Great read, thanks for sharing, Karl. One thing I would have loved to see here was a connection to Richard Buchanan’s Four Orders of Design, which stacks various kinds of designing into four orders / layers, with organization design in the fourth and highest order.

The impact of digital transformation on organizations small and large is so great that a UX’er can easily be exposed to organizational issues disguised as taxonomy tasks, juggle new value chains and new screen designs when working on new products, or sort out “backstage” issues when designing services.

While Buchanan’s concept doesn’t offer any solution templates, it does at least allow teams to slice a wicked lump of issues into interlinked, multi-dimensional problems: some that can be left alone, some that can be ameliorated and some that can be solved.

Also, it clears up any misconception that a lone designer (however one defines the role) would be able to handle challenges at all four levels in a good way.

Moving up and down between the different orders can be a challenge, for each requires specific expertise and is enmeshed its own specific field, hence the strength of intradisciplinary teams designing and delivering together.

We’ll (have to) figure this out eventually.

Thanks again for posting 🙏