Book Review: Org Design for Design Orgs

History of Management

Merholz and Skinner describe the history of management in organizations. They recognize that Design teams are frequently at a disadvantage because this function has not had the same focus on career growth and leadership that we see in other functions. This lack can lead to an inordinate focus on design skills rather than adequate consideration of soft skills.

The book provide the example of the Golden State Warriors, an NBA team that, until the 2012 season, had been a mediocre, mostly losing team. But the 2012 season brought important changes to the franchise, with the addition of new, highly skilled players, whose performance contributed to two winning seasons in a row. Despite the team’s improved performance and consecutive appearances in the NBA playoffs—the first in decades—their raw talent wasn’t enough to turn the Warriors into a championship team. Because of that, the franchise replaced their head coach with Steve Kerr, whose leadership style starkly contrasted with that of his predecessor. Of course, the lesson here is that players’ skills are not enough to deliver outsized results. You need effective leadership skills to create high-performance teams.

The design leader has an important role within an organization. Merholz and Skinner advocate strongly for a singular leader at a high level in an organization rather than a collection of directors. Ultimately, this leader should be accountable for the team’s performance and have direct access to the highest levels of leadership within a firm. Only in this way does the leader gain sufficient authority and buy-in from the organization.

How to Lead Design

Design teams and their leaders need to work against certain impulses that can undermine their ability to deliver strategic value. Merholz and Skinner describe a tendency for designers to want to make people happy, leading them to say yes to every request. However, it is more likely that people in other roles would recognize the value of a designer who sometimes says no—and, thus, ensures that scarce resources remain better focused. Designers should resist the urge to accept all tasks—such as making PowerPoint slides look better—and instead focus their talent on design work that would deliver sustaining value.

Likewise, designers have a tendency to dislike seeing poor-quality work ship, so they may intercede in an attempt to make it better. Unfortunately, such well-meaning attempts could be reactionary, leading to design solutions that are not well defined, that slow things down, or that add little to no value.

Merholz and Skinner stress the importance of Design teams’ defining quality standards rather than the rest of the organization having a say about them. Designers are best positioned to identify what good design is, while others may rely on their subjective biases—for example, “I like that shade of red.” Plus, while having a well-defined Design process is valuable for managing delivery and can contribute to quality, process alone is not a valid proxy for quality. Two different people could follow the same recipe for an entrée, but there might very well be vast differences in the quality of their outcomes.

Design teams frequently celebrate product launches as capstones to their work. Unfortunately, this can have the negative consequence of increasing the emotional risk that a launch may go poorly. But, more importantly, it also ignores the reality that, in today’s world of connected products, many products are never truly finished. In contrast, the continuous delivery of improvements to products can minimize teams’ anxiety and continually build value for customers and organizations.

Conclusion

Org Design for Design Orgs provides an excellent foundation for the leaders of internal Design teams. The book’s broad consideration of design rather than just User Experience provides additional context and greater potential for those who need to design a design organization.