Introducing
THE RADAR
The opportunity for Design in organisations has continued to grow, and to realise it’s value we must change the way we think about the role of leadership that supports it.
It is now 2022 and the design industry has been stuck standing at a cross-roads. While we have toted the business value of design, fought tooth-and-nail for a seat at the table, and have begun the move from making things look pretty to extend into the board room, we still continue to struggle in connecting-to and delivering measurable business value in many scenarios. With this opportunity for design, expectations of Design Leadership must also change to support the continued maturity of Design.
The Design Leadership Radar supports the continued advancement of Design maturity in organisations by directing leadership acts to increase design’s influence and impact. It aims to help enable effective design leaders to create environments where design can flourish by providing a holistic view of leadership to help current and future leaders locate areas of focus in their practice in four key areas of:
Leading the product of design
Leading the people who design
Leading the practice of design, and
Leading the wider organisation through design
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LEADING PRODUCT
The production output of Design, usually a physical or digital product, service, or experience, is traditionally the core focus of design activities in organisations. Design leadership in the product quadrant focuses on improving the overall quality of the object that is designed and the outcomes created.
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LEADING PEOPLE
Effective design leadership creates a culture and environment where people are engaged, well supported, and can collaborate effectively with their peers to perform their roles well. This quadrant focuses on the Designers who perform design activities, the cross-functional teams that are involved in the design process, and the wider community that supports design within the organisation.
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LEADING PRACTICE
Leading the practice of design considers the tools, processes, and methods used by those who engage in design activities, and the operational processes that amplify those activities. Effective design leadership also considers how this scales across the organisation, in how they use design methods to solve broader, more complex business problems.
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LEADING ORGANISATIONS
Effective design leadership in relation to the organisation requires good business acumen, deep understanding, and communication between different organisational functions (Jerrard and Hands, 2007). Design leaders transform organisations by understanding its commercial drivers and leveraging user-centric practices and tools across broad stakeholder groups to help achieve business goals (McKinsey & Company 2020). In this quadrant, the value that design provides is in the ability to synthesise diverse range of experience and perspectives, framing problems to solve for, and aligning stakeholders to innovative solutions through creative processes (Wakelam, 2020).
Get the toolkit
To understand more about the thinking and research behind The Design Leadership Radar, download the toolkit. Read it, digest it, critique it, test it. It can be used to locate yourself and your leadership team on the radar to understand where you can be working to create more value for your team and your organisation.
