Is your team on the same page when it comes to design strategy? Is there a greater alignment with what your design team wants to achieve with the business it represents? In this presentation “Helping teams paddle in the same direction through Design Strategy”, I talked about some key questions you should ask your team to help you challenge the notion of being aligned on a proper design direction.

2. Helping Teams paddle
in the Same Direction
In this discussion, let’s talk about some key
questions you should ask your team to help
you challenge the notion of being aligned on a
proper design direction.
Created by Itamar Medeiros @designative www.designative.info
#letstalkdesignstrategy

3. Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
#letstalkdesignstrategy
Do we have a
shared vision?
In my practice, I’ve found that — more often
than not — is not for the lack of ideas that
teams cannot innovate, but because of all the
friction or drag created by not having a
shared vision and understanding of what
the problems they are trying to solve.
@designative

4. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Shared understanding is
the collective knowledge
of the team that builds
over time as the team
works together. It’s a rich
understanding of the
space, the product, and
the customers.
“Creating Shared Understanding” in Lean UX: Applying lean principles to improve user
experience, Gothelf, J., & Seiden, J. (2013)
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

5. Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
#letstalkdesignstrategy
Do we have
shared understanding?
It’s very easy to verify if the team has lacks
understanding around the problem the team is
trying to solve. Just ask some fundamental
questions in your next meeting “what is the
problem we are trying to solve”? “And for
whom”?”
If you get different answers from key
stakeholders, it is probably a good indication
that you should jump in and help facilitate
the discussion that will help the team to align.
@designative

6. Facilitating Teams to
paddle in the Same
Direction
Facilitators enable groups to succeed by:
Created by Itamar Medeiros @designative www.designative.info
#letstalkdesignstrategy
§ Asking questions.
Creative questions allow
a composite picture of
the organization to
emerge before a strategy
event. This listening
prepares the consultant
to facilitate with
knowledge and skills.
§ Designing a planning
process that is unique
to the team they are
working with. An
experienced facilitator
creates a meeting
designs from a wealth of
methods, tailored to the
objectives to the team.
§ Helping the group get
specific action plans.
She or he will not let
teams get stuck with
vague generalities.
“A Few Reasons to Hire a Facilitator” in Thrive: The Facilitator’s Guide to Radically Include Meetings. Smutny, M., 2019):

7. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative
Six Strategic Questions, adapted from “Strategy Blueprint” in Mapping Experiences: A Guide to
Creating Value through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams (Kalbach, 2020).

8. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Is this really the
problem or are we
Just treating the
symptoms?
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

9. #letstalkdesignstrategy
§ The Framing Trap occurs when
we misstate a problem,
undermining the entire decision-
making process
§ The Overconfidence Trap makes
us overestimate the accuracy of
our forecasts
§ The Prudence Trap leads us to be
overcautious when we make
estimates about uncertain events.
§ The Recallability Trap prompts us
to give undue weight to recent,
dramatic events
§ The Anchoring Trap lead us to
give disproportionate weight to the
first information we receive
§ The Status-quo Trap biases us
towards maitaining the current
situation – even when better
alternatives exist
§ The Sunk-Cost Trap inclines us to
make choices in the way that
justifies past choices, even when
these were mistakes
§ The Confirming-Evidence Trap
leads us to seek out information
supporting an existing predilection
and to discount opposing
information
Hammond, John S., Ralph L. Keeney, and Howard Raiffa. "The Hidden Traps in Decision
Making." Harvard Business Review 76, no. 5 (September–October 1998): 47–+.
Decision Bias
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

10. #letstalkdesignstrategy
The True Measure of
Leadership is Influence
– Nothing more,
Nothing less
Maxwell, J.C., (2007), “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will
Follow You”, 336 pages, Thomas Nelson; 2nd Edition (September 8, 2007)
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

11. #letstalkdesignstrategy
The single most important
thing you can do to
improve communication
between you and your
stakeholders is to improve
those relationships, earn
trust, and establish
rapport.
Greever, T., (2020), “Articulating Design Decisions: Communicate with Stakeholders, Keep Your
Sanity, and Deliver the Best User Experience”, 220 pages, O'Reilly UK Ltd.; 2nd Edition (18
Aug. 2020)
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

12. Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
#letstalkdesignstrategy
How inclusive is
your team?
How are we ensuring multiple perspectives
are captured?
@designative

13. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Being more inclusive
makes teams stronger
by widening their
perspective and
making them more
invested in the teams
success.
Meyer, E., (2014), “The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global
Business”, 288 pages, PublicAffairs; Illustrated edition (May 27, 2014)
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

14. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Patience and flexibility
are key. Cross-cultural
effectiveness takes
time.
Meyer, E., (2014), “The Culture Map: Breaking through the Invisible Boundaries of Global
Business”, 288 pages, PublicAffairs; Illustrated edition (May 27, 2014)
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative

15. #letstalkdesignstrategy
Thank you!
If you enjoyed this discussion, don’t forget to
follow us on Clubhouse:
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@designative
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/design-strategy
https://www.joinclubhouse.com/club/experimental-voices
Created by Itamar Medeiros www.designative.info
@designative