Don’t just try to think up answers.

Great design rarely comes from light bulb moments. Most solutions are developed using some kind of problem-solving process. Same goes for management problems — don’t expect to intuitively know the answers, instead lean into a process.

I’m writing this at my mother’s bedside in yet another hospital room. My mother is 90 and fighting many health battles. It means I speak to many medical experts.

Good medics are creative problem solvers. They — especially geriatricians — think laterally, on a case-by-case basis. No preconceived ideas, they put all the fragments of information on the table searching for the right solution for this specific problem. Then they spitball possible scenarios to make sure the solution is robust and sustainable.

That’s interesting to me because we use a similar process in our ‘business clinic’.

We don’t just try to think up the answers. We talk through possible scenarios and generally suggest/share tools and/or strategies to alleviate the symptoms.

Today I’m sharing two of our tools we use for common design business ailments.

Happier, Healthier Business Canvas

It doesn’t matter how good your design outcomes, if you and/or your team are not happy, or ill, or just plain dissatisfied and bored. Diagnosing what makes a cohesive team is difficult because it’s intangible. That’s where this tool works brilliantly. The HHBC helps ask the right question.

Many designers know of the 7-question strategy model. Problem is, many find it hard to use because it’s so free-wheeling.

The HHBC is a framework we’ve developed with Andy Wright and Streamtime. It’s a canvas listing 25 activities we know exist in a happier, healthier creative business.

Each activity includes 3-4 focussed questions you can use to assess how well your business is performing. It’s practical, it’s directional and much of it measurable.

The HHBC framework makes business decisions easier: it doesn’t rely on business owners thinking up questions to answer. Instead the supplied questions focuses thoughts and clarifies the next step.

The Design Value Chain

New business is a necessary evil for all businesses. It’s necessary to replace natural attrition, necessary to refresh the energy of a studio and necessary to retain good staff. Problem is, finding the right kind of new business is hard: that’s why it’s one of the areas we add the most value for our clients.

Here’s the thing: it’s really hard to write a new business strategy targeting anyone and everyone. Much easier to write a strategy based on a client you know and with whom you’ve already built a relationship. That’s where the design value chain is a brilliant prompt.

The Design Value Chain is based on original research done by Michael E Porter a Harvard Business School Professor, economist, researcher, author and teacher. It’s acclaimed research used in many areas of business management. Our iteration emphasises the value of design across business activities. It’s important to understand the activities are not departments or cost centres, they’re actions that may happen across many areas of the same business.

The Design Value Chain is valuable because designers often focus new business activities on the marketing and comms department. The value chain is a prompt to consider how design might be used in other activities.

Examples we know include designing an onboarding experience for HR or visualising the supply chain to improve communication for inbound and outboard logistics. Similarly HCD activities have been used to improve customer service and apps integrated with an existing system streamlined an IT department. And we all know financial KPIs shown graphically as infographics are far more accessible and more effective than a spreadsheet.

The design value chain reduces the reliance on a light bulb moment, it’s problem solving within perimeters.

Moral

Many creative businesses are founded and/or managed by one or two people wearing many hats.
It’s a tough gig.

Gathering a toolkit of different perspectives, processes and people to help just makes good sense.
Consider these two tools as the basis of your survival kit, we’ve found them valuable.

If you’d like to know more about either of these free tools just hit reply. Happy to explain how you can use them.

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Want to discuss any of the above? Email Carol.

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Want more?

Links to other thought starters:

1. 1. 1. How to write a new business strategy – a shortcourse
      2. A free YouTube recording on how to position your studio
      3. Here’s the link a recording of the February 2024 Ask Me Anything

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