Summary
How do we shape design organizations to always be in service of the user? Peter Merholz talks about how everything changed when he focused on getting the organization operations correct instead of just getting the design right. Peter Merholz is the VP of Design at Snagajob and the co-author of "Org Design for Design Orgs."
Key Insights
-
•
Great user experiences require aligning design strategy, execution, and organizational structure, not just individual designer skills.
-
•
Centralized design teams offer community and consistency but often struggle with strategic influence and slow delivery.
-
•
Decentralized embedded designers gain ownership and speed but suffer loneliness, skill narrowing, and fractured experiences.
-
•
A hybrid centralized partnership model balances dedicated design skill teams with close collaboration across product teams.
-
•
Organizing product, design, and engineering teams around customer types and journeys creates more coherent, customer-focused solutions.
-
•
Strong team leadership is crucial: leaders must manage down (team empowerment), across (stakeholder relationships), and up (executive communication).
-
•
Design organizations benefit from diverse skill sets beyond interaction and visual design, including content strategy and research.
-
•
Clear, shared definitions of design quality and brand experience principles enable designers to be bold and focused.
-
•
Leaders must be willing to say no to overextension, preserving capacity to deliver high-quality design work.
-
•
Relying solely on process without attention to the content and quality of the work leads to mediocrity and frustration.
Notable Quotes
"Execution is in service of the user."
"It’s not enough to have great people; you need to create the space that brings out the best in them."
"Centralized design teams tend to be brought in after decisions are made, turning design into an us versus them relationship."
"Designers embedded in teams often feel lonely and their work leads to fractured user experiences."
"Organize your product managers, designers, and engineers around customers, not features or code repositories."
"Design is always going to be subjective, so you have to figure out what quality looks like in your organization."
"If you want your teams to be bold, you need explicit quality standards and the courage to say no."
"Team leadership means managing down to empower your team, managing across to build stakeholder relationships, and managing up with executives."
"Relying on process is not a proxy for quality, and divorcing process from content is a fatal enterprise mistake."
"When the design team is organized into coherent teams working across multiple squads, designers feel more supported and less isolated."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We need to think of ourselves as strategic leaders who know customer needs better than anyone in the organization."
Nicole Aleong Michaela Mora Prayag Narula Brianna SylverWhat UX research can learn from other research practices [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]
September 14, 2023
"Market research can no longer afford to take six months with multiple waves; it has to be speedier and more agile now."
Jemma AhmedBringing together market and user research
October 17, 2019
"Tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion—companies imitate what others are doing."
Angelos ArnisNavigating the Rapid Shifts in Tech's Turbulent Terrain
October 2, 2023
"It’s more dangerous to do nothing than to do something that’s not super perfect to start."
Bob Baxley Sara Asche Anderson Sharon Bautista Frank Duran Jamie Kaspszak Abbey Smalley Sylas SouzaTheme 4: Discussion
January 8, 2024
"If folks can't find the information, it doesn't matter how well it is written."
Gabrielle VerderberDocumentation Your Team Will Actually Use
October 3, 2023
"If you extinguish 365 fires in a year, bravo, but what do you really have to show for it, and what’s next?"
Dominique WardThe Most Exciting Time for DesignOps is Now
September 8, 2022
"If you don’t have a little earthquake every now and then, you have a real big one after a while."
Christian Crumlish Wendy Johansson Rich Mironov Aditi Ruiz Adam ThomasAfternoon Insights Panel
December 6, 2022
"Participatory research feels more like improv, not a scripted play; you don't know where the session will go, which is exciting."
Nidhi Singh Rathore Amber DavisEmbracing participation to unlock deeper truths in commercial research
March 12, 2025
"Quantities can be measured, but qualities need to be mapped — that shift feels core to the designer's role."
Jamie Beck Alexander Nina Gregg Shawn Petersen Bill DeRoucheyHow can you find your role in climate?
January 17, 2024