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Leadership through design
Delivering impact and value
“Design is a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or another object before it is made”
Definition of design
Under-standing design
The definition of design is the baseline of how I work as a leader. It means that everyone can and is designing, regardless of whether they are a product manager, a developer or a user experience designer. Providing design leadership means understanding the environment in which products are built and how certain factors influence the outcome; this also includes understanding the business.
As a result, my curiosity allows me to expand my view and knowledge beyond the field of UX, UI and other design areas into product management, coding, research, and business intelligence.
Building amazing products means having great individuals, working together in outstanding teams which are all positively influenced by the organisation. In short, it is my responsibility as a design leader to provide an environment like this, and here is how I do it.
The Organisation
The unseen primary influencer to build incredible products is the organisation. Through leading by example, providing guidance through vision and evolving culture as a part of the organisations DNA, we can provide an environment that has a high positive effect on how products are created. The organisation itself often determines the behaviour of its employees through those factors. And, I do strongly believe that we can help products grow through understanding how to contribute positively to this environment.
Vision & strategy
To form the core in order to align teams and departments to move together in one direction through defining a north star at the intersection of customer needs, business, and technological opportunities.
Systems & frameworks
To reduce the initial effort for new features and products. Additionally, to provide a common understanding for how to execute work between departments, teams, and individuals.
Adaptable processes
As a foundation for every step on the way of creating products while recognising the context.
Transparent communication
To make sure everyone has the information they need to move forward and to understand intentions plus goals.
Values & principles
To guide each individual and teams in their day-to-day challenges building products that represent the company.
Organisational structure
To identify dependencies between roles, teams, and departments as well as to keep a healthy environment for growth.
The teams
They are the visible ecosystems in which ideas grow, get tested, and measured by multiple individuals coming together. As creativity always demands new perspectives; diversity and interdisciplinary thinking are vital factors. Besides, teams also need a shared understanding of structure, culture, and responsibilities as a common ground for individuals.
Roles and responsibilities
To help people to understand what expectations exist towards them and how everyone can support each other.
Team culture
As a common understanding for how to interact with one another on a regular basis based on mutual agreement.
Team goal definition
As motivation and guidance for the team to work towards a universal direction.
Team structure
Which defines the baseline for how teams are staffed and distributed within an organisation.
Team operations
To determine the rituals which give continuity like reviews, feedback rounds, task assignment, goal checking, and many more.
The individuals
We all strive for creating something significant and satisfying even when those things have a different definition for each of us. That is why understanding the needs, goals, motivations, and ambitions of each individual is crucial for team success and the organisation.
Strengths and weaknesses
To help each individual to recognise where they can support one and another and create opportunities to learn from each other.
Personal goals
To encourage individuals to exceed limits, maximise their potential, aim for new skills, and advance their career.
Being human
To understand the needs of others and oneself within the given environment and build the empathy and ability to act on those.
Training and growth opportunities
To learn new skills, gain new experiences and contribute to the company’s future success.
The products
The result of the interaction between organisation, teams and individuals is the product. The organisation influences the teams and eventually through the teams influence the individuals. We estimate, we prototype, we test, and we measure products along the way to build amazing experiences for our users. In other words, those are the products that bring joy to the user the most and drive exceptional businesses.
Understand
To ensure everyone generally aligns on the customer problems that the teams and the organisation are trying to solve.
Observe
Which helps us to understand the user perspective, gain behavioural insights, identify patterns, and define focus areas.
Define
By outlining the root cause for the problem and translating it into a statement for the ideation.
Ideate
To identify possible solutions fixing the problem.
Prototype
To be able to validate ideas before we decide on significant investments.
Evaluate
By testing potential solutions with the user to be able to improve the most promising ones.
Build
To create a solution that can endure the daily challenges of our users and bring meaning to their lives.
Measure
Which allows us to determine if the product is a success and how we can to improve and iterate on the product.
