Why investing in design is better than investing in designers

One common misconception about design is that it is something you can do apart from ‘other business activities’. That it is something magical that generates ‘sellable sexiness’ from practically thin air. That the ones who design — are designers, and the ones who do not — are not designers.

The truth however, is that design at its core is just common sense. It’s about crafting solutions to identified problems, something we are only able to do through the involvement of various experts and users. Thus, design is something we do, not something we are.

Certainly, there are those who are educated and trained over years within design, but instead of labeling them as the only ones who design — i.e. ’designers’, we might be better of considering them as experts within the design way-of-work. After all, identifying problems, and solutions to those problems, is a collaboratively cross-disciplinary effort.

Thus, the question to ask is: “should we invest in the design way-of-work?” which again boils down to this: “Do we know which problems we are solving for whom, and do we know how they would like us to solve it for them?” If the answer is No, you could implement design thinking as a way-of-work, since it is great at identifying problems and solutions. However, you will only benefit from design thinking when the whole team understands the problems you are trying to solve, and collaborate closely to design solutions.

For this to be possible it is essential that everyone within the team understands and buys into design as a way-of-work. One way of teaching the team would be through hiring design thinking experts into these teams and learn from them; i.e. the ones we thus far call designers.

In other words, hiring designers to produce designs will only get you so far, but if you’re hiring designers to facilitate a design way-of-work involving the whole team, you are truly investing in design.