Closing slide from my presentation yesterday on design quality. This is the standard I hold for our industry: Every company large enough to have a CPO or CTO should also have a CDO. The Chief Design Officer (CDO) is most responsible for elevating the quality of the customer experience, with special attention to craft. No other individual should care more about craft and quality, with the exception of the CEO in some cases. If you're actively interviewing for your next role, when you're asked “what questions do you have for me" ask who Design reports into. Follow up by asking how this impacts design quality and craft, and how your role can also impact these. #design #quality #craft
You're going to get a lot of 'right on!' kinds of comments here, but without clarity as to exactly what we're discussing, it's sound and fury, signifying nothing. How do you define "craft"? (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/petermerholz_for-the-past-couple-years-something-ive-activity-7185659405890113537-jX1S?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) How do you define "design quality"? How is design quality meaningfully different from indicators of product success and quality? How do you account for the many companies where design quality (at least how it's conventionally defined) is not how that company 'wins' in the market?
As a close corollary, as long as the head of design (whatever the title) continues to have a background other than design or research, design quality will remain an unnecessarily difficult battle.
My experience is that we as design professionals, even very senior design professionals, do not focus enough on the business. Anybody in a C-Suite role needs to do that. Every other role you mentioned is expected to drive business results. We have to emphasize that more in the design professional community.
I think we need to be a bit more self-critical. Never have there been so many designers in companies, deeply involved in R&D, requirements and strategy. Never was more attention payed to design. Yet stuff keeps getting worse. UX has become awfull. Most design is boring (that's worse than bad!). Is that really just because we don't have enough power? I used to buy so many books on design and UX but in recent years there have been only a few new publications, that weren't just referencing older work, a collection of opinions or blatant self-advertising. And only a few had any relevancy. I think we need to admit that design is in a crisis.
The reason most designers report into a CPO (or some other business focused capacity) is because many designers, including veterans with decades of experience, still care more about abstract concepts like ‘craft’ and ‘quality’ than creating results for the business. I say that as some who whole heartedly believes that design can be incredibly valuable, and a CDO can be an amazing addition to a leadership team. But the design discipline really needs to come up with better arguments for why a business should invest more heavily in design. I do think there needs to be a change in attitude towards design though, but that starts at home. But just from looking at design influencers & thought leaders on LinkedIn - I still see a lot more ‘this is what businesses need to do for design’ than ‘this is what design should be doing for the business’.
In my experience the value of design, and its role in so many companies are disturbingly not understood by the folks whose titles start with C - and even those who are ‘V’s’. I believe I also see a competition between the vp’s of just about everything EXCEPT design (operations is the most hilarious) to ‘own’ design — simply as an ego massage or medal of prestige. At least until they eventually bungle it and cause the function to fail. So pointless…
This is like saying if architecture sits with engineering it will be a problem. Design is the product it is not separate from it. It is an element of the product, so it should go along with it. If design is left independent, chances are it will "over design" for every situation. It is good that it sits with product, so that there is always an ROI process involved in deciding what is actually needed.
Businesses regard Accountancy as important, even though it is a specialist subject with expertise outside of the core product and strategic motivations of the business. They might not even understand Accountancy or understand the people who do it, but they respect it because they regard 'money' (the subject accounts deal with) as important. Not so Design. At least I've never seen it in the corporations I've worked in and the ones that do respect design are often unique and wildly celebrated. The subjects we deal in are also outside core product and motivations but the subject designers deal in is not respected. Design groups insistence on its importance is mostly what drives design and often it's accepted begrudgingly. Design never helps itself by making the aims of design and its direct business alignments 'obscure' and by that I mean explanation in business language. Design has a responsibility to influence business that it should not be responsible for.
For me, design is how it works, not just how well-crafted it is. A well-designed product is a well-thought-through product as well as well crafted, so design quality = product quality. So I'm fine reporting to CPO as long as we are aligned on the role of design. On the other hand, I'd find it difficult to report to CDO for whom craft is the main focus.
Walking the earth. You know, like Caine in "Kung Fu." Just walking from place to place, meeting UX people, getting in adventures.
8moWhat about having an EVP, SVP, or VP Design that reports directly to the CEO? Is a CDO really necessary for smaller companies? CTOs generally are, hard to argue that one. But if Design *must* be part of the C-suite at "any company large enough to have a CTO," then can't the same argument be made for other critical job functions? Does a 200-300 person company really need a CEO, CTO, CPO, CDO, CMO, CFO, CRO, CIO, and CISO? Moreover, a CDO will still be powerless at most any company where the CEO doesn't see real value in design.