Organizational change in the digital age — SERIES: Notes from the trenches I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years advising, mentoring and supporting digital product, design, and research leaders and teams through change in their organizations. Whether building new teams, restructuring existing ones, or helping embed the way product, design and research practices engage with…

Supporting designers through transitions — I’ll start by saying that I’m one of those design leaders who hasn’t come from a traditional design background. I began my career as an engineer designing telecommunications networks, which required a deep understanding of how technology and systems, people and organizations interact with one another. I started with a…

A few observations from the last 30 years of design’s digital journey — Note: this article predominantly focuses on design in the digital age. It’s late 2022 and I’ve been on this digital design journey since the early ’90’s. In a world where individuals and organizations continually search for ways to reinvent or differentiate themselves, their products and their services; on a planet…

Small things that can make big differences to people — It’s the end of another WFH year (for me), and the start of a new year. I’ve been reflecting on ways of working as I do my annual planning work. As a writer and novelist, I’m happy with my progress and clear about things I’d like to accomplish in 2022. …

Hearing the perennial discussions around getting a “seat at the table” from designers and design leaders who feel neglected or misunderstood results in a good debate but often one that often overlooks an important fact: most companies have more than one table that designers should strive for. In fact, it…

Throughout my career, I have enjoyed working across a number of disciplines. I began as an engineer who gravitated to digital in the early to mid-90’s where I worked (as many did in those days) across multiple disciplines; mine being project management, development and design. I later settled on design…

Many times in my career, I’ve had the chance to experience exactly the kind of transformation that’s so often talked about: re-shaping a team into journey-focused value streams (or squads, themes, or whatever term you prefer). And in the process, I’ve repeatedly witnessed a decision-making process that confuses and confounds…

Words have meaning. Words can be defined in many ways — and can be misinterpreted in just as many ways depending on the context in which they are used. Have you ever had a conversation about ‘design’ with a development team only to find half-way through the conversation that you…

Let’s consider for a moment how many large organisations are coming to the realisation that their size, legacy and ways of working have industrialised the ability to think and act creatively out of their businesses. They study start-ups and create innovation teams to try and emulate some of the practices…