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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Design Currency: Understand, define, and promote the value of your design workDesign Currency: Understand, define, and promote the value of your design work

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Design Currency: Understand, define, and promote the value of your design workDesign Currency: Understand, define, and promote the value of your design work

Learn More Buy

Making the Case: Numbers in Context

You have the tools to measure design’s performance. With them, you’ve generated loads of data. How do you frame those results, building your case for design’s significant impact on business?

We know that the current economic climate sometimes overemphasizes financial metrics. And we know that only focusing on the numbers does not provide a comprehensive view of an organization or individual project—that value is generated in multiple interconnected ways. To paint a broader picture of the creative currency you exchange, you need a framework to put those numbers in context. The following examples are interrelated and a well-vetted starting point for your own investigations.

Balanced Scorecard + The Four Powers of Design

Balanced Scorecard1(BSC) is a widely adopted management and strategic planning tool created by Drs. David Norton and Robert Kaplan (of the Harvard Business School). Used as a framework for evaluating performance, BSC combines financial metrics, like those discussed previously in this chapter, with other types of measures to provide a comprehensive understanding of a company or organization’s overall effectiveness.

Whether applied to individual projects or to a company or organization as a whole, BSC analyzes performance through four essential lenses, encouraging custom metrics for goals in each category. The framework is based on examining the subject through these perspectives:

Learning and Growth Perspective:

Focused on continuing education, self-improvement, mentorship, and embracing culture that promotes knowledge acquisition and application.

Business Process Perspective:

Focused on the internal processes and systems relevant to the running of an organization and how they relate to its unique mission.

Customer Perspective:

Focused on end-user satisfaction.

Financial Perspective:

  • Focused on fiscal stewardship and evaluation across multiple monetary indicators.

One of the reasons BSC has been so successful is because it’s an extremely flexible framework. As such, it has been broadly adopted by numerous industries and disciplines. Of specific interest to designers is the work of Dr. Brigitte Borja de Mozota.

Dr. Borja de Mozota’s specialty is managing creative teams and helping them communicate their value to decision makers. To establish a common vernacular between business and creative, she adapted the BSC framework so familiar to managers, developing The Four Powers of Design value model.2

Her concept helps design teams position the positive attributes of their work into four corners of value. By “balancing” these sections when evaluating a project (including data stories from any metrics and measures), we can promote design as a “Transformer,” “Integrator,” “Differentiator,” or perhaps most approachably for many of our clients, as “Good Business.” Here’s an overview:

Design is a Transformer

(aligns with Balanced Scorecard’s Learning and Growth Perspective):

Design identifies new opportunities and markets, and copes with—or predicts—change. Use this corner of the model to identify how design creates new futures. Examples might include design thinking that extends brand directions, graphic vernaculars that attract new audiences, or even an entrepreneurial venture spurred by design.

Design is an Integrator

(aligns with Balanced Scorecard’s Process Perspective):

Design improves products and processes, communication and allegiances. Use this corner of the model to showcase how design builds connections, either interpersonal or intellectual. Examples might include rapid prototyping and iteration that increases time-to-market, visualizations that help relay complex concepts, or ideas that inspire new partnerships and collaborations.

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FOUR POWERS

OF DESIGN

Brigitte Borja de Mozota’s Four Powers of Design value model aligns design activities with the popular Balanced Score Card method used to evaluate business success. Her model provides designers with a framework for assessing their own work, and creates a common ground between creative teams and business managers. The Four Powers of Design model is shown here in relationship to the Balanced Scorecard categories.

Design is a Differentiator

(aligns with Balanced Scorecard’s Customer Perspective):

Design creates competitive advantage. Use this corner of the model to highlight how design helps you stand out in a crowd. Examples might include design that fosters credibility and customer loyalty, brands that inspire advocates, or unique experiences that generate higher levels of end-user satisfaction.

Design is Good Business

(aligns with Balanced Scorecard’s Financial Perspective):

  • Design builds equity. Use this corner of the model to demonstrate how design affects the bottom line. Examples might include increased sales or profit margins directly linked to creative, expanded web traffic credited to a redesign, or cost savings in production of designed artifacts.

These models present a common language for design professionals and the people with whom they work to use when discussing project development. BSC has long been validated in professional circles and aligns well with design, as evidenced by the Four Powers model. Together, they present an accessible tool for creatives to frame the diverse value generated by their services. Integrating these ideas into the design process connects your specialized knowledge with broader corporate goals and visions—solidifying the argument that design is strategically relevant, and in fact, essential to success. Promote the multilayered way in which design can serve an organization.

In an interconnected system, when value in one area of the scorecard is generated, it has the potential to affect other areas, too. Measure the impact of your work across categories. This multilateral approach moves the conversation away from strict emphasis on simple financial metrics (which, for creative work, are often difficult to delineate). Document design’s impact across projects, campaigns, even organizations. Discuss your metrics, the data they’ve generated, and the stories these frameworks help you tell.

078fig01.jpg

VALUE

CREATION

According to the Four Powers of Design and Balanced Score Card, when value is created in one area it also generates value in others.

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