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Summary
Companies are spending millions of dollars on shadow design teams (aka non-designers doing design work). This session shares the concept and the tools we’ve used to measure how much shadow design is happening in a client’s organization. Plus, a case study with some surprising results, and how a design leader used it to grow her team after months of banging her head against a wall. An interesting and perhaps more productive way to approach the “ROI of Design” conversation.
Key Insights
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Shadow design is prevalent in enterprises where non-designers perform significant design tasks due to scarcity of design resources.
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The ROI argument for investing in design has become tired and often ineffective in convincing executives.
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Measuring how much design work non-designers do can reveal substantial wasted effort, often equivalent to many full-time design roles.
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Many people do not know how to effectively engage or collaborate with internal design teams, representing a solvable barrier.
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Organizational design readiness varies widely, with most B2B companies stuck between ‘design aware’ and ‘design is just accepted without real investment.’
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Even in teams with dedicated designers, product managers or engineers sometimes do design work when designers are overallocated or shifted elsewhere.
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Shadow design teams often suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, where less skilled individuals overestimate their design abilities.
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Democratization of design and research raises tensions about control and quality, requiring support systems to maintain standards.
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Strategic design investments not only improve product quality but also increase engineering velocity by freeing engineers from design tasks.
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A pragmatic approach to design advocacy is to show how current budgets are spent poorly rather than trying to justify ROI with abstract metrics.
Notable Quotes
"Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building an arc does."
"I’m sick of talking about the ROI of design. It just doesn’t work."
"The alternative to good design isn’t no design, it’s bad design."
"Shadow design is not about blaming people—it’s about recognizing that design work is happening outside the design team."
"The most alarming result is that people didn’t know how to work with the design team or get help from them."
"If your engineers are stretched, why not resource design better to increase overall velocity?"
"Dunning-Kruger effect in shadow design means people who know less are most confident about their design skills."
"Even teams with dedicated designers sometimes have gaps because designers get pulled to other priorities."
"It’s not naive to want metrics, but the ROI conversation is often code for fear and resistance to change."
"If you’re paying for design today but it’s done poorly by non-designers, wouldn’t you want to spend that money more effectively?"
Or choose a question:
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