UXA2023 Erin Casali - Driving organizational change with co-design

While we often focus on users and the products that deliver value to them, nothing would exist if it wasn't for the organizations that make these products.

If we look at organizations under a product lens, we have a system that grows and evolves in time, fulfilling its ultimate goal: delivering a product or service for its users.

But how does this system grow? This is often left to individuals to figure it out, a lot of frameworks focus on the "ideal state" and not on the change to get us there. By understanding that organizations are living systems and not static structures we can break the illusion of the "ideal team" and "ideal company" and focus instead on the pragmatic goal: managing meaningful change that creates more efficient organizations that benefit employees and, ultimately, users.

Because let's be clear: no organization ever fits any ideal model.

In this talk we are going to see how we can use our skills to approach meaningful and direct change in organizations, through processes, culture, and ultimately, the wellbeing of all the people that make things happen.

Transcript

1. Driving org change with co-design Erin ‘Folletto’ Casali
2. Manifesto Ibridi F E L L O W DIRECTOR PRODUCT STARTUP CONSULTANCY SMARTER, SIMPLER, SOCIAL BOARD
3. @folletto@mastodon.social
4. Why design?
5. Designers have good skills
 for change management
6. Listening Good at empathizing, 
 listening and synthesizing
7. Facilitating Skilled in facilitating discussions
 that help aligning people
8. Modeling Used in translating complexity to 
 simpler models to communicate
9. Interfacing Pro fi cient in creating interface
 to in fl uence human behaviour * text heavy UIs are still UIs
10. We design the product. Design Product
11. Conway’s Law Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
12. We design the organization to design the product. Design Org Product
13. Systems
14. System Thinking We consider the whole & its relationships 
 instead of splitting it up
15. Understanding the full system
 is not possible
16. “ ” Donella Meadows Remember, always, 
 that everything you know, 
 and everything everyone knows, 
 is only a model
18. Aim for the best solution in your context Do not aim for the ideal universal solution
19. “ ” Ursula K. Le Guin What goes too long unchanged 
 destroys itself
20. Change is inevitable
21. Change is necessary
22. Influence circles
23. Influence Circles How di ff erent parts of your environment and people are a ff ected by your actions Circle of concern Circle of in fl uence Circle of control
24. Manage But: keep an eye open for opportunities Things outside my reach Circle of concern
25. Hey, do you feel too our vision is too vague and unhelpful? EXAMPLE
26. In fl uence Change by aligning 
 others Things I can in fl uence Circle of in fl uence
27. Hey, do you think our roadmaps are effective right now? EXAMPLE
28. Own Change by driving an initiative Things I can control Circle of control
29. We should shift our team processes to become more async. EXAMPLE
30. Hierarchy circles
31. Hierarchy Circles Organization 
 circle Group 
 circles Team 
 circles A ‘circle’ is an abstraction of groups of people, information fl ows, and processes 
 in a hierarchical org structure but not strictly linked to a speci fi c structure
32. PROCESSES running the company, setting vision, direction, fi nancials PEOPLE executives, 
 top mgmt AFFECTS everyone Organization circle
33. Group circles PROCESSES strategy and tactic, coordinating people, allocating people PEOPLE middle mgmt, principals AFFECTS a big part 
 of the org
34. PROCESSES scoping and execution of work PEOPLE individual 
 contributors AFFECTS a single 
 team Team circles
35. Some changes happen within a single circle: they can a ff ect others, but others do not need to do anything to change.
36. Most changes however require working with or across multiple circles.
37. Change flows
38. Top down 2 • Pilot 1 • Consult 3 • Rollout
39. Consult Make sure to plan with decision makers and the people involved 
 and a ff ected
40. Pilot Run the pilot program, the fi rst test to experiment if the change works and sticks
41. Rollout Once proven, roll out quicker the rest of the org. Make sure to still check with people
42. Mid expand 3 • Promote 2 • Pilot 1 • Consult 4 • Rollout
43. It’s essential to highlight the success (measured) of the experiment to have it adopted more widely Promote
44. Bottom expand 2 • Champion 1 • Pilot
45. Involve other peer teams to embrace the change, fi nd new advocates to propagate the change further Champion
46. Bottom up 2 · Champion 1 • Pilot 3 • Promote 4 • Rollout
47. In fl uence 1 • Ally 2 • Promote
48. Sometimes to create change it’s necessary to fi nd peer allies that can make the proposal more loud and clear Ally
49. Ally Consult Pilot Rollout Promote Champion
50. Exper iments
51. Have an experimental
 approach to change Experiment to make sure things 
 can be rolled back: it provides safety
52. What’s the hypothesis? 
 How it will run? 
 When is the review? Keep people committed 
 Review as it progress 
 Adjust where needed How effective was it? 
 Any change needed? 
 Do we keep it? Keep Revert Repeat Plan Run Review
53. Plan Clear hypothesis Be clear about the problem
 and the solution attempted
54. Plan Design “with” not “for” Co-design with the people
 a ff ected by the change
55. Plan Use artefacts Working together on a common
 draft accelerates progress
56. Checklist approach to change: write the guidance as sequence of actions. EXAMPLE
57. Run Kicko f Mark the starting point,
 communicate the solution clearly
58. Run Check-ins Review not just the changes,
 but also the people commitment
59. Run Adjust (a little) Tweak with small improvements,
 leave big ones at the end
60. Async, text standups in Slack. EXAMPLE
61. Review Retrospective Involve everyone in reviewing
 the success of the experiment
62. Review Keep A successful experiment
 makes the change stick IF SUCCESSFUL
63. Review Repeat Adjust the change as needed
 and try again running it IF NEEDS TWEAKING
64. Review Revert Make note of the learnings
 and move on to the next IF UNSUCCESSFUL
65. Time is your friend Let people think and process the change
66. Time is your foe Don’t push too hard
 don’t take too long
67. Process-org fi t The organizational equivalent of 
 Product-market fi t
68. Do people want it? TEST
69. Is the change sticky? TEST
70. Agreeing doesn’t mean executing
 (sadly) Love the idea!
71. Push 
 backs
72. A note on politics Politics are ‘just’ humans interacting
73. Most* company politics are 
 people thinking they are doing
 the right thing and missing something * yes, a[BLEEP]holes exist
74. Lack of 
 Clarity What’s the goal?
75. Lack of 
 Shared Intent Are we aligned?
76. Lack of 
 Organization What were you working on again?
77. Resistances
78. Inertia Energy and time required to change “I don’t have time”
79. Fear People worry and seeks stability “I worry”
80. Ignorance Lack of knowledge that things could be better “I don’t know”
81. Hubris Lack of self-awareness “I know better”
82. If pushback…
83. Learn Not just what 
 in the solution 
 didn’t work
 but also about 
 the people’s 
 reactions
84. Learn Wait Let enough
 time to pass
85. Learn Wait Catch The problem
 will resurface:
 catch the 
 opportunity
86. Learn Wait Catch Retry Try again
 using the earlier
 learnings to
 adjust the aim
87. “ ” Ursula K. Le Guin There are no right answers 
 to wrong questions
88. Thanks. @folletto@mastodon.social I NT E N S E MI N I MAL ISM.CO M