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"By listening – really listening – design can build empathy with parts of an organisation that it typically struggles with: sales, executives, engineering.
But, as a discipline that quickly hones in on problems, be them organisational or otherwise, design tries to problem solve."
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Our monthly spotlight on the people and organisations providing great business content on the regular. Ones to follow, bookmark, and support.
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For abridged tales of how famous businesses succeed and stand out from the competition, Business Breakdowns is an enjoyable listen. Their assessment of Calm is a great place to start.
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We've explored the Circular Economy in previous newsletters. Follow The Ellen MacArthur Foundation to stay up to date with circular opportunities, case studies and business models.
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Thoughtful approaches to business metrics |
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In this edition we cast a critical eye on metrics, an area of complexity which is increasingly part of design's remit. No longer just the concern of those in sales, analytics or growth teams, designers are expected to know how their work can move the needle on key business measurements.
But are we optimising our designs for the right reasons? What could be the unintended consequences of prioritising flawed measures of success?
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If there were ever a cautionary tale of chasing a solitary (and misguided) metric, it's Wells Fargo's devastating failures which came to light in 2017. It was a financial scandal which rocked American business with repercussions still being felt by the organisation.
This excellent HBR piece explores the controversy and it's root cause: surrogation. When a businesses vision or strategy lacks clarity, metrics fill a gap to reassure us we're on the right track. This is surrogation, a phenomenon every organisation should look to avoid through clear strategy and strong business alignment.
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This short post gets to the crux of key problems with putting too much stock in popular, easy to measure metrics. Ryan highlights the need for product teams to be data informed rather than data driven, and that understanding the context behind data is just as important as the data itself.
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This excellent article also echoes the need to measure outcomes over outputs. Barry highlights how standard, popular metrics stifle innovation: using lagging rather than leading indicators to learn about real customer behaviour.
He also covers a key piece of recurring advice - the value of tracking multiple (success and failure) metrics simultaneously.
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Invented by Hitachi Design Centre, Business Origami is a design technique for visualising complex business systems.Teams use paper shapes to represent people, props, places and products in a system. The scenes created help teams clearly visualise and act out the steps, actors and complexities to be designed for.It also acts to highlight previously unrepresented actors who could be impacted by a system's design.
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Managing business stakeholders is a recurring theme of this newsletter. This event featuring Lizz Horwath offers an experienced perspective on this ongoing challenge.You'll need to move quickly to catch this event live (it's tomorrow if you read this newsletter on the day it's sent).
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Future Supermarkets: Scan Purchase for Maximum Score
Podcast by Tomorrow Unlocked
The supermarket space is ripe for innovation. Brave brands have the opportunity to stand out by offering unique (and hopefully useful) experiences to shoppers.Featuring a guest appearance from Clearleft's design researcher Benjamin Parry, this episode of Fast Forward podcast explores future concepts with potential business and consumer benefit. Benjamin highlights particularly interesting opportunities for consumers to make ethical and sustainable choices, unlocking new business value along the way.
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What is... EBITDA
EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. One of the most widely used financial metrics, it is seen as a particularly 'clean' way of assessing an organisations accounts.
Why? Because a lot of financial complexities (such as how a company is funded, handles debt, or is locally taxed) are stripped away as part of it its calculation. This provides a normalised view of a business's ability to generate revenue.
This neutral assessment makes it much easier to compare two organisation's cash flow potential, making it particularly popular with investors.
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Foundering: The TikTok StoryPodcast by Bloomberg
In a world full of silicon valley social tech unicorns, TikTok is something of an outlier. In this fascinating multi-part podcast series from Bloomberg, we learn about the Chinese tech giant's origins, pivots, and how it's founder took unusually proactive steps in pursuit of user-centric product innovation.
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Are you enjoying Designers in Business? Know someone who might be starting their own journey to business confidence?
If you do, feel free share this issue or the Designers in Business Newsletter signup.
Thanks! Tom - Curator of Designers in Business |
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