A Seat at the Table: Making Your Team a Strategic Partner
Summary
In many companies, Design is viewed as a tactical resource; in fact, it’s often a subsidiary of Product, there to support the Engineering team. Basically, Design is viewed as “the wire frame people.” This results in a lot of frustration and feeling like the design team doesn’t have a seat at the table, and creates resentment between Design and their Product and Engineering partners. It also results in the organization not realizing the full value of its investment in the design team. The solution to this problem is to transition Design from being a tactical resource to a strategic partner. The question is, how? This session will cover ways that Design can make this transition, exponentially increase their influence, and become a key strategic resource/partner for everyone in the organization.
Key Insights
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Design teams are often treated as tactical support under product and engineering, limiting their strategic influence.
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Measuring design impact requires aligning granular design metrics to high-level business goals like OKRs or North Star metrics.
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Socializing design outcomes with stakeholders is critical to demonstrating design’s business value and shifting perceptions.
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Organizing design in a fractal structure ensures each product team has a design partner, increasing collaboration and visibility.
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Prioritize design staffing based on team impact on revenue and strategic alignment when resources are limited.
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Enhance design systems by including content on when and how to use components to enable self-service by non-design teams.
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A business mindset means pragmatically balancing ideal design solutions with business realities and goals.
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Approach product and engineering as users of design services, identifying and solving their specific problems to build partnership.
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In the Procore case study, integrating design metrics into product KPIs changed the conversation and gave design strategic influence.
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Incremental, iterative measurement of design outcomes builds support and avoids overwhelming teams with large upfront efforts.
Notable Quotes
"Design is often seen as the wireframe people, a subsidiary of product rather than a strategic partner."
"If design isn’t moving the needle on business strategy, designers feel disempowered and are often first to be cut."
"Turning design from tactical to strategic is like turning a super tanker; it takes a long, wide arc."
"If you don’t measure design’s impact, it’s like a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it."
"Organizing your team in a fractal structure ensures product, engineering, and design are always represented as partners."
"Sometimes the best design isn’t the best solution; you have to find a way to make it work within business constraints."
"Try to avoid saying no; instead, ask why and focus on problems rather than specific stakeholder requests."
"In Procore, design moved from tasting the cake to baking the cake by being involved early in strategy and planning."
"Usability testing is the gateway drug for research; similarly, incremental measurement can be the gateway for strategic design."
"If product and engineering see you as problem solvers who make their lives easier, they’ll make you central to their work."
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