Epilogue - UX and change management (Part 10/10)

This is the tenth (and final) article in a series on UX design and change management. Previous: Part 9.

In the introduction of this series I wrote:

“I try to translate best practices from the domain of change management to the design domain. And from the other side, I identify where change managers need designers to achieve their change goals. To put it more clearly, design is change and change is design.”

I would even formulate it more precisely: “Design needs change and change needs design”.

Raising the design IQ of an organization is a change management issue. Persistent structures and behaviors in organizations can hinder successful service delivery, like inside-out thinking, the silo problem and ad-hoc design projects. These problems cannot be solved instantly, a change management approach is needed.

In previous posts of this series, I outlined a possible approach.

• Establish a sense of urgency with a dramatic presentation. (Step 1)
• Form a powerful coalition with people from other disciplines than design. (Step 2)
• Create and communicate a vision for change. (Step 3 and Step 4)

For these first few steps, service design is a valuable practice, because it involves employees actively and creates and communicates a vision with domain-specific and organizational aspects.

Other steps to include are:

• Empower others to act on the vision with basic design training and design instruments which can be used successfully by everybody. (Step 5)
• Create short-term wins convincing people of the value of design, like user journeys, sketches and prototypes. (Step 6)
• Build on the change with focus on the structured and self-learning organization. (Step 7) Anchor the changes in a corporate culture of design thinking, building the motivated organization. (Step 8)

The ideals of this approach will be outlined briefly. Depending on the kind of organization, one ideal will get more attention than another.

The customer-centered organization: In an organization with a strong customer focus, everybody is “on-the-same-page”. The voice of the customer is loud and clear within circles of power. Customer experience and its related design efforts have high priority. Making a profit is not the goal, but one of the means. Service essentials, UX champions and persona-based priorities can contribute to this type of organization.

The structured organization: Orchestration, goal-oriented ways of working, quality and consistency are attributes of a structured organization. Service design, service blueprints, a design methodology, a design department with design experts and a design library are important ingredients for such an organization.

The self-learning organization: Working in a iterative fashion (Agile), implementing feedback loops, and taking the time for experiments and evaluation, a self-learning organization can deliver optimal services. Customer panels, user forums and personas inform employees on their customers. Prototyping, user testing, and A/B testing show if services meet the needs of the customer. Design training and design frameworks teach employees how to apply design thinking in their daily work.

The motivated organization: Employees are highly motivated to deliver the optimal service to the customer. Appealing visions and instruments from HR can stimulate them. Specifically, shared targets and informal rewards contribute to a customer-centered design culture in an organization.

The creative organization: People working in a creative environment think beyond their limits, inspire each other by the continuous exchange of ideas, and create solutions to problems independently. Brainstorming and co-creation sessions, service design workshops, and user story development are design instruments boosting the creative energy of employees.

Because change needs design as well, I’ll highlight two aspects. First, you can design back-stage operations and their related changes with any new online service delivery. To do that, a service blueprint is the appropriate instrument. Second, I mean “change needs designERS”. To make change happen, change managers with no design background (e.g. a customer experience business manager) can use designers and their design instruments with great success.

Or, as stated in a Business Week article from 2009:

“Design has become too important to be left to designers.”

What are the important qualities of designers and design instruments which can be used to make change happen?

Visualization: The core of the change management approach of Kotter is “See-Feel-Change”. People change on the basis of what they see and feel, instead of what they analyze and think. Visualization and emotion are key elements to change. Designers introduce a visual language which everybody understands and thereby elicit emotion.

Cooperation: To solve the silo problem, multi-disciplinary team work is mandatory. With their instruments, designers build bridges and initiate cooperation. Cooperation with other change agents like experts in HR and Training is also of major importance.

Outside-in thinking: The basis for the development of any positive customer experience is strong empathy with the customer. Designers have the instruments, such as service design, to stimulate employees to think in an unbiased manner and with an outside-in perspective.

Creativity: You need unconventional techniques for brainstorming and thinking out-of-the-box for innovation. Designers carry these with them all the time.

I hope designers realize how much of a change agent they actually are. They must apply their qualities even more in designing services which improve people’s lives. I also hope other change agents learn that in a world in which an experience increasingly becomes a digital experience, the importance, value, and meaning of the design dimension for user experiences grows.

View a summary of this series in a Poster