We’ve all been there. You get hired for your expertise in a specific domain, and yet for some reason the powers at be seem to ignore your input, make a bunch of random decisions you think are at best ill-informed or at worst just plain wrong, and then hand it to you for implementation. If only they’d have consulted you sooner and you might have been able to avoid this mess.
Every day people approach company leaders with problems in need of a quick fix. “The team is going to miss its deadline if we don’t do something about it” they’ll say, or “we just had some some really bad customer feedback and we need to make good. What do you think we should do?” Leaders want to feel helpful and decisive so they’ll often think about the problem for a few seconds before coming up with a solution. “Let’s bring in some freelancers to get the project over the finish line on time” they might say or “let’s give the client a free upgrade to keep them on side”.
As a startup founder, shutting down your business will be one of the hardest decisions you'll ever have to make. However sometimes it's also the smartest option. Especially if you're able to close things down gracefully, give folks a good severance package and potentially return some unused funds to investors; not to mention gaining back some valuable time. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs refuse to admit defeat and keep pouring resources into a failing endeavour. The tendency for people to double down in the face of growing negative evidence is known in behavioural psychology as "escalating commitment to a losing strategy". In this short article I highlight a few of the common cognitive biases that help make this happen.
In recent years, businesses have become increasingly decoupled from traditional outcomes like profit, and many are now seen as financial instruments whose value is primarily driven by shareholder sentiment and market perception. This shift towards financialization is evident in many industries, from tech startups to established corporations, and has significant implications for designers who work in these businesses.
As the technology landscape continues to evolve, so does the field of design. The rise of industrialization and automation has led to a shift from traditional craft skills to more assembly-based work. With the development of AI, we are seeing the possibility of even more automation in design. This raises questions about the future of the profession and the role of human designers. In this article I look at the commercial and technological trends facing the industry and try to imagine what comes next.
Most people massively over complicate the concept of “strategy”. Ultimately a strategy is the general approach you are going to take in order to deliver your company mission/goals. Having a clear strategy is important as it allows people to decide between competing approaches, markets, customer segments, activities and product features. As such your strategy is the thing that informs and connects what the company is trying to do and how it is trying to do it, with the people who are responsible for delivering it.