A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.

US & UK at Goldman Sachs

The Evolution of the Internal Design Team

We live and work in a world of interlocking systems, and functions where many of the problems we face are dynamic, multifaceted, and inherently human.

Some of the big questions being asked by banks, fintechs, and wealth management organizations are:

How will we navigate the disruptive forces of digital banking and wealth management that include emerging technologies and changing client needs?

How will we adapt and grow in response to rapid change?

How can we effectively support each other and our clients while simultaneously introducing new systems and business models that strengthen our ability to sense and respond?

A response to these questions has been the investment and commitment to internal design teams. These functions have come a long way from their origins in branding and visual design. The role of in-house designers within organizations has undergone tremendous evolution as companies realize the need for human-centered, empathetic approaches to digital product development and customer/ client experiences.

Traditionally, internal design teams focused mainly on branding, logos, color palettes, and visual design elements. They helped shape the outward face a company presented to customers. As organizations grew larger and products became more complex, many companies added UX designers to help map out user flows, wireframe and generally make an interface look better. But design often remained siloed from product development teams, business strategy, operations and engineering.

This led to some expensive mistakes, which frustratingly we are still seeing today. Designers were brought in late to projects, meaning they had little influence over major decisions that shaped the user experience. They often acted as ‘recommenders’ rather than true partners simply helping to ‘make screens look good’ Vs. shaping the core product or service strategy. Companies have also struggled to scale design practices across large product portfolios, due to ineffective positioning at the right level, and the general confusion as to what design actually means to the bottom line of their business. More often than not, the internal design teams have historically been seen as a cost instead of an investment.

However, having said that and despite the ongoing struggles, in the last few years we have seen a significant shift. More companies now see design as a strategic differentiator and are integrating it into their core processes. Internal design teams have also expanded their focus beyond visual aesthetics, to business systems, operations and frameworks. They now work to understand critical human needs holistically and help shape every aspect of interconnected digital ecosystems that dramatically improve how organizations serve and interact with clients, customers and advisors.

The understanding and increased awareness of ‘human-centered design’ has helped organizations frame problems from an empathy-driven, people-first perspective, instead of starting with requirements and premature solutions. The more progressive companies have understood that HCD begins by seeking to understand the lived experiences in context to situation and need. Coupled with the ability to frame the right problems that marry into these needs has helped internal design teams influence strategy and business decisions at the highest levels.

One would also argue, the pandemic has further accelerated these changes, forcing companies to rethink every interaction with customers now that digital experiences are the norm. Remote work has also made interdisciplinary collaboration more important, and design teams have become hubs for this kind of work.

Some positive trends now emerging in this space include:

• Design being integrated into strategic road-mapping conversations to ensure initiatives actually solve customer and client needs.
• Multi-disciplinary design teams that include researchers, strategists, content designers and engineers working together from discovery through to implementation and beyond.
• An enterprise-wide approach to design that scales practices across the entire organization.
• Design being elevated as a key leadership competency and teams reporting into the C-suite to drive change.
• An emphasis on building a ‘design culture’ through training, collaboration, and community building.

Design will become not a separate function, but a lens through which all work is approached - helping organizations create connected systems that act as services, resulting in experiences that are intuitive, useful, relevant, and valuable

Despite the positive trends, there is still much to be done and designers globally need to simplify with greater clarity and transparency how they represent their craft. The inaccurate use of labels and terms needs to be pulled right back as it’s hurting the true value of what we bring to the table. Evidence of this can be seen in a recent global study, of 250+, product, design and marketing professionals, where more than 31 percent reported that their organization still doesn’t know how to measure the impact of design due to continued confusion around how to define its value. Furthermore, a massive 48 percent still believed it to be solely linked to KPI’s.

To conclude, as some teams continue to wrestle with these challenges, the most forward-thinking organizations will be those that truly embrace and embed human-centered practices into their DNA that span entire experience lifecycles. Design will become not a separate function, but a lens through which all work is approached - helping organizations create connected systems that act as services, resulting in experiences that are intuitive, useful, relevant, and valuable.

The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.