prioritize connection
In the future interdisciplinary tech teams will work together in to solve abstract problems. To innovate and build together. What I witness in my experience are companies that silo their teams into disciplines. Sometimes it creates solutions that weigh on one discipline. Other times it creates solutions that neither solves the problem for the customer or meet business goals. Companies that I worked at understand this problem. I’ve been part of workshop seasons where hundreds of us come together in one place to create together.
Where we are today
Design is well integrated in the product development process = 66%
5% of empowering design for the greatest benefits, 41% have significant room to grow
When design takes center stage it can have a direct impact on tangible results: revenue, valuation and time to market
41% of companies surveyed are at level 1 - Producers of the design maturity scale, design just makes it look good
Yet to change the way a large company of over 500 employees to solve problems may take years. Not to mention the demands from our shared economy to innovate in a much faster speed than we used to. It will take much longer than a month or a season.
Today in addition to working on designs and making sure they’re implemented to the quality that it needs to be. I’m also facilitating multiple virtual workshops which require planning, attention, a deep sense of empathy and deep listening. Activities that consume mental energy on an unprecedented level. The way that I’m exercising my body is creating a sense of expectations for the outputs of the team and of the projects. It can seem at times that the enormous effort and sacrifices that I’ve made are making little change to helping our team mature.
Yet that isn’t true at all. The change is just perhaps not as significant. When I started we weren’t doing any design sprint workshops. Today we have two projects where we’ve completed two out of the five steps of the design sprint workshop. We also began showing work in progress with other teams and conducting way earlier in advance stakeholder check-ins. We have a schedule for UX design and working session between teams. We also have two mid-week check-in’s for design reviews.
It may take just as long as we took to get where we are right now at work, which is years of working the way that we do in order to transform into a new way of working.
Most of all I remind myself that I am experiencing unprecedented change. To not give up. To take deep breaths. That if I steps towards prioritizing my relationships and working deep empathy. I can be in this space with healthier expectations, patience and peace.
Wynne Leung McIntosh
Credits:
The Design Maturity Model - Invision https://www.invisionapp.com/design-better/design-maturity-model/