Designers often wonder or whine about how their work is not
recognized, accepted or even respected in their organization. What many
designers don’t realize is how they or their designs are treated has to
do with how the discipline of design is viewed within their
organization. While most of the time I reference organizations that
have in-house design teams, most of the topics of our discussion today
can also apply to consultancies looking to service organizations that
buy design services.
There are many levels of how Design is viewed or integrated within
an organization. This is what I like to call “The Design Functionality
Axis” as illustrated above. The Axis stretches from a low level
Supplier relationship at the base of the triangle to a Strategic Design
Leadership relationship.
In the next few paragraphs, I hope to explain in detail what it
means for a company to operate at these different Design functional
levels, what designers working at these levels can expect and some
hints on what can be done to push the value of design in your
organization up this axis.
A Supplier Relationship
This is the lowest relationship denominator and is no coincidence that
it is at the bottom of the pyramid. In a Supplier relationship, design
and designers are often put in an execution role. In other words, a
design is treated a means to an end. It is often seen as being done
“off the corner of the table” and in a few hours. Often very styling in
nature, the majority of consulting and freelance work often operates at
this level. With in-house designers, it is no different. Here a
designer mostly works alone, does almost everything remotely creative,
and has a hard time trying to convince his/her boss the value of
design. Ironically such companies know that they need design, but do
not have any enabling factors to take it past the superficial.
Furthermore they make the mistake of hiring the cheapest designer or
service they can find, often including designers fresh out of school.
A Supporting Role
It gets a little better here. Designers are seen as very tactical in
nature. In other words, Design is seen as useful in articulating a
required need. Here designers are found as part of and doing the
bidding of established departments like R&D, Engineering or even
Marketing. While much better than a supplier, a designer in a
supporting role still suffers from working with down stream
information, and have very little influence in the brief requirements.
What is worst, is that designers will have to deal with departmental
politics of diverging objectives, an awful design decision-making
process, and many opportunities to rework designs due to changing
requirements.
In a Functional Position
Often, strong designers with a great track record, or who have been in
a company for a long time, will often evolve their contribution into a
functional role. Here a young organization starts to mature in regard
to their view of Design. Such functional roles are evident with a
creation or the existence of a Design Department. Now on par with the
other functional departments like R&D or Engineering, Design in a
Functional role starts to really provide value to a company by having
equal say in solutions. Even though you are now closer to the decision
maker, you will still need to negotiate different environments to get
things done, and have to live with recommendations as you may still
have little say in decisions made.
A Partnership
This is probably one of the best places a designer can be in. In a
partnership arrangement, a designer gets to be part of the
decision-making process, as well as influence the business strategy of
a company. With close partnerships, a designer has a lot of trust
within an organization and his word has a lot of weight. It takes a
designer with quite a lot of skill to be successful in this role as he
has to frame complex design problems into a language the business can
understand. It is not only about strategy, but designers in this
situation, have not only established trust through good communication,
but able to deliver the goods by seeing it through to the end. Here the
design partnership will often have a strong team of designers that
support its success.
Strong Design Leadership
Finally we end this post with the future of the function of Design
within an organization, Design Leadership. With a strong partnership in
place, the logical next step is for design to own the competence of
design within an organization. Here the role of design is naturally
very strategic, where design plays a part in high-level business
discussions, or even the main driver leading key initiatives. Design
does this by identifying potential opportunities and articulates
solutions that are vital for a successful brand or business. It takes
an organization with a very mature and strong understanding of the
value of design to accept Design in a leadership role. Design has now
gone beyond form, as it resides in the DNA of a company and integral to
its daily operations.
Source: Design Sojourn
Posted by: Andreea Hirica
Posted on: Contagious Ideas
