Org Design for Design Orgs: Building and Managing In-House Design Teams

by Peter Merholz

The qualities are broken up into three groups: Foundation, Output, and Management (Table 3-1). The Foundation outlines the core concepts that drive the team’s behavior, and explain its very reason for being. With a strong Foundation established, energies then shift toward Output and Management. These qualities are indicative of the broader creative/operational split that is required to sustainably deliver good design, and is a theme throughout this book. Output and Management need to be tackled in tandem, as they reinforce each other. Output addresses what most people think of when considering design — is the team able to produce quality work across the necessary set of capabilities? Management addresses the unsung and often overlooked aspects of actually running a team. To realize team longevity and continued broadening impact, it’s imperative to treat operations as seriously as the work product.