Tim Brown of IDEO didn’t get it wrong when he detailed where Design Thinking sits (and by inference, the role of design). We all just misunderstood the framing.

Just about every product company out there organizes itself in some version of the 3 legged stool model: Product, Engineering, and Design. Three disciplines that come together equally (emphasis added) to make decisions about what to build and how to build it. Design thinking is meant to sit at the center.

© IDEO

  • Desirability represents Design: Is this something users will like?

  • Viability represents Product: Can this be turned into a sustainable business model?

  • Feasibility represents Engineering: Is this something we can build practically?

By inference, design is meant to represent the voice of the customer. “We speak for the user.” (please, designers, I’m begging you — never say that). That is the shorthand we’ve fallen into. If that’s our value prop, we have the weakest of the three. Or at the very least, the value prop a company can set aside or minimize.

Engineers have to be able to build the thing. No one else can do it. By virtue of having the unique skill set, they cannot be ignored or sidelined.

Product managers frame everything in the context of business impact. They run the numbers. They are always making the case for something on the merits to the business.

Designers understand the user. That is important, certainly. But it is also the weakest case for the proverbial seat at the table. It is advisory. It is not strategic. Additionally, designers aren’t the exclusive owners of insight into user desire and behavior. PMs and engineers also have some understanding of what the user wants. After all, they too are focused on building a product to suit an audience.


Family Guy, Avengers cut away gag


The real value prop of design

It is perhaps a bit insulting to argue that non-designers have no understanding of the user. It’s simply not true. They may not have the rigorous approach to understanding that designers (should) apply. But there is some understanding. And that’s a good thing. User insight should not be solely owned by designers. Understanding the user is information that should be communal, shared across the company.

I don’t think Tim Brown was suggesting only designers know this information. And the focus of that diagram is the center — in the middle of those 3 forces. Design thinking. And this, more than understanding customers, is the strength that design brings to an organization.

In presentations I give on the role of product design, I have a slide that includes the IDEO diagram and describes our role as the process of identifying and solving user needs for the benefit of business.

Design vision presentation

We identify problems and solve them to deliver business results. We lead the way on tackling the right problems to return value to the company. That is the true value prop of design.

The management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. has developed the McKinsey Design Index (MDI) which tracks the performance of design-led companies. They have concluded that these companies greatly outperform their competitors, regardless of industry. It is a serious differentiator.

We found a strong correlation between high MDI [McKinsey Design Index] scores and superior business performance. Top-quartile MDI scorers increased their revenues and total returns to shareholders (TRS) substantially faster than their industry counterparts did over a five-year period — 32 percentage points higher revenue growth and 56 percentage points higher TRS growth for the period as a whole.” — The Business Value of Design, McKinsey & Co.

 

From “The Business Value of Design

Design delivers business results

I’ve deployed my design teams to numerous situations that on the surface didn’t require what is normally thought of as design work:

  • Customer service call center that was looking to reduce average time issue resolution.

  • Foundational backend work on a critical lead generation tool (all dev work, no front-end).

  • HR team looking to modernize their processes and improve eNPS

  • Finance team looking to develop new workflows to better handle increased workload.

My teams were helpful because they have critical skills that matter to the business. They know how to identify and define a problem, they know how to develop solutions to solve that problem, and they know how to align individuals and teams to tackle those problems.

These are the core skills of designers everywhere and the real impact they bring to companies. So much more powerful than saying: “we speak for the user.”