Adam Zeiner

Our current approach to leading change in organizations didn’t happen by accident—it was the product of the era in which most management thinking developed.

So, there are two kinds of competences that make up what design is: the theoretical and the practical. And we can use this as a mental model for how we think and talk about design – as a kind of philosophy for what design is, what it means to be a designer and to do design.

This post is meant to be a foundational building block for further thinking on emerging standards in the shape of design organizations.

By mapping the components of individual services (or portfolios of services) against these two axes, perhaps we can explore their relationship to systems change. To what extent are we tweaking around the edges of the existing system, versus changing the behaviour of the system itself — and how ambitious is the effort?

The challenge is to connect strategy and tactics.

Tactics, on the other hand, are easy to see – this the work we do with our hands. This is the craftsmanship that goes into the visible aspects of a product. This is your typefaces, illustrations, colors, whitespace, and rounded corners.