How Designers Measure Success (Part I)
The topic for this article came about as I recently finished a Design Thinking exercise, focused on the development of a mobile application within the universe of Enterprise level software. Every time a Designer and by extension a Design Team, Product Team, Development Team, Leadership Team, and the list goes on, embarks on a project, there should be an ample notion of the process by which the solution is going to be discovered (therefore bringing to the front the clarification of what the Design Thinking process actually is about), and also, and very importantly, how the process itself is going to be evaluated, based not only on the quality and validity of the solution, but also of the process itself (how it married the teams needs, ambitions, ownership, timeliness and cost effectiveness). Designers and the methods by which they perform, don’t operate on a bubble impervious to the constraints/fluctuations of the market/economy or on a different level, of the organization within which they function.
The first part of this article will therefore focus on the definition of success and failure, within the Product arena, and all that it entails. The second part of this article is focused on another aspect very relevant for Designers — how do we measure success from a career perspective, how do we envision career progression, and particularly, how does that translate to the current environment, one where there’s an interesting combination of Designers with different skillsets, some defined by fairly recent Academic training, and others shaped by experience and longevity in the Technology world.
What is Success. The term success comes from the Latin word successus, and the Dictionary defines it as “the accomplishment of an aim or purpose”. Typically in Product experiences, specifically in software design experiences, Design is a crucial discipline that is currently leveraged to bring insight on multiple levels as organizations embark on a process of finding a solution. These solutions are hopefully ones that bring delight and satisfaction for their clients, therefore generating revenue, brand awareness, longevity, among many other hopeful positive reflections, but also these are solutions that reflect a satisfactory process by which they were achieved. To specifically address this topic, I’ll go back to the example I alluded to in the introduction of this article. The application that I’ve recently finalized, and which has gone through a Design Thinking process and where it stands at this point. Going into it, I knowingly collected a variety of information in order to better ground the process, but also to understand the elements that I wanted to evaluate on three distinct timeframes, namely during this journey, at its end/closure and lessons to record past the finalization of the engagement (and this included considerations on the validity of the solution, the team, and of course, myself). This research meant collecting data on multiple levels, namely market research (which included competitive analysis, both direct and indirect), insight into the internal library of applications, branding and market perception, team and resource availability, established timelines, user/client journeys intent on being captured, tools to be used, among other factors. All this research was important in order to prepare the process, but also educate and contextualize the participants that were going to go through this product journey with me, and of course, so the definition of success or lack of, could be done at this initial level. From my experience, it has proven itself fundamental for Designers, and for their teams, that there’s a collective understanding of the premises in which they operate, what trail they’re walking on, and what goals everyone is thriving to achieve. In my particular case, I established as my main key points of success definition, the following topics: — gaining knowledge of an industry I wasn’t familiar with (supply chain, inventory forecasting); — definition of a credible solution/product, anchored on design principles such as innovation, thoroughness (of scenarios, interaction patterns, accessibility guidelines), usefulness, quick understanding, long lasting value, aesthetic standpoint; — build a more solid team integration, and provide further ownership of the process and solution to team members, to name but a few. As the Design Thinking process started, and the workshops began, it was crucial to establish the “Understanding” phase of this process (the exploration and definition of the problem), and by extension, define the key success guidelines by which this solution was going to be evaluated and guided by. As I mentioned in my article pertaining to Transparency, it’s important that amongst team members, processes and information are clearly communicated, since each team and diverse participants on this exploration/journey, commonly arrive with diverse perspectives of what constitutes goals and successes (and by extension failures). The Design Thinking process is an opportunity to clarify all these points of views, and establish a general direction in which teams are going to move on. In the example that I provided, as the product journey occurred and the retrospective occurred, that in itself is always an opportunity to revisit what constitutes successful takeaways from a process, but also what can benefit from improvements (that can be considered to a certain extent, a failure).
From this fresh example I can summarize that I reached most of the goals for success that I established when the project and process started. It also reinstated something that I had learnt previously from different processes — it’s crucial that the right teams and participants are brought forth, with timeliness and quality of participation. A successful Design Thinking engagement means strategically managing diverse points of view, but also being able to produce quantifiable and observable results, that are sensical with what was brought forth during the process, and that are representative of what is being attempted for clients/users and for the organization.
Statements. Designers invariably will face questions from their peers or during job interviews, about projects that they consider “successful and failures” and to explain why on both counts. There’s an immediate temptation to describe at length projects that were successful based on Key Performance Indicators such as Volume of Sales, Number of Installs (or downloads), User Reviews, among many others, all of which are extremely important and crucial factors in the immediate perception and categorization of the success or failure of a particular endeavor. However, measuring success through a unique lens of self explanatory and quantifiable market KPIs, is tremendously reductive. It’s fundamental that Designers learn to emphasize other factors that they and their teams have established when they embark on their journey, and that may include a wide variety of other factors, some pertaining to clients/users (delighting users, accessible products, omni channel experiences, worldwide culture appropriate product renderings, the list goes on and on), while others will focus on Organizational and Culture integration, Branding experiences, Innovation culture, and the list goes on. I’ll also end this section by stating that failure, isn’t in itself the denial of success. It’s invariably a testament to a disconnect that occurs between different teams, a lack of transparency and ultimately a lack of guidance based on commonly shared goals.
Conclusion. I’ll conclude with the following quote, from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the concept of success:
“The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.”
