Image Credit: David Marcu

How co-designing with clients gets better results than the typical agency model of low-stakeholder involvement; ‘ta-da’ finish.

I’ve been lucky to have worked in design agencies, consulting and in industry. During this time I’ve seen or been involved in many projects in user experience, service/business design and customer strategy. Some of these projects went well, some fell flat, others were highly praised but then nothing seemed to eventuate from the work. It got me thinking… if the methodologies were the same; the budget and timeframes were the same; the type of deliverables were the same; then why were the outcomes so different?

After re-tracing the steps of each project I discovered the most successful projects that actually lead to big changes were those that had key stakeholders engaged at every step of the way.

It’s hard to navigate if you don’t know where you have been.

Projects that are more transactional with minimal stakeholder involvement usually end up in a super exciting ‘big bang’ presentation at the end. Much like a tinder date — you understand your audience, tailor your message to what you think they want to hear, go on a short period of excitement and anticipation, then (most likely) never see each other again.

This might be a great approach for Don Juan/Juanette, but in projects this often results in:

a) Lots of questions leaving some key decision makers without confidence to really champion proposed changes into reality.

b) Stakeholders really liked the presentation but momentum died soon after because the project owner couldn’t explain the business requirements well enough to senior leaders to get traction.

c) The handover team weren’t involved in the design so they don’t know how to implement the end solution.

d) 6–12 months later, the final result is very different to the original design. Often because constraints/issues came up during implementation that project teams didn’t have enough context to make decisions on.

When teams aren’t taken along a journey the outcome will most likely miss the mark. Image Credit: Freepik.com

Success happens when everyone has been on the same journey.

In contrast, projects that are less like dating and more like a marriage (working together through tough decisions, saying what they need to hear not what they want to hear, teaching each other and growing together) ended up maintaining traction and going on to delivering real, tangible and measurable outcomes.

When stakeholders are involved at every step of the way, they are able to know what’s been done in the past, why decisions were made, what’s been tried and tested, and as a result are less likely to end up back at square one.

Also, deep down, engraved in human behavior, people want to see a little piece of themselves in what they do. When key decision makers have been an integral part in the design of a product or service and have been in the trenches with you through research, findings, design iterations and come out the end with a solution they can truly call ‘their baby’ — that’s when projects evolve off the page and into reality.

So how can we ‘marry’ our stakeholders?

Let me propose 5 key success factors (pun intended):

1. Start with a Design Thinking/UX Design 101 session

2. Co-design project approach

3. Upskill stakeholders to participate in research or testing

4. Involve ‘future’ people early

5. Co-design end deliverables with key stakeholders