You design the epics

The four conditions for design-maturity

As Herbert Simon said, “To design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” What implicates that we intentionally change something for the better. We perform to make an impact. To understand what someone else needs to undergo a positive effect, one needs to have empathy. Having empathy requires a culture of openness. Therefor design is about Empathy, Performance, Impact, and Culture.

To be able to design, you need to have an outside-in view of your company, your offering, and your aspirations. More often than not, and that is obvious, we look at the world through our own eyes. We approach things with our mental model and based on our own experiences.

When you want to design to solve a problem or fill a need that is not your own, it can be challenging to understand the context, the problem, and the mental model of the people for who you design.

Start with empathy

Walk in the shoes of your target group to start. Interview your audience and investigate their behaviour. Look at comparable problems, and how they solve these in other industries. These all are actions you need to take to understand the people for who you work. But empathy is only a start, it helps you to understand the…