Good design principles: the critical role they play in operating model design
In times of uncertainty and tough economic conditions, ensuring your organisation is set up to deliver your priorities is more important than ever. While it’s tempting to jump straight into ‘solution mode’ when looking to evaluate or redesign your organisation, considering what you want it to be, or what you want to achieve is critical. The answers to these questions will help guide both your leaders and what’s needed for effective operating model design.
Design principles: your criteria for operating model design
Design principles are fundamental guidelines that reflect the desired future state of your organisation.
Defining your design principles as the first step in your operating model or organisation design process helps you to be clear on the organisation you want to be before you start considering any change.
Investing the time in getting your design principles right is critical. They are the foundations of good operating model and organisation design and will not only guide your thinking during the design process, but also act as criteria that you can assess options or make decisions with.
What makes a great design principle?
The difference between a good design principle and a great design principle is all in the details.
Great design principles should be derived from your future state vision (i.e., what you want to achieve), completing the sentence “to achieve our vision we need to be…”
A great design principle should be:
TRACEABLE – can be linked back to one or more of your strategic objectives.
MEASURABLE/OBSERVABLE – a tangible way to determine whether the design principle has been met.
CLEAR – readily understood in the context it’s being used.
SPECIFIC – readily applicable to the task.
DIFFERENTIATED – focused on the things that will make the design different from others.
CREDIBLE – uses language that resonates with your audience – whether that be your governance committees or your employees.
Ensuring your design principles meet these attributes will ensure they’re effective when you put them to use, whether that be evaluating options or informing decision-making.
A common pitfall of creating design principles is creating a laundry list that no future state design could possibly meet. Our recommended rule of thumb is to have no more than six design principles. Any more and you risk over burdening your analysis of options.
Great design principles have quantifiable and accessible measures
Outlining measures, or indicators, for each design principle helps remove ambiguity in understanding when you’ve achieved it. A good measure is a clear statement of ‘If we achieve X (design principle), then we should see Y (the indicator) in our organisation’. They help ensure everyone is held accountable and commits to the design principles throughout the design process.
Examples of good design principles
Organisations we work with typically include a principle that addresses the needs of customers. In the table below we have provided two common examples of customer-related design principles – ‘customer service’ and ‘customer focused’ – and have measured each against the key attributes of a ‘good design principle’.
Table 1: Examples of customer-related design principles
The example below provides a full suite of design principles and indicators.
Tips when using design principles
Ensure early agreement and alignment before starting design.
For design principles to remain an objective evaluation tool, they need to be developed and agreed/endorsed by all decision-makers and stakeholders prior to starting any design work.
Doing this early in the process means coming to a shared understanding of your desired future state. If leaders don’t agree on a set of principles, it means they aren’t aligned with what they hope to achieve as an organisation, and this can derail the design process. It’s worth the upfront investment to have those conversations and disagreements early so you’re moving in the same direction later.
Design principles are a great tool to inform communications.
Design principles are a useful tool for communications and engagement because they provide a clear, easily understood rationale behind why a decision was made or design was followed. It’s particularly useful for leaders because there’s already alignment in messaging. Design principles can be used to inform key messaging and engagement if the outcome of your design process results in changes to your organisation’s ways of working.
Don’t set and forget – keep revisiting as needed.
Organisations constantly need to adjust, change, and respond to dynamic market conditions. As your strategy or needs change, consider revisiting your design principles to ensure they remain relevant and fit for purpose.
Conclusion
Design principles are an important foundation for any operating model or organisation design process. Effective design principles can help you make choices between options, justify a decision in an objective way and guide people on a design journey. It’s worth investing the time to get it right, by defining and agreeing on them upfront, and ensuring each principle has a quantifiable measure.
Are you looking to review your operating model or organisation design? Speak to one of our Directors to learn how we can help.