You are not the customer

When given the right environment to flourish, design plays a strategic role as a core function of your business.

A few things to remember when creating that environment.

1. Horses for courses.

Ask ten people what Design is, you'll likely get ten different answers. Given this, you need to think carefully about the customer outcomes you're looking to achieve and allocate talent accordingly.

There's little point in mobilising a production team if you first need to get under the skin of those troublesome customer journey challenges using Service Designers and Researchers but have none available or rely on expensive third parties or those rarest of beasts, unicorns.

2. Creating a safe, supportive environment is essential for personal development.

People will be more open to trying new things if they have a safe space to develop their craft and practice new skills. This environment should support, empower, provide opportunities, and promote personal growth for everyone in the team. If your folks are working under the cloud of a constant fear of failure, chances are they aren't going to do their best work.

3. Remember, tools are just that, tools.

Think about what else (processes, standards, frameworks) you'll need to ensure that your output's quality, speed, consistency and impact are bang on.

Oh, and if you're a regulated business (like Financial Services), who better than your Design team to ensure that your consumer duty standards are up to scratch?

4. Feeding the business a constant flow of actionable insights is a continuous process.

Understanding what your customers are doing, why they're doing it and ultimately, what you need to do about it should be one of the core accountabilities of any design team.

If you rely on the opinions of your senior stakeholders to drive decision-making, you're undoubtedly missing a trick and risk missing the mark.

According to Mark Ritson, the first rule of marketing is that "you are not the customer." The same goes for Customer Experience. Reminding your stakeholders of that simple, possibly uncomfortable truth is a good thing.

I've used these basic guiding principles to build and scale design teams.