributions to revenue gained, you’re in an awesome place. And pretty much anything that you can measure objectively is great too. But measurements like customer and stakeholder satisfaction can be just as important. Here are some examples to get you started:
- Quantitative measurements: revenue, usage and adoption, views or reach, engagement, conversions, usability metrics, etc.
- Qualitative measurements: customer and stakeholders feedback, value to leadership, completing company and team initiatives, etc.
Share How You Delivered Results
Z = Personal contributions (what you personally did to make this happen)
If you’ve been following the equation so far, you’ve articulated what you set out to do (goals) and how you know your efforts were successful (measurements, results, and outcomes.) So far, everything you’ve captured up to this point should be objective goals and measurements about the business, organization, or team. But the last part of this equation is where you should highlight the actions, deliverables, and inputs you provided to deliver business impact.
This is not the time to be bashful. Get comfortable with self-promotion, and give yourself credit for your hard work.
My suggestion here is to avoid outlining the typical stages of the design process. If you’re a designer, activities like desk research, wireframes, prototyping, and design iteration are part of your day-to-day job requirements. Instead of sharing the processes that are expected of you, try focusing on how you pushed your project forward to deliver results. Consider the following ideas as a way to get started:
- How many customers did you meet with or interview?
- Did you lead or participate in any workshops?
- How did you get your cross-functional partners involved?
Pulling This All Together
Ultimately, what you want to end up with is an artifact (slides or a document) that communicates your goals and the impact of your contributions. This should be written in a way that anyone in your organization could read, without seeing any of your design work, and say to themselves, “Wow. Based on these outcomes, it seems like this person really made a big difference.”
Dedicate a single slide or page of your document to one goal and the associated accomplishments, measurements, and personal contributions (reference the formula above). The outcome should look something like this:
Design has been invited to the business conversation. It’s our responsibility to make sure we’re fluent in their language.
You’re already doing the hard work of turning complex business requirements into enjoyable customer experiences. My tip to you is to take that one step further. Take the time to design goals that are connected to your organization’s business objectives. Then measure the results in a way that everyone can understand and appreciate.
At the end of the day, your goals and how you measure them can be powerful tools for accelerating your personal improvement, gaining professional recognition and elevating the role of design.
Hero image credit: Javier Yep
👋 Want more from the DocuSign PX team? Follow us on Medium and on Dribbble. Want to work together? We’re hiring!
