Building a Design Firm

Jim and his team built the Center for Design and Innovation (an internal design firm). In the consultancy model, instead of embedding one UX practitioner on many teams, the UX leader dedicates a cross-functional team of experts on a single project. These UX teams include user researchers (generative and evaluative), designers (interaction, visual and industrial), program managers, and developers.

Internal consultancies stop trying to improve every product. Rather, they focus on turning the few highest priority (and highest risk) products into breakthroughs in their market. In one example, one of his internal consultancy teams designed the end-to-end experience for a telephony solution for the SMB market. The result? They increased revenue by $200M!

Restructuring teams to suit the needs of an organization can provide a team with the reputation it needs to become strategically relevant.

Jim just did what good leaders do: He considered his context and restructured his team to be successful in their environment. He didn't just accept a traditional model because everyone else does.—Janice Rohn, copresenter at HFES 2006, responding to a question from an audience member.