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 must prioritize not only quality and velocity but also coherence to prevent siloed user experiences.
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Design systems and processes improve efficiency but lack the soul needed to drive innovation and humanism.
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Explicit culture with a shared purpose, values, and behavioral norms is essential as design teams grow beyond a dozen members.
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Tangible cultural artifacts like branded kits and team merchandise help reinforce connection within distributed or remote design teams.
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Elevating design leadership close to the CEO signals organizational commitment and is crucial for scaling design impact.
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Team leads, distinct from managers, are the most important role for sustaining quality, coaching individuals, and cross-team diplomacy in large design organizations.
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Team leads serve as shields against executive disruptions, maintaining focus and protecting design teams' work.
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Organizing design teams aligned to user journeys (discovery, purchase, post-purchase) helps maintain end-to-end coherence across product teams.
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Super senior individual contributors like design architects and principal designers enable strategic coherence across products, services, and ecosystems.
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Design at scale requires a humanistic foundation anchored in culture and leadership, combined with a shared vision to coordinate distributed efforts.
Notable Quotes
"Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that expresses itself in successive outer layers of the product or service."
"Design systems can raise the floor for quality and speed but have no soul on their own and risk inhibiting innovation."
"Without a shared purpose, a design team is simply a collection of individuals."
"You cannot manage culture informally once your design team grows to 40, 50, 100 people or more."
"Team leads are the in-the-trenches stewards of design culture; they make sure the culture is lived every day."
"A team lead’s most important responsibility is upholding standards of quality in their team’s work."
"Being a team player doesn’t mean being a pushover; you still have to stand strong for your ideals and values."
"Team leads must manage up as champions for their team, protecting them from randomization and executive swoop-and-poop."
"Organizing teams by user journey rather than product silo supports a coherent, orchestrated experience."
"Elevating design leadership close to the CEO demonstrates that design truly matters in the company."
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