Changes A Design Leader Should Make

When a design leader joins an organization they should create some change or growth. Here are some questions that a design leader should be able to answer around the impact they had on an organization.

When a design leader joins an organization they should create change and/or growth.

Here are questions a design leader should be able to answer around the impact they had on an organization.

As a design leader, you should bring something new to an organization. And that org should evolve not only in tangible ways but evolve in cultural ways.

One question for leaders in interview should be:

How Did Your Organization Evolve Since You Joined?

In my experience, there are several areas where a Design Leader should look to make change.

Here’s rough list with some related questions.

Collaboration

• How did collaboration improve within your design team?
• How did the design team collaboration improve with other organizations? How specifically with product management and engineering?
• What new relationships (ie with other departments) did you form?
• What business impact did your new found collaborations have?
• What would your peers say is the biggest change in working with the design organization since you took over?
• How do you know you improved collaboration?

Process Changes

• What process improvements did you introduce?
• What processes did you move away from?
• What processes did you work on with others?
• Where did design fit in the overall product development process and how did that change since you joined?
• How did you improve design execution?
• How do you know the process improvements you put in place were successful?

Design Culture

• What was the design culture like when you joined and how did it change?
• How did the design culture shift within your design team?
• How did the design culture shift within the product design team?
• How did the design culture shit within the broader company?
• How do you know you influenced the design culture in a positive way?

Team Identity

• How would you describe the team identity when you joined versus now?
• What specifically was your team's identify? How did you determine what it needed to be and how did you implement it?

Team Health & Engagement

• How would you describe the team health when you joined versus now?
• What specifically improvements did you make to address the team's health?
• How do you know you were successful in improving the team's health?

Craft

• What changes did you make to level up the craft in the design organization?
• What process and tools did you put in place to support this?
• How did you know the craft needed to be elevated?
• How do you know the craft was elevated?

Business Impact

• What we design’s impact on the business and how did it change since you joined?
• Was there any specific strategies put in place to support the business?
• How did you change your org to become more business-orientated?
• What metrics can you speak to that were specifically moved by design alone?

Simplification

• So much of design is simplifying - distilling things down to their essence. What areas did you simplify?

I'm not saying a design leader has to be able to answer every single one. It's quite possible they can join a company with a high level of craft but little collaboration so they spend their time fixing collaboration.

The general idea is, a design org should evolve and design leaders should be directly responsible for making those changes. They should be responsible for leveling up design as part of an overall business. The output of design is one part of it, but it's much bigger than that. Design leaders should understand this, recognize it, and address it. 

What questions would you add?