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
"ResearchOps came from the need to streamline these bottom of the chain foundational skills."
Dave HoraA Research Skills Evolution
March 10, 2021
"Correlation does not equal causation. To say X causes Y, you’ve gotta do an experiment."
Katie HansenExperimental research: techniques for deep, psychology-driven insights
March 12, 2025
"We aimed for a fifth grade reading level to make materials accessible."
Alexia Cohen Adriane AckermanIncreasing Health Equity and Improving the Service Experience for Under-Served Latine Communities in Arizona
December 4, 2024
"People don’t actually hate innovation; they like their jobs and feel threatened by change."
Laura KleinUnique challenges of innovation in enterprises
April 23, 2020
"Ask your procurement officer if some requirements, like insurance, can be moved to contracting to avoid scaring away small firms."
Emily LessardRFPs Without Tears: Writing Inclusive RFPS that Don't Scare Away Talent
December 9, 2021
"Land acknowledgement done as a checkbox is performative; when embedded, it becomes a practice of respect and inclusion."
Zariah CameronStreamlining an Inclusive Design Practice
October 3, 2023
"AI is a great tool for drafting and summarizing, but you have to keep your unique voice because that’s what differentiates you."
Bria Alexander Laura Gatewood Corey Long Daniel Orbach Laine Prokay Deanna SmithThe Big Question about Resilience: A panel discussion
September 23, 2024
"Accessibility was considered kind of an inspiring hack, an inspirational rarity."
Sam ProulxTo Boldly Go: The New Frontiers of Accessibility
June 10, 2022
"Accessible mobile designs can be reused on desktop, but desktop-first accessibility is harder to transfer to mobile."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
September 8, 2022