Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

A Seat at the Table: Making Your Team a Strategic Partner

Gold
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 • Design in Product 2023
Share the love for this talk
A Seat at the Table: Making Your Team a Strategic Partner
Speakers: Alfred Kahn
Link:

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

  • Design teams are often treated as tactical support under product and engineering, limiting their strategic influence.

  • Measuring design impact requires aligning granular design metrics to high-level business goals like OKRs or North Star metrics.

  • Socializing design outcomes with stakeholders is critical to demonstrating design’s business value and shifting perceptions.

  • Organizing design in a fractal structure ensures each product team has a design partner, increasing collaboration and visibility.

  • Prioritize design staffing based on team impact on revenue and strategic alignment when resources are limited.

  • Enhance design systems by including content on when and how to use components to enable self-service by non-design teams.

  • A business mindset means pragmatically balancing ideal design solutions with business realities and goals.

  • Approach product and engineering as users of design services, identifying and solving their specific problems to build partnership.

  • In the Procore case study, integrating design metrics into product KPIs changed the conversation and gave design strategic influence.

  • 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."

Ask the Rosenbot
Michelle Bejian Lotia
Rolling Out a Repository: How Zapier Centralizes Insights from Across their Organization
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme Three Intro
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Corey Long
Hiring in DesignOps: A Critical Study on How to Hire and Get Hired
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Frances Yllana
Theme 2 Intro
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Niko Laitinen
Adaptable Org Design for Resilient Times
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Alnie Figueroa
The Future of Design Operations: Transforming Our Craft
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Emily Eagle
Can't Rewind: Radio and Retail
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Mackenzie Cockram
Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live
2022 • QuantQual Interest Group
Gabriela Barneva
Operationalizing Inclusive Design in Service Design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Gillian Salerno-Rebic
Redefining Speed and Scale: How Accenture’s GrowthOS Uses AI-Simulated Insights to Reduce Risk and Accelerate Innovation
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Joanna Vodopivec
One Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Heidi Trost
To Protect People, You Have to Protect Information: A Human-Centered Design Approach to Cybersecurity
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Johanna Kollmann
Insights-Driven Product Strategy: Get your Research to Count
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Mandy Drew
What Role(s) Can Research Play in Responsible Design?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
The Rosenbot and the Rosenverse: An AMA with Lou Rosenfeld
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold

More Videos

Xenia Adjoubei

"The Researcher in Residence program invites members of affected communities to use our tools over a funded three-month period pro bono."

Xenia Adjoubei Sean Bruce

Empowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program

March 29, 2023

Tamara Kartoziia

"The focus isn’t on head to head competition, but on specialization and differentiation in the Italian market."

Tamara Kartoziia

Think global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months

November 20, 2025

Jay Bustamante

"It is not our job to know all the answers, but to make sure the right questions are asked."

Jay Bustamante

Navigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation

October 2, 2023

Nicole Aleong

"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Nick Lewis

"Be curious, keep learning, and believe you can make a difference in sustainability."

Nick Lewis

Designing and building low-carbon websites independently

November 18, 2025

Vicky Teinaki

"I recently observed a director of engineering talking to a content strategist about what they were both seeing because they were both in the actual physical room at the same time."

Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim Parmee

Short Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers

December 6, 2022

Laura Weiss

"Stress makes us stupid because our creative thinking gets cloudy when under pressure."

Laura Weiss

Turn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment

November 20, 2024

Joerg Beringer

"This tool radically automates user research steps so that no facilitation is needed, it’s actually automatic."

Joerg Beringer Thomas Geis

Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes

June 10, 2025

Shelby Switzer

"Zoom fatigue is real, people are not necessarily keen to go into another Zoom meeting even if they think it’s valuable."

Shelby Switzer

Making Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World

December 10, 2021