Building a World ClassDesign Team

@andybudd

Previously on…THE NEXT WEB

There is nothing special about your tech platform that couldn’t be copied in a matter of weeks.

Feature ParityIs just around the corner

Brand Experience

User Experience&

Good design is…

Difficult to achieve& hard to replicate.

DNADesign is the

of your product

Most founders claim theyunderstand & value design.

And yet we continue to hire stylists.

The DribbblisationOf Design

by the time you’ve reached

Product-Market Fit

the holy grail of

You’ve hit the end of the runway. 

Or somebody beat you to it!

“The technology Deadpool is littered with the graves of startups that failed to reach Product-Market fit by mistaking it for an engineering problem.”

Product market fitis delivered by yourDESIGN TEAM.

I’m too poor…

To afford cheap.

Startups aretoo poor to affordcheap design.

Design IS the product!You better get good, or go home.

You can’t claim to GET designif you have one designer for every ten or twenty developers.

Designers can’t design in this environment.

All they can do is…

Fire Fight.

Design is happening somewhere in your organisation, whether you

have enough designers or not. 

Design may be aTeam Sport

Don’t let design become accidental.

If design is everybody's responsibility,it’s nobodies responsibility.

TWO PIZZA TEAM.You need at least one designer(and preferably more) in your

TWO PIZZA TEAM.Designers are the side-salad of your

Highly effective design teamshave one designer for every3-6 developers.

How do you make your company more

DESIGNFUL?

This is what a conference in FINLAND looks like.

I shared an UBER to the airport with a typical startup founder.

The drive to the airport turned into a founder design mentoring session.

The product was fairly poor and needed redesigning from the ground up.

Their design team were under resourced, lacking in leadership and organisational support.

The good designers sensed the company didn’t value design and went somewhere else.

The head of product fancied themselves as a bit of a designer. I mean, how hard can it be if you have an MBA?

DESIGN TEAM.BUILDING A WORLD CLASSMy advice on

WARNING Common sense advice ahead.

If you were doing this stuff already you’d be next door listening to Gary Vaynerchuk tell you how awesome he is.

Knowing what to do is easy…Doing it is thedifficult bit.

STEP 1:COMMIT TO A VISION DESIGNERS CAN GET BEHIND

STEP 2:HIRE GREAT DESIGN LEADERS

STEP 2:HIRE GREAT DESIGN LEADERS

STEP 3:DEMONSTRATE THIS VISION THROUGH EXEMPLAR PROJECTS

STEP 3:DEMONSTRATE THIS VISION THROUGH EXEMPLAR PROJECTS

STEP 4:PUT CUSTOMER NEEDS AT THE HEART OF THE PROCESS

STEP 5:WEAVE DESIGN INTO THE FABRIC OF THE BUSINESS

STEP 6:CREATE A CULTURE OF COLLABORATION

STEP 7:INVEST IN QUALITY

STEP 8:GROW YOUR TEAM FROM THE INSIDE

STEP 8:GROW YOUR TEAM FROM THE INSIDE

STEP 9:OPERATIONALISE DESIGN

OCT 24th-26th

LEADINGDESIGNCONF.COM

Thanks for your time.

@andybudd

Any questions?

@andybudd