---

---

I’ve always been really interested in the ways that companies choose to organize themselves. Part of the intrigue is that no one ever really publishes their org chart; you have to sift through Medium and LinkedIn to find glimpses of organizational strategy. This feels especially true for design organizations, which is why a book titled “Org Design for Design Orgs” drew me in like a magnet.

What this book is about

This book lays out the strategy for building out an in-house design team, including the typical team structures to consider, the sequencing of roles to hire, and the best way to integrate the team into the rest of the larger organization. It’s also chock full of smaller details like professional development for designers, how to keep them connected and engaged with each other, and how to mature the team overall.

Who this book is for

This book serves anyone who’s building or currently works with a design team. Product and design leaders especially, this book is for you.

What I love about it

Years ago, before I read this book, I felt my team structure was a little odd. We had a single, central design team that served the entire company, with everyone reporting to me. Our designers were embedded into scrum teams but we set design process, reviewed each other’s work in critiques and pushed each other to get better and go farther. However, there was a bit of a wall with other areas of the organization. We worked differently than others, and we had frequent challenges aligning with other stakeholders to get work reviewed and approved consistently. Was I doing it wrong? Should designers report to Product and be more tightly embedded in the scrum teams? I felt alone and caught in the middle of my team and the rest of the organization.

This book rescued me. The authors, Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner, laid out all the team structures I’d heard about, and the pros and cons to each. Spoiler: there is no perfect system, there are just different approaches with different tradeoffs. This book gave a name to my model, the Centralized Partnership, and helped me identify opportunities to strengthen the inner workings of my team. This book was nerdy and fun.

Digging deeper

In my next post, I’ll dig deeper into the Centralized Partnership model for design teams. I’ll walk through the strengths, potential challenges, and why I feel it serves my team and organization so well. Stay tuned!