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

by Peter Merholz

The gravest issue for designers is that they find themselves fundamentally disempowered. By the time designers are brought in to the project, the important decisions have already been made. Their concerns about assumptions underlying a brief are easily dismissed, because those designers will be gone when their part of the work is over. It’s the people in the business who are held accountable, and with that accountability comes authority. Design may be seen only as aesthetics and styling, or as one former client referred to it, “SUAC: Shut Up and Color.” God forbid you actually conduct any usability studies, because any issues found will probably not get addressed, as designs need to be handed to the engineers at a specified time in order to meet the predetermined ship date. This disempowerment leads to designers developing an “us versus them” attitude. They become disenchanted, nodding during meetings, but rolling their eyes afterward at the requirements they’ve been handed. They put in the bare minimum to get the work done, because their effort isn’t going to be appreciated. And such attitude and behavior only reinforces the business’s treatment of designers, leading to a vicious cycle of diminished expectations.