Customer-centered Design Organizations (Peter Merholz at Enterprise UX 2017)

Customer-centered  
Design Organizations
Peter Merholz
@peterme, peterme@peterme.com
http://orgdesignfordesignorgs.com

To deliver great user experiences…

I just need to get the design right

strategy

strategy
organization

2013-2014
Lost in ﬁrst round of playoffs

Centralized Internal Services
Your in-house agency
Project-based, organized by function

PROS
Strong design community
Clear lines of authority
Wide range of projects
Interface consistency
Efﬁciencies of work product
Optimized headcount

PROS
Strong design community
Clear lines of authority
Wide range of projects
Interface consistency
Efﬁciencies of work product
Optimized headcount
CONS
Design is not strategic
Little inﬂuence on important
“upstream” decisions
Designers easily dismissed
Us vs Them
Slow

Decentralized and Embedded
Everyone Gets A Designer!
Program-based

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Page
CheckoutPersonalizationUGC/
Reviews

DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
Search/
Browse
Product
Page
Reviews

DP
DE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
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DL
Leadership

DP P
E E
E
DE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
Reviews
DDL
Leadership
+n

D
DP P P
E E
E
E E
E
DE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
Reviews
DDL
Leadership
+n +n

D
DP P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
DE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
Search/
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Product
Page
Reviews
D DDL
Leadership
+n +n +n

D D
DP P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
DE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
Search/
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Product
Page
Reviews
D DDL
Leadership
+n +n +n +n

D D
DP P P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E
E
EDE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
Search/
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Product
Page
Reviews
D D DDL
Leadership
+n +n +n +n +n

Program-based
PROS
Business units gain control
Part of the team
Design included throughout entire
lifecycle
Feeling of ownership
Quick iterations post-launch

Program-based
PROS
Business units gain control
Part of the team
Design included throughout entire
lifecycle
Feeling of ownership
Quick iterations post-launch
CONS
One narrow problem for a long time
Lonely
Less efﬁcient use of time and people
Little room for research or content
strategy
Fractured user experience

So, you’re screwed either way?

Think in terms of design teams

D D
DP P P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E
E
EDE
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
Search/
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Product
Page
Reviews
D D DDL
Leadership
+n +n +n +n +n

S S
DP P P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E
E
EDE
D D D
DL
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
Reviews
Leadership
+n +n +n +n +n

S S
DP P P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E
E
EDE
D D D
DL
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
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Leadership
CS
+n +n +n +n +n

S S
DP P P P P P
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E E
E
E
E
EDE
D D
TL
DESIGN  
PRODUCT 
MGMT
ENGINEERING
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Product
Page
Reviews
Leadership
Centralized Partnership
+n +n +n +n +n
CS

Centralized Partnership
aka “hybrid”, “federated”
 
Designers supported in career, development, and day-to-day.
Design teams maintain commitment across a meaningful set of
products/features.
Yet centralization helps maintain a holistic view across the entire
customer experience.
Teams allow for complete spread of needed skills.
Freedom for junior designers to shift after ‘tours of duty’.
“Load balancing” keeps designers most productive.

A team I inherited…
CD
CDCD
CD
CD
CD
CD
CD
UXR
UXR
UXR
PjM
VP
PD
PD
PD
PD
PDPD
PD PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD

10,000 ft
1 ft
10 ft
100 ft
1,000 ft

10,000 ft
1 ft
10 ft
100 ft
1,000 ft
VP

10,000 ft
1 ft
10 ft
100 ft
1,000 ft
VP
UXR
UXR

10,000 ft
1 ft
10 ft
100 ft
1,000 ft
VP
UXR
UXR
CD
CD
CD CD
CD
CD
CD
CD
PjM
PD
PD
PD
PD
PDPD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PD
PDPD
UXR

Structure of each design team
4-7 folks
Singular strong leadership
• Manages down – gets the most and best out of their team
• Manages across – collaborates with cross-functional partners
• Manages up – presents to executives and other stakeholders
Dedicated to a customer type and their journey
Spread of skills – strategy, planning, research, IxD,
IA, visual design, prototyping
10,000 ft
1 ft
10 ft
100 ft
1,000 ft
S
S
CS
D
D
TL

Let’s say you have a set of product teams…
Growth Seller Tools
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Reviews

Focus design on customer experiences
Growth
Seller Tools
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Growth
Seller Tools
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Product Page
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and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience

Buyer
Design  
Team
Growth
Seller Tools
Search/
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Product Page
Shopping Cart
and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience
S S
D
TL
D

Buyer
Design  
Team
Growth
Seller Tools
Search/
Browse
Product Page
Shopping Cart
and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience
Seller  
Experience
S S
D
TL
D

Buyer
Design  
Team
Seller
Design 
Team
Growth
Seller Tools
Search/
Browse
Product Page
Shopping Cart
and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience
Seller  
Experience
S S
D D
TL
S S
D
TL
D

Buyer
Design  
Team
Seller
Design 
Team
S S
D D
TL
S S
D D
TL
Growth
Seller Tools
Search/
Browse
Product Page
Shopping Cart
and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience
Seller  
Experience
D

Make
an
Appointment
Buyer
Design  
Team
Seller
Design 
Team
S S
D D
TL
S S
D D
TL
Growth
Seller Tools
Search/
Browse
Product Page
Shopping Cart
and Checkout
Reviews
Buyer  
Experience
Seller  
Experience
D

S
S
D
CSDD
Purchase  
Design Team
S
D
D D
TL
S
D
D
TL
Growth
Promotions
Search/
browse
Detail Page
Shopping
Cart
Reviews
Make a
Reservation
Checkout
Share
experience
Redeem
D
CS
TL
PM
UR UR
And stick with it as you scale…
Post-Purchase 
Design Team
Discovery  
Design Team
Buyer
Design  
Team
Buyer  
Experience

From Ken Norton’s “Don't Ship The Org Chart” Parts 1 and 2

Ken Norton

Ken Norton
Organize your product managers around
customers, not code repositories.  
Connect PM areas of ownership to users and
their product experiences. Maybe you have a
buyer PM and a seller PM instead of back-end
and front-end PMs.
“
”

Ken Norton
Noah Weiss
and front-end PMs.
“
”

Ken Norton
Noah Weiss
and front-end PMs.
“
”
Just like it’s ideal to organize your PM team
around customers and use cases, the same
goes for engineering.  
Otherwise, you risk having a PM responsible
for a use case having to work with half a
dozen engineering teams to ship a feature:
server, web, iOS, Android, infra, etc.
“
”

Establish and uphold
standards of quality

Engineering quality: 
Uptime, speed of performance, 
number of bugs

number of bugs
Design quality:

number of bugs
Design quality:
Um….

number of bugs
Design quality:
Um….
I know it when I see it?

This uncertainty can
paralyze a team

Establish quality standards…
Brand characteristics
Experience principles
Design guidelines and systems
Measures of success
Examples of quality work

…and uphold quality standards
Say “No” to work that can’t be done well

Process is not a proxy for quality
From usability.gov

Thank you for your
consideration.
Peter Merholz
@peterme, peterme@peterme.com
http://orgdesignfordesignorgs.com

Customer-centered Design Organizations (Peter Merholz at Enterprise UX 2017)

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