Criteria for assessing design maturity
Design is no longer only concerned with aesthetics and form-giving practices. Rather, design is now known for becoming more and more integrated in business management tasks and strategic-level work. This does not mean that business managers are learning how to design - but rather that business managers now acknowledges the benefits from using design methods when making strategic decisions about their companies.
Story time!
The idea that design can be used to influence business strategy is not a novelty. Ever since the mid-twentieth century, design has been argued to have a positive effect on business strategy. In the 1960’s, Nobel Prize winner Herbert A Simon identified design as a key feature of management, arguing that anyone who devices courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, are designing. As business strategy is concerned with planning ahead and ultimately moving from one state to another, arguably strategizing is designing.
Design and business strategy have always been dependent on each other, and the evolution of design in organizations has become a topic of interest for many scholars and organizations alike. Up until the early 1960’s, professional designers were mostly concerned with aesthetics and form giving practices, but the ambition to use design methods to improve processes, business strategies and business models was considered an important focus for designers as well. However, because of the strong focus of using quantitative measurements as the core decision-making driver in business management education, design and its mixed methodologies was undermined in strategic-level work. To uncover what the customers wanted and needed, management often relied on assumptions based on statistics and numeric data, rather than qualitative studies. Subsequently, this led to a lack of product understanding from management, as well as a knowledge gap between strategists and designers which still has been proven to be difficult to bridge.
However, over the past decade, the attitude towards design has begun to shift, as benefits of using design strategically have begun to surface. Some of these benefits include an increased return of investment, improved stock value position and competitive advantage, increased customer loyalty and satisfaction, opportunities to create more disruptive innovations and sustainable solutions, as well as improved working conditions within the organization.
So why are not every organization trying to become more design-driven?
Well, mostly because changing an organization is not an easy, over-night-kind-of task. It is also hard to see the exact value and impact that design can have - without actually investing in it. Another reason is that once organizations have acknowledged the need for becoming more design-driven, they find it difficult to pinpoint exactly where to start. To make this process easier, assessment models and frameworks have been created, which aims to show the impact and value of design, as well as support organizations in their efforts of maturing in design. These models are called “design maturity assessment models”, and you can read more about them in the post “Ways to measure design maturity”.
For this post, however, we are going to look at some criteria to consider when assessing design maturity. Hopefully, this will be of use if you are looking to create your own assessment model or work to become more of a design-led organization.
Criteria for assessing design maturity
Assess more than just the quantitative outcome.
Say your company redesigns a products. After doing so, the product starts selling more. Arguably, you could then say that you know the value of design for that product. You wouldn’t be wrong - but wait, there’s more!
During the redesign of the product, you probably also got more insights into your customers wants, needs and experiences. That kind of data can be very valuable for future projects. Say that you also used a new methodology or process to redesign the product, which allowed the employees’ work to be more effective, engaging and fun. That, in turn, might have had a positive impact on the morale and overall experience of working in your company. Also, maybe during the project some new ideas were born, which could potentially open up new opportunities in other markets. Don’t just focus on the quantitative outcome - it’s the soft values that really count!
When assessing design maturity, you have to look at how design impacts the “what” the “how” and the “why”: the product, the process and the vision.
You have to assess frequently.
Not everything works out perfectly on the first try. What works for some people might not work for others. By assessing the impact of design in an organization on a frequent basis, you get insights into where and how design works and where it doesn’t. You can then start creating solutions to potential issues, test the solutions and then assess again. Approach design maturity assessment like prototyping: test your way forward to success! However, please note that just because you score high in a design maturity assessment doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax. We live in a very fast-paced, evolving world, so there will always be things to improve. Keep assessing, keep improving!
Changing an organization is an iterative process. Testing is key to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Make it a social activity.
What’s the best way to measure design? Honestly, whatever works for you - as long as you do it TOGETHER. By assessing design together with other people in your organization - you start to discuss. Through discussions, knowledge can be generated. And then you talk about what you know. You start to speak the same language.
Try to mix the “assessment team” up with people from different parts of the organization. Have Dennis, the UX-designer, explain how design is used in product design. And then have Karen, the CEO, explain how design is used in strategic-level work.
Actually, if you generally try to work in cross-functional teams with design problems on a frequent basis, it will help “spread” the common language of design even more.
Communication is key in an organization - but it’s more efficient if you speak the same language.
Was this useful?
These are just some of the criteria for assessing design maturity. If you want to know more about design maturity; benefits of becoming a design-led organization, ways to measure design maturity, or how to mature in design, you can do one or more of the following:
Keep reading this blog: I’ll be posting more about design maturity here in the future.
Read my thesis: Yeah, have I mentioned that I wrote an entire master’s thesis on this subject? Well, here is a link to it, enjoy! :)
Leveling Up In Design - Using A Game To Support Design Maturity In OrganizationsContact me: I don’t bite :) Let me know if you have any questions.
Resources
Buchanan, R. (2015). Worlds in the Making: Design, Management, and the Reform of Organizational Culture. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation,1(1), 5-21. doi:10.1016/j.sheji.2015.09.00
Buchanan, R (2016) “Design on New Ground: The Turn to Action Services and Management”. Designing Business and Management, edited by Sabine Junginger and Jürgen Faust, Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 17–26.
Björklund, T. A., Hannukainen, P., & Manninen, T. (2018). Measuring the impact of design, service design and design thinking in organizations on different maturity levels. Service Design Proof of Concept ,500-511. Retrieved February 6, 2019, from http://www.servdes.org/wp/wpcontent/uploads/2018/07/40.pdf
Braga, C. (2017, June 28). A framework for measuring design maturity. Retrieved June 19, 2019, from https://uxdesign.cc/a-framework-for-measuring-design-maturity-8fdb578e82c
Liedtka, J. (2010). Business Strategy and Design: Can this Marriage Be Saved? Design Management Review,21(2), 6-11. doi:10.1111/j.1948-7169.2010.00059.x
Simon, H.A (1996). The Sciences of the Artificial. 3rd ed. Cambridge: MIT Press
Westcott, M., Sato, S., Mrazek, D., Wallace, R., Vanka, S., Bilson, C., & Hardin, D. (2013). The DMI Design Value Scorecard: A New Design Measurement and Management Model. Design Management Review,24(4), 10-16. doi:10.1111/drev.10257
Yee, J., Jefferies, E., & Michlewski, K. (2017). Transformations: 7 Roles to Drive Change by Design. Amsterdam: BIS.
