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

by Peter Merholz

Many design organizations rely on process as a proxy for quality. This is a false connection. Critical thinking is essential for delivering great work, and an over-adherence to a methodology leads to teams making unthinking decisions. While a high-level process or general approach can help designers communicate how they work with other functions, insisting on a granular step-by-step process for every project engenders a rigidity that can actually harm quality. Design problems vary, and design teams should be familiar with a range of approaches and methods to solve them appropriately. “We must follow a user-centered design process” may sound like a good plan, but when any process becomes an assumption or accepted dogma, it becomes a crutch that replaces critical thinking. Instead of following a well-trod process, design leadership should make the effort to figure out the best ways to tackle different challenges, drawing from a broad methodological toolkit.