What I Don’t Talk About

If you've been reading my posts for a while, you've probably noticed that I talk a lot about digital product leadership challenges - strategic fog, dusty research, putting out fires, the weight of leadership, the ticking clock, and other common struggles. But I rarely talk about design itself.

There's a reason.

If I write about design methodologies, designers will read my posts. If I write about research techniques, researchers will read them. And so on. But you, the folks I partner with - product leaders, technology leaders, executives navigating business challenges - you don't have time, energy, and perhaps interest in learning or leading design. And you know, that's why we work together. I take that off your plate. And so, I tend to focus my writing on where you and I collaborate most directly, at the leader level.

Anyway, looking back at these months of writing, I see I've created an opportunity to share more about my own day-to-day. What I tend to own. What strategic design looks like when fully activated. The big and little ways this practice contributes to solving the higher level challenges you and I are thinking about all day, every day. Keep in mind, my client engagements are fluid - blending executive strategy, team cultivation, and hands-on product design, prototyping, and testing.

Today, let's step into the weeds.

What Is Strategic Design

Strategic design isn't just making things look and feel good. It's not the wireframes and prototypes. It's not customer research and usability testing. It's certainly not decks, nor is it design workshops.

No. It is ALL OF THAT, and more.

We might simply say "design is a process," but true strategic design is the bridge between vision and execution. It is the dynamic practice of translating business challenges into customer experiences. It's an ever-adapting discipline driven to better connect your specific business with your specific customers, elevating that relationship through experiences.

Most importantly, it doesn't function in a silo. Strategic design is collaborative.

Collaboration Is Required

Collaboration isn't a nice-to-have. It's not something I suggest we try. It's how good work is done.

Strategic design lives at the intersection of what customers desire, what your business offers and needs, and what's technically feasible today. No single person - you or me - holds all that knowledge. Wisdom comes from bringing diverse perspectives together.

When you engage a strategic design practitioner, you're not hiring someone to go away and come back with miracle solutions. That old agency approach of divine creativity has rightfully failed its way out of practice - mostly. Instead, you're engaging someone who activates and facilitates collaboration.

We learn together. It's not just me interviewing customers and individual contributors while you wait for a final report. Ours is an active conversation. You're hearing what people are saying, seeing how they struggle, understanding the nuance that doesn't make it into slide decks.

We strategize together. It's not me delivering a strategy deck for your approval. We're in the room - you, me, your leads and leadership - identifying gaps and opportunities, wrestling with trade-offs, challenging bias & assumptions, building frameworks that guide decisions, charting the course.

We create together. I am not a wizard magically designing solutions. I facilitate, inspire, and co-create solutions with you and your teams. Ideas become hypotheses - hypotheses become concepts and prototypes we can test with users. Together, we see what works and what doesn't. Instant validation informs real-time decisions about what moves to delivery.

We execute together. I work closely with your business and technical product owners, ensuring documentation is both accurate and empowering. I provide hands-on direction and mentorship for creative teams - UX, visual design, and copywriting - ensuring delivery excellence arrives into the hands of engineering and beyond.

Leading strategic design is all about elevating people - your teams and your customers. Its nurturing relationships, cultivating capabilities, bringing customers into the fold, enabling innovation, and ensuring timely delivery excellence.

Our Direct Partnership

We meet often early on, but we find a rhythm that works. These aren't just status updates or readouts. Our time together is focused and productive. We collaborate as partners - discussing challenges, selecting opportunities to pursue, and ensuring our efforts serve your business goals.

Your teams see us working together, sensing and emboldened by our strategic alignment. Your touch on their day-to-day is lighter but much more impactful. You don't need to be in the weeds, no longer a bottleneck and bringing fewer surprises. I translate and champion your vision at every step. They see clear direction applied consistently that they can execute against.

All the challenges I write about in other posts - the fog, the paralysis, the firefighting - they start clearing up. Not because I have all the answers, but because strategic design creates empowering structures that let good teams do their best work, guided by your vision.

Plenty On Your Plate

So, yeah - I don't write about design because you don't need to hear about my obsessions. I shepherd research. I facilitate strategy. I make sure design is buttoned up and keeping the engineering machine well fed.

You're freed up to focus on business goals, budgets, resources, timelines, and relationships. Of course, I'm here to help you with that as well. Executive advisory, preparing and delivering presentations - whatever you need - I become a sort of professional confidant.

When we work together, you're not just getting design expertise. You're getting someone who understands the business terrain because I've been there. Who owns strategic design so you can focus on everything else. Who keeps you informed and involved when you can make the biggest impact. Who has your back as you operate in stakeholder environments.

Level Up Design

If you're reading this, you're already doing parts of this. You already understand execution without strategic direction is spinning its wheels. You already know business needs more than tactical fixes. You're already doing components of strategic design. You just might not have the leader you need.

What I bring is expertise, experience, discipline, frameworks, and a systematic approach that transforms ideas into results. What makes me unique in this field is our collaborative partnership - yours and mine - a long-term relationship built upon trust.

This is strategic design, to me.