Design at Scale is People!
Summary
Design at scale is perhaps the most interesting challenge facing the design industry right now. How do you maintain quality and not get bogged down as your team grows? Much of the discussion focuses on systems and processes, but that starting with systems runs exactly contrary to the true value that design brings to companies, which is a humanistic and creative problem-framing and problem-solving approach. In other words, this focus on systems could ironically undercut design’s potential within organizations. In this talk, I stress how “Design at Scale” is humanism at scale, and share what’s needed to keep people at the center of this work.
Key Insights
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Design at scale requires three goals: consistent quality, velocity, and coherence to avoid siloed experiences.
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Design systems raise quality and speed floors but inherently lack soul and can inhibit innovation if relied on solely.
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Culture in design teams must be explicit and tangible, including shared purpose, values, norms, and artifacts like t-shirts and postcards.
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Singular design leadership reporting close to the CEO signals design’s strategic importance in a company.
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Team leads, not just VPs or directors, are critical as they coach teams, uphold quality standards, manage cross-functional relationships, and protect teams from executive disruptions.
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Organizing design teams by user experience journeys (discovery, purchase, post-purchase) supports coherence across complex systems.
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Super senior individual contributors like design architects and principal designers play a vital role in strategic and creative bridging across product, service, and ecosystems.
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Maintaining coherence and soul in design at scale demands focusing on people and culture as much as processes and systems.
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Diplomacy and standing firm on design principles are essential skills for team leads navigating cross-functional tensions.
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Executive commitment and investment are necessary for embedding design deeply into organizational practices, as shown by IBM’s example under Ginny Rometti.
Notable Quotes
"Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that expresses itself in the outer layers of the product or service."
"Design systems raise the floor for quality and speed but on their own they have no soul and risk inhibiting innovation."
"Without a shared purpose, a team is simply a collection of individuals."
"You need to have a strong sense of values and norms to guide how you behave and interact within design teams."
"The team lead is the most important role in a scaling design organization because they uphold quality and culture daily."
"Team leads manage down by coaching their teams, manage across by diplomacy, and manage up by protecting their teams from executive distractions."
"Organizing design teams by user journey rather than by product better supports a coherent end-to-end experience."
"Super senior individual contributors can focus on strategic and creative work that design directors and VPs often don’t have time for."
"Elevation of design leadership to no more than two levels below the CEO signals that design is important company-wide."
"Executive commitment, like IBM’s hundred million dollar investment, is essential to building design as a deep organizational practice."
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